Smartphone fever

Bet you had this at some point in your life. 

Coz I am having one, and it takes a whole lot of time to research and study the smartphone I wish to get. 

At the point of posting this entry, I am already using a Blackberry Bold 9900 for almost 2 years. Most of the silver lining along the keypads have disappeared accompanied with dozens of scratches due to numerous drops. 

While its still working, getting another phone seems like a good option. Losing contacts and data can be a disaster, especially if your phone is not backed up regularly. 

As a hardcore phone user and gadget junkie, considering these facts can be quite cumbersome on top of time consuming. Along the way, I have used several phones in which I still struggle to find the perfect gadget. 

Actually, there is no such thing as a perfect gadget. I remember when we used to think that Nokia 3310 was THE BEST phone ever. Period. It can really take impacts and survive - provided most of the parts are in tact. Generally, it was the milestone of hand held devices. 

The choices that are currently battling in my mind :-

Iphone 5
HTC Butterfly
Samsung Galaxy note 2

I will share with you why Samsung Galaxy S3 or HTC OneX Plus is not in this list.

Bearing in mind with the new Maxis One Club promo, advanced payment is waived. I have yet to find the fine print of this deal, but ultimately this deal is awesome. With Digi, you need to fork out money for the advanced payment and additional RM500 (someone correct me if this still applies). 

If I were to compare with Maxis, the rates for phone + data plans are way cheaper. I am currently spending RM150 on my Maxis BIS package with 3GB data plan. I never exceeded the 3GB quota. Whats worse, is that I feel that with the calls that I make and data that I ACTUALLY use, I should get a RM88 Digi data plan. 

But, knowing the coverage which could be inconsistent and limited to town areas, Digi never became my preferred telco even after resigning. It has alwasy been Maxis, followed by Celcom and U Mobile. 

Phone wise, Samsung has always been known to produce light weight phones. But at the expense of fragility and plastic casings. In the case of S3 and Note 2, they are packed with super clarity displays. The OS is quite stable and with re-introduction of the stylus, Galaxy Note 2 has become very popular. I have to admit that this phone is cool because my sister and younger brother is using it. 

In short, Samsung lacks in the external or physical sense of the product, but gains extra points for the S-stylus as it comes hand in hand with a few cool applications (can be found in Android Market) and also much stable OS compared to HTC. 

HTC has been known to produce good hardware. Externally and internally. HTC butterfly has better resolution than the Note 2, slimmer yet slightly lower specs. The full comparison can be found here :-

http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5152&idPhone2=5118

However, HTC has one small problem. A problem that an average user might not encounter, but for techies like myself would be a great deal of disappointment. 

HTC sense 4.0 - the newly improved version is said to fix most of the bugs in the previous versions. As much as they try to fix the past bugs, it seems to have new issues in the 4.0. So, expect the phone to reboot by itself, or freeze occasionally. 

The fix? Obviously not out yet. For now, I can safely say the best way is to remove the HTC sense by rooting the phone. For you who are not aware of "rooting" an Android phone, its pretty much similar to removing the Android features by the vendor (Samsung/HTC/Sony/Motorola) and adding your own preferred features. 

Sounds troublesome? Yes it is! Of course I'm just speaking the initial stages of rooting an Android phone. Once you have it all installed on your phone, it can become a simple click on an icon. But to get to that level or point, a lot of troubleshooting will be required. Trial and errors to get the perfect combination of your preferred Android. 

Basically, HTC aims to provide a good external build packed with awesome hardware specs. Unfortunately their HTC sense just needs more testing before it can be paired with any form of processor, be it dual or quad core. 

Which brings me to my last option, which is the I Phone. As it was first introduced as a fool-proof phone, more and more people have opted to owning an I Phone because it has so much to offer - be it in apps or OS stability. The only setback in owning one is jail-breaking it. Since the jailbreaks are often produced by a 3rd party, waiting for the right or stable one could take time. Some of the jail breaks will continue to have certain bugs until its finally stable, or bug-free. 

So much for Maxis One Club offer. The only thing that can help me decide is by holding the phone in my hand and meddling around with it. 

Until next time.


-my 2 cents-

Breaking the silence

It has been quite some time that I've last updated this blog. Turns out I never updated this blog after we had a small gathering @ Bukit Antarabangsa last year with Kak Anne. 

In any case, I hope you are all fine. At the moment of posting this entry, CNY is still being celebrated, lovebirds are celebrating Valentine's day and Malaysia is heading towards its 13th General Election. 

Surprisingly, we still have new members joining this group. Though the only thing we had in common was the fact that we worked at Digi call centre, the group still serves as a portal for us to advertise our businesses and greetings. 

Kudos!

In any case, this post was just intended to break the silence. Also since I have no car a the moment I foresee that I will be spending an immense amount of time in front of the PC, until my car is fixed. 

I'd like to propose a gathering, but since I have no transportation at the moment I might have to depend on someone else to become my logistical accomplice (aka driver). 


Hope to hear from you soon.


Cheers.

Blackberry vs Iphone

Are you a crackberry?

My first Blackberry was the Curve 8520, the entry level Blackberry. It was the cheapest in the current Blackbery range of phones and I bought it with a Maxis smartphone promotion.

Not even a month after that - probably 3 weeks or so the phone was broken because it fell out my car while I was driving. Well actually it was on the car roof because I forgot that I left it there and drove off. Haha...


Then, I decided to opt for the Curve 3G or 9300. I installed the new OS6 - and its an awesome phone if you are about to start crackberrying. The 3G speed comes in very handy if you want to go through your Twitter or Facebook pages in no wi-fi areas. Also, the specs are slightly better so I can load a lot of things in the phone. And run more apps simultaneously.

Since I'm the only one in my gang in the office to own a blackberry, I received plenty of sarcastic remarks from my colleagues. Mostly because they are all I Phone 4 users. I'm like the only bb among the Ips. In my team of course. Overall - the whole department - I would guess that everyone already owns either an Iphone or a Blackberry. The combination is somehow ideal.


At the same time, I have also developed some interest with the Android platform or OS. I particularly liked the HTC models compared to the Samsungs, especially the Galaxy Ace. I have yet to get my hands on a Samsung Galaxy S and cekidaut.



Fyi, just a few nights ago, I had the privilege to have dinner with Ieta and her husband; Aqie.

We were very close back in DiGi. Also because we've had the same irritating boss which I prefer not to name here.

Anyways, Ieta brought a Galaxy Tab with her and I was given the opportunity to play with it for a while.

The clarity of the display, the screen orientation switch, and smoothness are all just impressive features of the Tab. The size is nice, only thing is that it won't fit in my pocket.

One setback I found about the Android OS is that over time you will still have to wipe or format the device, because the graphics will start to slow down. Well, to be honest all smartphones requires a wipe once in a while.


Here's why.

Memory used by the OS will eventually have junk files which the OS itself cannot clean. Over time, this will start to accumulate and affect other applications on your phone, and when the time comes you just need to format it.

As scary as it may sound, this actually applies to our most common Operating System - Windows. Despite defragmenting memory, cleanup and security softwares a format or wipe is simply inevitable.

I have wiped mine once while using the Curve 3G and it became so much better afterwards.

****************************************


A friend of mine in Bangsar was selling off a Blackberry Torch for his friend. I remember him mentioning it a few weeks back after seeing the box on his study desk.

I had a look at the condition and it was brand new. Well it was probably only used for a week. Probably less. Haha.

With this fateful event, my options changed drastically.

Initially, I was contemplating to get a Galaxy S or Iphone 3GS. Something that would complement my Blackberry Curve 3G. Also, to play some games haha.

But after seeing the Blackberry Torch and with the good offer I got, I took it right away. He he he...

With that, its not an Android or Iphone pursuit anymore - at least not for me at this point in time. However, if I had the money, probably - I would get a Tab, Playbook or Ipad 2 - which is my new wishlist. Hopefully someone will buy it for me as a birthday gift. Muahahahaha.


My 2 rupees.

Zaman Dolu Dolu

Haihz..

Sitting with Mahadir yesterday with Kak Anne and Farul (for a short while), we recalled a lot of memories and people back in Digi.

Fun were those days. Especially when after we submit our resignation letter. Gone were the days where we switch our Appropos status to "Available" and start attending to calls. Meal breaks were not limited to 1 hour. In fact, most would go to 2 or 3 meal breaks. Having the power to ignore all those rules were indeed fun. Using our login name instead of our actual names, fixing handphones while talking to customers, playing Bingo, and of all things - rolling cigarettes. I remember this being a trend among us back then.

I remember we had thousands of calls in a day. Actually back then I remember the calls being on 28k - 35k calls a day. Nowadays, not so sure. But I bet its far worse than what we endured.

Anyways, working conditions there are not as great as it used to be. Being in a discriminated department (di anak-tirikan) is actually a frustrating department to be in, and having bosses who cant stand up for their team are just sickening managers.

I don't intend to mock anyone, but after leaving Digi and seeing managers in Shell, HP and other companies, I am quite happy to leave the ruling of a Zionist management and will not hesitate to kill us all at any point of time.

Big organizations are prone to this. Their "worker ants" are ignored and forced to work harder than ever. Lowered benefits and reduced bonuses. Clearly, it is a strategy to save the company's pocket, but at the risk of eliminating experienced employees who knows the process better and have better ideas for improvement.

Despite being dynamic, there can be something more at play.

My speculation would be - if Digi is looking to outsource their call centre to other countries *which is possible since being in the Asia Pacific, other corporations have resorted to opening up their support offices in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and India*.

Reducing the employees by force may seem like a good way to eliminate their employees to a smaller amount, and when the time is right to setup a new office, move all the employees to the new location.

Just a speculation, however this is could also be someone's mean way to climb up the corporate ladder. Who knows. Politics in Digi can be very dangerous if one is not well equipped and has the right attitude. Survival of the fittest.

It was also refreshing to meet Kak Anne's friend who worked in DC KL Plaza. She too had the luxury of a better paying job after leaving Digi. I suppose a lot of us eventually become better employees since being in a hell hole like Digi makes us strive for a better working environment. Also because we are trained to become good at what we do and work as a team.

I suppose, a big part of ourselves misses that - being part of a team. Enduring the same s--t every day, talking to the same type of customers, working with the same people that we care, love and hate at the same time. Its a wonderful community, if you think about it. 400 people under one roof, should have some kind of impact in our lives right?

No doubt, Farul met his wife in Digi, and so did many others. Mahadir pursued his goal to become a DJ, and he did, although in Penang.

We need a bigger group for the next TT session. I'm thinking of having a movie outing. Would seem easier since we can all come to any shopping mall, parking would be easy, and there's so many things to do and always a wide variety of food.



 Later guys. Time for bed. My 2 rupees.

After our 1st TT....

Attendees were kak anne, farul + aida, kak anne, hari(kartini?), mahadir and myself.

Since we had good feedback from the group plus yesterday's turn up, it seems reasonable to have another TT session but the location remains unidentified since we know that most of us ex-digizens stay around Subang/Shah Alam/Klang area, and a (probably)smaller group of us live around here in KL.


Bangsar seems suitable but finding a parking spot and a free one is impossible to find. Unless we park in Bangsar Village or we meet up in Mid Valley. Should organize for a movie outing instead of TT kot?

Would sound more probable if we had another TT session over there...just pick a spot. The thing that we might overlook is that the convenience or practicality of the location.

In any case, it was kind of impromptu and I thank those who showed up.

I wouldn't be too sure on what is the ideal central spot. I'll probably post a voting post and see what are the responses we get from there.

With that also, we agreed that Ijan (Sharizan) becomes our treasurer to collect $$ from those who have confirmed their attendance 1 week after Hari Raya. Hehe...

Note by saying 'we agreed' doesn't mean Kak Anne and or anyone is leading the group. Heh I'm just posting a blog for us, nothing more. Kak Anne says that she just created the Facebook group page thinking that it would be fun, but certainly didn't expect the numbers to keep on increasing.

We'll just see how it goes for now...if anyone wants to step in and organize anything for our group, please be our guest. :)




My 2 rupees.

1st Official TT session

When : Saturday 9th April 2011 - 10.00pm (estimation)
Where : Cravens - Behind Petronas Bukit Antarabangsa, Ampang


*Confirmation of attendance would be appreciated

Thank you.

Ex-Digizens Gathering Proposal

As replied by Kak Anne to Yatie's post, the name of the restaurant is Bamboo Palace restaurant.

Official Ex-Digizens gathering

Date : 1 week after Hari Raya Aidilfitri (1 st week of September). Exact day and date TBA.
Restaurant Location : dekat dgn MRR2 sebelah highland tower.......


Thinking that the date is way too far for some of us (especially me), I would like to propose the following :

1. TT (teh tarik) session
2. Movie
3. Pool
4. Bowling
5. Karaoke
6. Outdoors (air terjun/pantai/etc)
7. Go Kart
8. Others

We'll see how it goes, and more will be planned - depending on the responses we get.

Keep those votes coming!!


My 2 cents.