ahyen.com http://ahyen.com Sharing in-depth reviews on life experiences, food, miscellaneous stuf, WordPress tips and sometimes whatever that comes in between Sun, 11 Jul 2010 10:12:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 HTC EVO 4G Price in Malaysia – An Estimate http://ahyen.com/stuf/htc-evo-4g-price-in-malaysia-an-estimate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=htc-evo-4g-price-in-malaysia-an-estimate http://ahyen.com/stuf/htc-evo-4g-price-in-malaysia-an-estimate/#comments Sun, 11 Jul 2010 10:03:35 +0000 jianchung http://ahyen.com/?p=2524 When the HTC HD2 was first launched in Taiwan on the 4th of November 2009, it took nearly 6 months to reach the United States on March 24th, 2010. Peculiarly it was launched in Malaysia not long after the Taiwan launch and was available nationwide by the end of November 2009. The prices respectively for Taiwan, US and Malaysia were NT29,500, USD450 and RM2899 respectively. Converting the prices to RM we would have RM2939 for the Taiwan version and RM1437 for the US price. So what will the HTC EVO 4G price and will be like in Malaysia? Lets take a look.

picture-of-htc-evo-4g

Looking at the prices for the US, the HTC EVO 4G retails at USD549.99 which by direct currency conversion brings us to RM1756.12 but using the HTC HD2 prices as a reference, the price in Malaysia is 6.44x the one in the US. So this would mean the estimated price in Malaysia would be in the region of RM3542. To pay RM3.5k for a phone is pretty hefty, even for a phone at the top of the range. That’s like iPhone territory. Now if the HTC EVO 4G was available in Taiwan, we would probably had a closer estimate as the HTC HD2 price for Malaysia and Taiwan was very close.

I believe that the HTC EVO 4G won’t be available anytime soon in Malaysia most likely because of the lack of support from a carrier. Maxis, Digi and Celcom do not have their very own 4G network. The only one that has it is P1 W1MAX. Hopefully these giants would do a joint venture and bring this phone to Malaysia. Meanwhile, let’s just cross our fingers and hope that the prices will be sub-3k.

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]]> http://ahyen.com/stuf/htc-evo-4g-price-in-malaysia-an-estimate/feed/ 0 What Would You Do If Someone Cut Queue Right in Front of You? http://ahyen.com/inspireme/what-would-you-do-if-someone-cut-queue-right-in-front-of-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-would-you-do-if-someone-cut-queue-right-in-front-of-you http://ahyen.com/inspireme/what-would-you-do-if-someone-cut-queue-right-in-front-of-you/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:23:02 +0000 jianchung http://ahyen.com/?p=2504 Yes, what if someone cut queue and slipped right in front of you? What would you do? Would you tell that person to get back in line? What if he/she didn’t give a damn? It happens and it happened to me yesterday evening. Read on for the twist in the story.

So it was a Sunday evening and I was heading over to Tesco over in Puchong to buy some fruits. I found my parking with ease and strolled down to the fruits section only to find that most of the fruit have already been cleared out! Sunday evening, of course! Everyone shops on a Sunday! Its no wonder that all the food and fruits are gone!

Frustrated, I finally found a heap of China Fuji apples going for 40 sens each, picked my 10 and queued up to get it priced at the weighing counter. It was a long line that day and everyone was trying to get in and get out quickly.

All of a sudden there was this guy with a goatie that dashed to the front of the line with his bag of carrots, grunted something to the attendant asking him to weigh his items but was shoo-ed off and asked to queue at the back of the line.  No drama there as the guy walked away and proceeded to the back of the line but suddenly he just cut right in front of me!

flabbergastedI was flabbergasted and filled with rage. I quickly mouthed, “Eh tak reti beratur ka? (Hey, don’t you know how to queue up?)” The guy turn his head around partially and grumbled something incomprehensible. I wanted to give him a lecture there and then but after I took a good look at him, I stopped my self as I finally realized that he was a Down’s Syndrome kid. My rage was withheld as I was caught in a moral dilemma. I kept to myself but still struggling to keep my cool as the line progressed and I got my stuff weighed.

Should I have taught that guy a lesson and chided him in public? But I would look like a bully lecturing a person less fortunate than me. Or did I do the right thing by just keeping quiet and letting him cut in front of me in the queue? Morally what I did was right but was it right for that Down Syndrome kid to be uncivilized? Does being less fortunate entitle you to be less of a civilized person?

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]]> http://ahyen.com/inspireme/what-would-you-do-if-someone-cut-queue-right-in-front-of-you/feed/ 0 The Global Mobile Phone Market Share: Pre-2000s to Date http://ahyen.com/stuf/the-global-mobile-phone-market-share-pre-2000s-to-date/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-global-mobile-phone-market-share-pre-2000s-to-date http://ahyen.com/stuf/the-global-mobile-phone-market-share-pre-2000s-to-date/#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:33:37 +0000 jianchung http://ahyen.com/?p=2462 Browsing through some finance blogs, I found this at Bloomberg – a chart which depicts the slow demise of Nokia as the reigning phone giant it used to be. The chart was a comparison between Nokia, Apple and RIM with Apple leading the herd and growing 8X larger than the former giant Nokia. When I saw this chart I wondered, what about the rest of the industry? So I went on and scoured the Net and came up with a timeline of what happened in the mobile industry from the pre-2000s to date. Read on for more.

mobile-phone-timeline-pre-2000s-to-present

A Breakdown of the Industry

Pre-2000s

As you can see quite obviously from the graph, Nokia was doing marvelously during the pre-2000 years banking on models like the 3310, 8210, 8810, 8890 and the 9210 Communicator. At that time Nokia was at their prime rolling out masterpiece after masterpiece and their only real contender was Motorola with chart topping models like V8088 and their Talkabout series. RIM was at still at infancy and Apple was still busy selling desktop solutions.

2000 –  2004

Nokia continues to churn out successful models like but is bested by Motorola’s V-series flip phones. Sony Ericsson introduces T610 and T630, begins to show its prowess after the Sony Electronics-Ericsson Mobile merger. Motorola then dominates the market with the debut of its RAZR V3 series in 2004. Apple still identified as a computing solutions company but gaining ground in the portable music segment. RIM plays catch-up with other industry giants in its own niche, the real business phone with the QWERTY push-mail enabled 7 series. Players like Samsung and LG become more prominent. O2 shines unexpectedly with the XdaII.

2004 –  2006

RAZR sharp! Motorola tries to cover more ground by releasing more RAZR like phones and other models which fail to capture consumer interest.  2004 till 2006 saw the growth of Asian players in the market like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG and of course the entry of  HTC which has been behind the scenes manufacturing phones for O2, i-mate and many more.

2006 – 2007

Multimedia phones galore. Apple launches the iPhone setting a benchmark for the mobile phone industry as other brands strive to keep up. Nokia still able to manage with variety in models like E61,  E90 and the 5700 while Motorola launches its V8 and V9 ultra slim phones, which is ahead of its class in slimness but lacking in the features portfolio. HTC’s TouchFlo UI on the other hand takes the attention momentarily from the iPhone but only to fall short on the hardware.

2007 –  2008

Touchscreen frenzy as all players try their hand at touchscreen devices but global economic downturn holds them back. Motorola was hit the worst due to their long term deficit. Apple releases a 3G version of the iPhone and continues to lead the pack. Nokia picks up the pace in the downturn with multimedia rich phones (5800 XpressMusic, N79, N96) and business oriented phones (E66 and E71). Google announces that the HTC Dream is pregnant bearing the Android child.

2009

The year of the Android, netbook killing features and survival of the niche-st. Android-enabled phones and supporting apps gets a huge fan base posing a threat to the iPhone fans. Focusing on high-end feature packed phones help HTC keep up with the big boys as they deliver feature-packed-netbook-killing phones like the Touch Pro and Touch HD. Apple goes all Roadrunner and ups the ante with the iPhone 3GS while RIM climbs the ranks with their niche business phones. Other manufacturers like Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson blanket the market with phones of infinite combination of features but still fail to excel. Motorola struggles further and puts all their eggs into the Android basket and launches the Motorola Droid.

2010 so far

Evolution and more evolution. Nokia and Motorola release a bunch of square QWERTY enabled phones while promoting social media mobility. Microsoft joins the flurry with Kin as Motorola release more Droids. Nokia’s  Symbian^3 fails to inspire but the N8 looks promising with HD capabilities. HTC plays the tech card and goes all out on the 4G network with the HTC EVO 4G. Apple takes it steady, sticks to 3G with a secondary camera and launches the iPhone 4 which has a screen that makes you think it has a HD screen.

What’s Next for 2011?

As network operators begin to roll out steadier and wider 4G coverage, mobile phones will be more ready to utilize the available bandwidth. HTC made the first move with their HTC EVO 4G and the rest of the pack would surely follow. People are getting more mobile and it is expected that more users would want to access high quality content on the go. HD on 4″ screens will become a new standard for smartphones, video recording, HDMI-out and all. Instant messaging and social networking on the mobile will be default connecting young and old through the Internet driving cellular networks like GSM & CDMA to the brink of extinction. The only bottleneck here would be the barrier to entry be it the price of a phone with such capabilities or the price of the app enabling this functionality.

Companies that focus on their niche like RIM will definitely continue to prosper as the niche divide widens. As consumers grow more conscious of their own preference, each niche group will grow larger supporting their own devices. Apple will continue it’s strategy in giving consumers the best experience while HTC will bring theirs the latest and greatest in technology. Manufacturers who prefer a blanket strategy will likely suffer losses as consumers begin to migrate over to industry players who offer the best in their category. One question which lingers in my head is will Motorola be the Android specialist rivaling HTC? Who knows. Only time will tell.

But one thing for sure, the one who will lead the pack for 2011 will be the one who starts offering free applications. Nokia realized this early and made Ovi Maps free for all. Smart move. Who will follow suit?

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