Tag: iphone

iPhone 4GS?

[Advertorial]

With a new office in place, I may now need an additional mobile phone. As a practicing lawyer, I think it is important to have an additional phone.

Smart phones nowadays have very short battery life and usually they do not last more than a day. With stiff competition in the legal profession, we must be connected at all times. A missed call is a missed opportunity.

The other advantage of having an additional phone is to separate work and personal. Some of my friends designate one line purely for work and they will turn it off after office hours. I think its a good idea. I have a former client who gave me 10 miss calls. He was demanding but I tried my best to accommodate. But he didn’t pay my bills.

Since I have an iPad, I’m considering getting a iPhone 4S since I’m quite familiar with iOS. There are some Apps which allows synchronization of data. I just started to use Evernote. With Evernote, I can access the data I stored on my iPad Evernote in my other devices.

As for the mobile line, I’m considering getting a Maxis line. Their new iPhone 4S plan comes in 4 namely:

1. For the Best iPhone Experience Seekers
2. For the Budget Conscience
3. For Heavy Surfers
4. For Existing Value Plus Customers.

In brief:-

1. For the Best iPhone Experience Seekers – iPhone 4S is as low as RM1,250 (on a 24-month contract) with iValue 2 plan at RM155/month.

2. For the Budget Conscious – Surf + Text + Talk from only RM30/month with Value Plus Internet plan.

3. For the Heavy Surfers – 1.5 GB at RM50/month with Internet Value Plan.

4. For Existing Value Plus Users – 1G data transfer at RM48/per month with Mobile Internet Plan.

For heavy surfers like me, I need at least 1.5G a month. Text message is almost non existence. Only my Dad texts me nowadays and only my Mum leaves me voice messages -_-. WhatsApp and BBM have taken over.

Heavy Surfers plan is rather interesting. You will only have Internet connection. I thought it’s only for tablets but you now can get it for iPhone.

For more information, you can check out http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/iphone/rates.asp.

iPhone 4 Review

Remember that I got my hands on the iPhone 4 from the Maxis iPhone 4 Launch? I finally got to test out its features.

So what’s new with it? What’s the difference with iPhone 3? The following are my observations.

Appearance
iPhone 4 appears sleeker than iPhone 3. It is flatter but heavier. It can get quite slippery sometimes due to the glass-like surface. Cool factor is of course there.

Retina Display
Retina display on iPhone 4 makes the screen clearer and more detailed. It’s like high definition TV. You can zoom out from a screen and still see the words clearly.

iOS4
iOS4 is the newest version of iPhone operating system. Although iPhone 3GS supports iOS4, I heard iPhone 3GS with iOS4 causes problems e.g it lags. It’s like trying to install Windows Vista on a Pentium I (ok, I may be exaggerating). With iOS4, the speed is good and multitasking is useful.

FaceTime
iPhone 4 has an additional camera on the front. It allows for “FaceTime” where a caller can look at the front camera and see the other caller.

The front camera however is slightly lower quality. Check out the comparison between a picture taken using a front facing camera and the back camera.


Front camera

Nevertheless, the front camera do take nice video. Like this one prepared by Jamie Toh.

Connection
The so-called Antennagate didn’t cause any problem for me. I think its over hyped by the media.

Since I got an iPad 3G, I subscribed to Maxis Broadband which provides for 3G connection using a Microsim. I used it on my iPhone 4 to go online.

The Maxis 3G connection is quite fast. I played a video on YouTube and it didn’t lag one bit. Check out the video below.

On the other hand, if you wish to subscribe to Maxis’ iPhone 4 plan, which plan you would require depends on our budget. For me, iValue 1 is most suitable for me. 1gig of bandwidth and 16GB iPhone are good enough for me. I just need to skimp on my data by turning on Wifi when I download large files. For more details on the plan, check out http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/iphone4/rates.asp

My only complaint about the iPhone 4 is the battery. It run out quite fast. But this is quite common among smartphones. To conserve battery, 3G, Wifi and cellular data should be turned off when not needed.

Applications

As many of you know, iPhone allows a user to download applications off the Apple store. Some are free and some must be purchased.

Facebook and Twitter are essential to me since I am hooked to the Internet. Facebook has its own App hence don’t bother searching for others. As for twitter, I downloaded Echofon as my Twitter App.

The problem with many free iPhone Twitter apps is that they are unable to retweet tweets. Echofon is one of them.

As for games, I downloaded the Millionaire Tycoon for my girlfriend. It only costs US$1. Additional map packs (extra maps) costs US$1 per piece.

Angry Bird, one of the world best selling app, is worth purchasing. I have the HD version on my iPad. 😀

Closing
Overall, iPhone 4 is a good phone. Many people asked me whether a Blackberry or an iPhone is good. To me, it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Blackberry to me is good for emails, chatting and work. But it’s terrible for surfing and games. Blackberry’s default browsers cannot load many websites. Maybank2u’s website is one example.

As for iPhone, it’s good for web surfing and games. It’s a little bit difficult for me to type but I guess I can get use to it. I did a typing contest with TimothyTiah once using a Blackberry and an iPhone. Our speed and accuracy were about the same.

So after downloading and installing all the essential apps, my iPhone 4 was perfect. Good things ought to be shared and hence, I gave it to my girlfriend 😀

Hope she will enjoy it as much as I do!

My Birthday 2010 – Part II

Well, my birthday post is not complete without a posting on this particular gift.


My buddies got me an awesome gift for my birthday. It came with a rather “cute” wrapper.

My buddies knew I got a new iPhone 4 hence they got me a iPhone dock. It’s a speaker cum radio 😀 It also can act as a battery charger.


It fits my iPhone 4 perfectly.


Even my iPad! But the problem is that it doesn’t charge my iPad’s battery. Non Apple iPhone battery charger doesn’t work on iPad.

The highlight of the present was actually the awesome birthday card.


29 years old baby boy -_-


Hand drawn Doraemon! With dokodemo-doa (pintu suka hati) innit! Totemo daisukiiiiii~ arigatou gozaimasu!

Maxis iPhone4 Launch

I attended Maxis’ iPhone 4 launch at Garden’s Hotel. As some of you may know, I am a lawyer by profession. Attending a product launch is something out of the ordinary for us practicing lawyers. It was definitely an eye opener and was glad to be invited to one!

I arrived at the Maxis iPhone launch at 11pm. There was already a long-long line! I thought long lines to get iPhone4 is a thing of the west! Heard some people waited until 6am for the phone!

Upon arriving at Garden’s Hotel, I was whisked into the VIP section for free flow of drinks and food. I was alone but luckily I bumped into a few bloggers such TimothyTiah, fourfeetnine, sixthseal and a few others. Hate going to parties and be alone :/


Fourfeetnine, kinkybluefairy, me and kennysia


ShaolinTiger and fourfeetnine – check out the height difference.

At 12am, the phone was launched and a press conference was held. The bloggers stood by the side while journalists cramp together to catch every word that was said. It was an eye opener to see real journalists in action. It was quite cordial. No pushing and shoving and journalists took turns to ask questions.

There was even a lucky draw for journalist. The lucky ones got themselves an iPhone 4! I should have gotten myself a blogger name card and drop it at the lucky draw bowl.

So after the press conference, it was time to get my hands on the new iPhone 4!


I got myself a 16GB. It compliments my iPad 16GB 3G! Heh.

It was already 130am when I got my new phone. I had to wake up at 6am to head to Seremban the next day. -_- Felt like a zombie the next day.

As for my review of the iPhone, I’ll write a review after I play with it for few days 😀

The prices are @ http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/iphone4/

Maxis iPhone

As some of you may know, Maxis has ended its 1 year exclusive deal of iPhone with Apple. You may now get an iPhone from another telco which apparently offers the iPhone + package at a cheaper rate.


iPhone Doraemon Theme zomGGGG – picture credit to yumixpeach

The other telco’s cheapest plan of RM88 per month, comes with 1GB of data, 200 voice minutes and SMS each. On the other hand, the cheapest Maxis iPhone plan is the iValue 1 plan which costs RM100 per month and comes with 500mb of data, 333 voice minutes and 100 SMS. The other telco’s plan is RM12 cheaper than iValue 1 plan. However, does this means that the other telco’s plan is more value than Maxis’?

For the lowest plans, you will notice that the other telco will give you more data transfer. However, Maxis gives free local calls and SMS between family lines and more minutes. More minutes means you will not be charged extra until you utilize the minutes given.

The other telco is only offering 24 months contract where as Maxis offers a 12 months contract. 24 months contract for a phone is certainly quite long.

Fake iPhone. If I have not seen an iPhone before, I would definitely think its an iPhone.

I was told that an iPhone user consume an average of less than 200mb per month. Unless you are a heavy user like me, 1 gig of transfer a month is sufficient. 5gigs of transfer is a little bit too much. I don’t know anyone who has used 5gigs of data a month.

However, the other telco’s new plan is that they will be “no bill shock” if their users overuses their data quota on their network to surf while overseas. This is quite good especially when I had on 3 occasions came home with a RM1000++ bill for using the internet while overseas. Thank god it was under company expense. Notwithstanding the attractive plan, after reading the other telco’s website, I found that the no “bill shock” plan is limited to certain countries and telcos in those countries.

Maxis has 100% High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) (basically the connection you use to go online) + coverage in Klang Valley and Penang and extensive HSPA coverage in major towns (e.g. Penang, Ipoh and JB). This is an important factor. If your network connection is slow, surfing would be painful and you won’t able to utilize your high data quota.

Overall, there the other telco’s plan seems cheaper but it does has its drawbacks. It doesn’t give a lot of free minutes and free local calls and SMS between family lines and more minutes.

Choose wisely! 😀