OMG it’s been 10 years! Addict Mobile represent! Entering my very first job (in real estate, can you believe?!) I wanted to feel like a responsible adult who’s new to the workforce so the first thing I did after signing my employment certificate was to apply for a post-paid line. I was actually already a SMART sub back then but through prepaid and the main reason why I stuck to this network was their competitor had an odd billing system which had this thing called “dollar conversion” and it didn’t quite make sense because my bill would fluctuate every month. So budget conscious me killed it and took a risk with a postpaid line with SMART. And a Nokia 3650. OMG, do you remember this phone? It was the phone with the weird circular keypad and despite having an odd layout, I could text really fast on it! 3650 + Addict Mobile reprezzzent!!!

Do you remember this phone??

It’s been ten years and I haven’t looked back. I’m happy to have been a partner with SMART through this blog for the past 3 years. Back in the day, when blogs didn’t exist and there was no such thing as digital marketing or online brand ambassadors, I was supporting them. One of the things I particularly loved was their retention plan — that every 1 1/2 years they would make me eligible for a new phone. Believe it or not, I’ve never bought a new phone since 2003. That’s mainly due to the retention plan that my network gives me. New phone every two years or so.

So today, on the anniversary of my 10th year, I’ll be giving away one of the most coveted gadgets to date: the 4th generation iPad with Retina Display (16GB) which is also available through SMART’s LTE plans! Want to win this? Check out the Rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The mechanics are posted on the Rafflecopter page, and I suggest you enter the contest through there because it’s much easier to monitor. But if you want to do it through here, that’s fine too:

1. Follow these accounts on Twitter:

@jayvee (that’s me!)
@SmartCares
@SmartPromos

2. Answer the question:

How can #SmartLTEiPad make you live more? (Please include the #SmartLTEiPad hashtag. No hashtag, no entry. Multiple entries are valid.)

3. I will be looking through the entries and will be choosing one winner come the 25th of the month so keep those entries coming! This contest is valid for PH residents only. A valid ID will be asked of you to pick up the prize.

For those of you who are planning on getting an iPad mini or iPad w/ Retina display under the new LTE plans, you can check out this detailed guide for the plans and costs:

Every other tech blog has made the ‘Diamond pun’ so here’s mine: this post has taken forever to write (because diamonds last forever). So yes, this is late. Like one month late. The Starmobile Diamond was released back in April and has been making the rounds among the many lifestyle and tech blogs. About two weeks ago I had lunch with Starmobile’s Consumer Marketing Head, Katrina Tioseco, President Michael Chen and Asst. Brand Manager Paula Rivera. Immediate discussions naturally revolved around the state of the phone industry, local blogs and yes, SCUBA diving (as Katrina is also a licensed SCUBA diver). I swear, diving is the new golf.

For those unaware, the Diamond is Starmobile’s current flagship phone. The ‘before’ standard for smartphones scratching the PHP 10,000 price point would be a screen roughly 4″ with your typical generic China-OEM specs like a shitty camera. It is a relief that many local manufacturers have raised the bar in terms of quality while maintaining competitive price points. Starmobile is the poster child of such a phenomenon as the phones are designed locally (they are a local startup) but manufactured in China. Outsourcing OEM’s is a normal thing for these more affordable brands but Michael and Katrina have been harping the fact that what separates them from the rest is their QA testing and “small things” such as being able to cram more characters into one SMS vs other brands (and that’s a big deal if you’re on prepaid) that divide text messages into several messages.

Essentially, unlike many brands that simply do a “shopping cart” of looking through phones in a conveyor belt in China and then branding them, Starmobile designs the phones they want to spec such as the finish (type of material such as glass, plastic or metal) and other modifications and then have the devices built. This gives them better control over quality and flexibility with the phones that they intend to release in response to market trends.

For less than PHP 10,000, you can avail of an Android powered high resolution 5-in screen with a non-shitty 12MB IBS camera with dual core power. If you’re the type of person who goes for Antutu benchmarks, it definitely isn’t the best in class with a 5,609 score BUT that’s not the point. For a sub-10k phone, it’s nifty. It’s elegant and I can’t help but stress how beautiful the screen is. See specs below.

Summary

If you’re looking for an affordable smartphone that also doubles as a good media player, the 5-in Diamond with scratch-proof IPS display will definitely amaze you. I wish the 2000mAh battery were slightly bigger – perhaps 2500 to 3000mAh and this would add so much more value to the phone. But as it is, the Diamond is, for lack of a better term, solid.

Pros
- huge screen with sharp resolutions; definitely one of the best in its class
- overall design
- non-generic camera courtesy of the BSI flash technology

Cons
- battery life suffers due to the nice screen (bring a portable charger!)

Starmobile Diamond Packs the following:

Dual-SIM Dual Standby
1.0GHz Dual Core
PowerVR SGX531 GPU
5-inch scratch resistant IPS LCD display (720×1,280)
12MP rear camera w/ IBS for low light
3MP front camera
2000mAh battery
1GB RAM
4GB internal storage
microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
Android Jelly Bean (v4.1.1)

Two weeks ago, I enjoyed a night of being wined and dined by the good folks from SONY as they unveiled their new BRAVIA line of TV’s.

I’ll tell you a secret. Having been a tech writer and editor for more than 10 years, I’m at my most uncomfortable self writing about anything to do with A/V products. Not because I don’t understand flat screen TV’s or audio — it’s more about trying to describe in words an experience that’s best felt when you’re there. How do you write about 3D? How do you write about 7.1 surround sound? You can shove a thousand words to your reader and he still won’t get it.

The “magic” happens in the showroom. That’s where the consumer (and in my case, my readers) get to validate everything they’ve read up on various websites. One thing you need to know, historically, about the BRAVIA line is that in the past, when they were advertising their slim CRT television boxes, they were known for having the brightest displays. And this came as a serious threat to other manufacturers. Other brand managers would tell me that they had to up the default white balance and brightness settings of their TV’s in the showrooms just to match SONY’s default settings. ProTip: When buying a new TV have the salesperson reset the settings to default to do a real comparison.

This was more than 7 years ago and the BRAVIA has moved on to compete in other factors such as price, audio quality and features in your LED TV gauntlet match. True enough, the industry has changed since then and SONY had been playing catch up ( < --- click that link; it's a well-written piece on the state of SONY) in the entire TV market as they were overtaken by Samsung's "wine glass" LED designs which ultimately led to consumer choice becoming more a factor of price because it "approximated" the quality of SONY, at least from first glance. But this is a piece not about Samsung (or other brands). This is about how SONY is aggressively pulling back in many areas of innovation (the gaming segment comes to mind with the success of the PS3 and excitement over the PS4).

If back then, BRAVIA was known to be the brightest of all the CRT TV's, these days it's all about color. Not color boosts or enhancements, but having your TV render the actual colors that you see in your environment. You know how sometimes your images look a bit washed out even after fiddling with the settings? There you go. SONY Philippines President Mr. Yasushi Asaoka, announced that high end BRAVIA models will come with TRILUMINOS technology which basically means that the reds, greens and blues will, on the screen, look like their natural colors. They also announced this new thing called X-Reality Pro, which basically makes your images look better. It's like the OpenGL of the TV world; a better video card that renders faster and better compared to a stock video card, if we compare it to the PC industry.

But really, dear readers, none of you care much about these technical terms. In fact the most technical term you'll encounter in this new chapter of the TV is the term "4k." What does it mean? What happens if your TV is 4k capable? Does it matter? To answer that question, let's backtrack a bit.

You most probably own a flatscreen LED TV and if you look at the panel, there’s usually a sticker that says 720p or 1080p Full HD. 1080p means that screen has a resolution of 1920×1080. Simply put, it’s clear and crisp and it’s widescreen! Now here’s the thing, the bigger the TV gets, it does not necessarily mean that the image will get better. Inversely, it also does not mean that the smaller the TV gets, you’ll notice differences in picture quality. Here’s the golden rule: ever wonder how some bigger TV’s have that “pop out” screen effect that’s sort of like 3D but isn’t? Well to achieve that effect you will need to have at the very least, a 40-inch LED TV. Anything smaller won’t do any of that stuff. 1080p quality movies will be noticeable to up to about having an 80-inch flat screen TV. “4k” simply means that it is 4 times the resolution of 1080p. You will only start to notice 4k quality the bigger the screen gets, which is why it’s recommended to get a 4k TV that’s bigger than 80 inches. James Chua of OMGeek “Instagramed-in” a question during the evening launch, which was basically the thing that boggled my mind with 4k upscaling:

Also, there is almost zero content (movies) shot in 4k quality so at the very most, you’ll be loading up a 1080p movie into a 4k TV and a feature known as upscaling will kick in, which is simply the term given to the TV trying to improve the picture quality of the movie by “adding” the loose ends into the picture. WHat’s amazing is that the upscaling from 1080p to 4k is quite amazing and you won’t feel cheated on spending PHP 150,000 on a big-ass TV that can render 4k content.

Did any of you just understand that? Next time you go to a showroom ask the attendant to stop playing the demo video (which is shot in native 4k) and pop in a movie that’s in 1080p quality and see how it upscales. Pretty nifty!

There are many good reasons why SONY should definitely be considered as your next TV. For one, with the arrival of the PS4 by the end of the year, having a SONY-enabled living room will definitely help with **some** conveniences such as 3D simultaneous split screen co-op gaming. If you’re conscious about sound, you’ll be glad to know that despite the BRAVIA being thin, it does have the ability to ‘simulate’ a sub-woofer using NASA-based magnetic fluid technologies. In other words, even with a thin frame, your audio will still sound whole.

Sony Launches New BRAVIA TVs

Jonathan is what I would call the “reverse bartender.” He’ll listen to you. He’ll engage in small talk but in return he’ll serve you an upper. Jonathan Choi is the proprietor and head bean of Magnum Opus Fine Coffees, an artisan coffee shop located in the always-busy intersection between Aguirre Ave and Elizalde in BF Homes, Paranaque.

Jonathan recognized me from my days with the Hinge-Inquirer group doing a little (big-sized!) magazine known as m|PH. Yes I was famous before the Internet. JK!

In an article I wrote for 8list last week, I outlined the 8 reasons why ‘Magnum Opus’ is the definitive coffee geek’s haven in the south. for one, the Belgian Heartbreaker won me over:

I insisted on his personal take of a café mocha which was essentially an amalgamation of ristretto (quickly pulled espresso shot so it’s not watery), cream and molten Belgian chocolate all served in a short martini glass. The sum is a creamy, frothy tug of war between the jolt of an espresso shot and dark chocolate. This feeling is what the great Greek poet Horace refers to in his poem to Murena, ‘The Golden Mean.’

‘The Golden Mean’ was a Horatian ode that deconstructed the topic of ‘balance’ in the same way that the Dark and Light sides of ‘The Force’ must be kept in check.

On my first visit, Jonathan confirmed a suspicion about how I make coffee. I’ve postulated that my el-cheapo handpresso can pull a better shot of espresso than my relatively more expensive 16 bar espresso machine.

Tarry no further. Do have a read over at 8list.

—-

Magnum Opus Fine Coffees

115 Aguirre Avenue, BF Homes Parañaque.
+63939.920.0701
@magnumopusfc on Twitter and Instagram

Kobe Bryant is Lenovo Mobile’s new endorser for both the Philippines and China. In the advert, he’s touting the flagship K900 smartphone powered by Android and Intel.

Finally, it’s here in local shores! The iPhone 5 is a beautiful device, but suffers (like all other smartphones) from drained battery woes especially when you have LTE turned on the whole day. Although the battery management has slightly improved (speculation has the iPhone 5 battery carrying a wallop of 1400 to 1700mAh), these numbers are meaningless to the general consumer! The BoostCase for iPhone 5 adds about a full charge + 50% more battery life to your existing iPhone. So that means if that your iPhone is pulling 6 hours before drain, the BoostCase will give you 9 hours aggregating your total count to roughly 15 hours. That’s for the 2200mAh one.

Boostcase Hybrid 1500 mAh – SRP P 3,250
Boostcase Hybrid 2200 mAh – SRP P 3,950

Available in Digital Walker and Beyond the Box. I got mine from the branch at One Rockwell.

I am a previous BoostCase for iPhone 4/4s owner so for those who want to know what the differences are, here you go:

(Size comparison: the old white BoostCase fir iPhone 4/4s and the black BoostCase for the iPhone 5)

1. Both the 4s and 5 extended battery packs are of similar weight and width. Obviously, the BoostCase 5 is longer.

2. Instead of plastic, the exterior of the BoostCase 5 is made of a rubbery coating thus preventing it from oiling up from all your mobile warrior-ing.

3. The BoostCase 5 comes with 4 spokes to help align the iPhone 5 case. The previous version had only one huge spoke and if it broke, you’re in for a huge inconvenience.

4. The BoostCase 5 has a slot for your 3.5mm audio jack to pass through.

5. The BoostCase 5′s battery indicator is color-coded (unlike the previous version that used 4 LED lights at the bottom of the case). Simply press the BoostCase logo and you’ll get one of three colors to show you whether you’re full, below 50% or nearing empty.

It looks like Multiply CEO Stefan Magdalinsky has an official reply as well, and would not comment further on the exact reasons. His Twitter account (@smagdali) does not mention anything as well.

If you check Multiply.com, you will find this message:

Multiply is closing on May 6
We regret to announce that Multiply will be closing on May 6, 2013 and ceasing all business operations by May 31, 2013.

Multiply will maintain normal site operations through May 6. We will use the rest of May to make sure the all accounts are settled and that merchants receive full payment for all the transactions they completed on our platform. This will also provide our merchants with time to find and migrate to alternative ecommerce platforms, settle all payments on items bought and delivered, and to minimize disruption to their businesses.

Multiply will ensure that you receive all funds you earned on the platform no later than May 31, 2013. We will close the actual marketplace sooner, on May 6, 2013, to ensure that all orders have sufficient time to complete and be delivered to your customers before the end of the month.

Merchants who have premium subscriptions should contact our customer support and we will ensure that they receive a full refund for the un-used time on your subscription.

Very little words, really. Last year, Multiply announced that they will be shifting their focus from social networking into full on eCommerce and it seems they are closing that chapter as well. I have gotten confirmation from Jack Madrid that this is true.

Could it be the influx of new players such as the Rocket Internet group (composed of Zalora and Lazada) or that the boutique / second hand market is really just heavily involved in other forums such as Sulit? Multiply has been a huge enabler for entrepreneurs to set up small garage sales all over the Internet and it’s indeed sad to see them go. You’ll be missed.

Bit of ‘late’ news here. Last week, SMART Communications launched their prepaid LTE service which means that you can now avail of LTE signals without the need of a phone plan. The LTE SIM card costs PHP 350.00 if you plan on using it with your current LTE-compatible phone. If you want the LTE USB plug-it, this will set you back by PHP 5,995 for the dongle and SIM. If you intend to share your LTE with multiple devices, this will set you back by PHP 6,995. Speeds up to 42 mbps. In terms of sachet connections, here are the keywords for LTE plans. The most ‘sulit’ is the unlimited 995 Plan.

LTE 50 P50 1 day Text LTE 50 to 2200
LTE 299 P299 7 days Text LTE 299 to 2200
LTE 995 P995 30 days Text LTE 995 to 2200

Hey readers! It’s contest time again! Who wants to win a 1TB WD external hard drive?! As you know, summer can be a bad month for your gadgets because of the extreme heat that bakes your already hot computers. So what better way to “sun block” your data than to back up with a nice fat (or NTFS haha!) storage solution?

Well, our friends at Jollibee are helping you out here. They have an awesome new sundae offering — these MILO Mix-Ins are the best! The one above is basically the creamy Jollibee ice cream choco cookies mixed in with pretzels and MILO. But they also have another variant that combines strawberry syrup, cookies and MILO if you want a more fruity tang. These desserts cost PHP 38.00 a cup.

Onward to the contest!

Mechanics

1. Take a photo of you enjoying a MILO Mix-In using your smartphone.
2. Use an app to add filters, captions and effects (i.e. Instagram, Facebook, Snapseed, Camera 360, Flickr, Overgram, Phototropedelic) to give a unique MIX-IN to your photo!
3. You can upload the photo BUT you must also send it to my email at jayvee (at) abuggedlife (dot) com. Please use subject title “Jollibee Contest” for easy reference
4. Please include a caption answering what app you used and how you think it best captures awesome moments with your friends
5. Contest is open from April 24 to 11:59PM of May 22 2013
6. You can submit multiple entries
7. Contest is open to Metro Manila residents only because you will have to pick up the prize yourself from Makati

For your effort, ONE WINNER will receive a 1TB Western Digital Hard Drive and PHP 3,000 worth of Jollibee GC’s(!!!)

Well, here’s an example — in my case I used the ever reliable Instagram with the enhance feature on top of the Amaro filter because it was approaching 6:00 PM. Who was I with? Well, my Internet friends who liked the photo, haha! (and that’s Ricky Baizas of Nestle PH giving the thumbs up for MILO).

Whoa! Windows Phone 8 for less that P10,000? Nice! Last week, Microsoft Philippines together with HUAWEI unveiled a sub-10k smartphone running on the latest Windows Phone 8 operating system. Historically, there have been other Windows Phone devices that have been released for less than P10,000 yet cannot be upgraded to the latest OS.

Here are the specs:

480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches
5 MP, 2592х1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Qualcomm MSM8230 Snapdragon
Dual-core 1.2 GHz Krait with Adreno 305 GPU
microSD expansion up to 32 GB
Internal 4GB storage with 512MB RAM

Ascend W1 Huawei's First Windows Phone 8 Smartphone Now Out at P8990_12April2013 (6)