Here we go again, as we headed back to Jakarta in the year 2011. During this trip our flight was from Kuching, to KL, then Jakarta. Bought the tickets the year before and return flight for all 3 of us was less than RM480 if I'm not mistaken. Kinda sad because Airasia decided to remove Kuching - Jakarta, never the less life goes on and here we go on our adventure.
It's been a long time. Sorry for the delay. Anyway, today's topic is whereby we talked about Dennis trip to Kota Kinabalu. Check out what he did and what actually happened during this trip.
Another thing is that T.T.E. Tech is giving 2 National Basketball Tickets for 3 days pass, which will be held in Miri Indoor Stadium from the 8-10 July 2011. What you need to do is like their facebook page, and then use the contact us form and give your particulars, name and phone number. And you will be in the running for getting 2 tickets to watch NBL. So for those of you who will be traveling to Miri. Closing date will be on the 24th of June!
This is a continuation of part 1, after using the phone for the past week. And of course, it has been a fun one week without any problems so far. Apart from the minor issue which I will elaborate later here.
Battery life on this phone is quite similar to most of the smart phones that I previously used in the past. Of course for heavy usage such as playing games, sending messages, 3G connection all the time and making phone calls. From a fully charged battery, it would pretty much end by the end of the day. So may need to charge it again, for about 1.5-2 hours which I think it's quite all right. But when I switched to 2G mode, and was pretty much on standby mode. I managed to get about 3 days without charging. So I think it's quite a decent result.
Application wise, there is a minor issue whereby it actually tilted the display to portrait mode. As the current display is being in landscape mode, you may need to tilt your phone 90 degrees for you to view the application properly. Which I don't really find it a problem, but something which is needed to mention. You can view more from the video that will be shown later.
Well, as for the camera quality, all I can say is that as long as you have enough lighting. This phone can take a decent picture. But don't expect to do wonders in low light settings. Despite being able to sort of take HD quality videos, it didn't really turned out the way I thought it would be. As I'm currently uploading the video right now, you can see it for yourself on how the quality is like.
Another issue is that, when installing applications it will automatically install it to the phone rather than to the SD card. So I had low memory issues, for the first few days. As I thought the apps will be automatically installed to the SD Card. You may need to move the applications to the SD Card manually, to prevent low space on your phone. When your phone has low disk space, you won't be able to receive any more text messages until you free up the space. So after moving the apps to the SD card, and trying not to install too many apps on the phone (as some apps does not support moving to SD Cards). The phone turns out as good as it was suppose to be. Installing a task manager is also a bonus, as it will hep clear up memory on the phone to prevent any lag issues.
Web browsing again, may be a pain for those who may not like small letters. And it doesn't support pinch and zoom. You may find yourself having a hard time trying to read the website. But good thing about this phone is that, it would be able to do word wrap so you can see the text clearly which will also be shown in the video. Again it doesn't support flash, but once it detects a video it will either open up the default video player or youtube application to view the video.
But at the end of the day, it's still a decent phone. And so far I didn't have any problems with phone calls, and no line drop. As the receiver could also hear me clearly without any problems. So if you're looking for a phone that requires you to message a lot that is using Android. This would be just nice for you, and you can play some decent games on it. But again, with 600mhz processing power you can't really expect much from it. But as for me, I think it's the perfect answer for my tablet problem whereby it doesn't have 3G module on it. So all I need to do is just turn this phone into a wireless hotspot and I am able to surf the internet or do stuff on my tab easier.
So I do hope with these 2 review on the phone, it will help you to decide if you would like to get this phone or not. So don't put too much high expectation on it as I did. And I'm pretty amazed, on how this phone really made a lot of difference compared to my previous phone which was running on 400mhz. But if you have extra budget and want a keyboard android phone, again the Desire Z would be the next perfect solution for you.
Just did part 2 of the review on this phone after using this for a week. Found new problems on it, but it doesn't really matters if you're not too fussy.
Announcing the arrival of the Acer Betouch E210, a blackberry phone running on Android 2.2. When I first heard about this phone, I've pretty much had mix feelings about it due to the fact that Acer was the one that brought this phone first plus Phone Arena Review on it wasn't a rather disappointing one. But never the less, after having long discussion with Dennis and he successfully managed to coax me in getting this phone. Ok before we go on, here's a brief specification on this phone.
OS Platform : Android Froyo Display : 2.6” 256k Colors TFT Touch Screen Input : QWERTY keyboard and Optical Trackpad Camera : 3.2MP with Auto Focus Processor : Qualcomm MSM 7227-1 (600MHz) ROM/RAM : 512/256MB Battery : Li-poly 1300 mAh Talk Time : Up to 300 Minutes Color : Black Stand By Time : Up to 400 Hours Connectivity : Wi-Fi / Bluetooth / GPS & AGPS / Micro-SD Slot/ Mini-USB Sensor : G-Sensor / E-Compass Size : 115(L) x 62.5(D) x 11.5(T) mm Weight : 109g
Phone Design
The first thing that actually caught my attention when I got the phone was impress on how amazingly light this phone really is. It only weighs less than 110g, plus the phone is kinda slim. So it feels as if I'm not carrying any phone now, when I'm moving around. So now I won't have to worry about my shorts actually fall to the ground when I'm carrying this phone. Plus the design of the Acer Betouch E210 seems pretty, and gives a more professional look to it. Hence that also contributed one of the factor why I ended up getting this phone. The build on this phone may feel bit solid despite most of the back part which is made out of plastic, that can be easily mistaken as metal. But never the less, overall the handling of this phone is good.
As you can see that we were comparing the Acer Betouch E210 with the Blackberry 9300. The E210 is actually more longer and wider compared to the Blackberry 9300, but in terms of thickness the E210 is more slimmer compared to the 9300. Plus the LCD display is much more larger by 0.2 inches. But in terms of weight, the Blackberry 9300 is lighter by 5 grams. So that pretty much says a lot about the design on this phone.
Camera Quality
Despite being a 3.2 MP camera, one should not really expect much from this camera. As the quality on this is pretty much like any normal camera phone I would say. But quite disappointed that they didn't include flash on this phone or it would have been the perfect solutions for taking shots at night. But still, it's still acceptable during for outdoor shots where you have enough light. The pictures I took on Esther is based on 4 different iso indoors, and one under the table lamp at ISO 100.
So hopefully this will give you an rough idea on what type of camera will you be getting. Again, most likely indoor shots you may not get good quality, but you shouldn't have problems with outdoor pictures especially when you have sufficient light around you.
Multimedia
The sound on this thing is kinda loud, and supports stereo sound. Youtube works real good on it, but again don't expect too much on video playbacks you downloaded from the internet. Here's an excerpt on what Phone Arena say about this the music player.
As with other handsets from the Acer beTouch series, you get nemoPlayer, which plays both movies and music, as well as the stock Android music player. The music capabilities of this phone are somehow limited, which is understandable, and the headphones you receive out of the box get the job done, but don't expect some really loud music or really deep tones.
The Acer beTouch E210 doesn't support certain formats (Xvid, H.264 and DivX), but at least plays smoothly MPEG4 videos with a 480 x 800 resolution. Funny enough, it also plays MOV videos with the same resolution, but for some reason sound is off.
Browsing Experience
Despite having a 320 x 240 screen, you may find difficult reading the text on certain website. Plus being a resistive screen there is no pinch and zoom feature. So most likely you may need to double tap to zoom in or out for each area. It doesn't support flash, considering it's android 2.2. For those who have been used to larger screens, you may not like what you see. But if you don't really mind, it's still readable considering the price for this phone. But overall you may need to swipe left and right and probably zoom the correct size to read certain website that doesn't support mobile version. But overall it's still usable.
Calling Experience
I did a few test calls with people, but didn't had any problems as stated by Phone Arena. And the person on the receiving end seems fine and was able to hear what I was talking despite being in a crowded place. I've also managed to install Skype onto the Acer Betouch E210, and did a test call via 3G to a friend of mine who is in Canada. The line was good, and didn't had any problems with the sound as we could hear each other clearly. So I guess it's still usable :)
Conclusion
In conclusion, this phone is worth getting considering being priced at RM799. But if you have an extra budget, I would recommend that you go for the HTC Desire Z instead. But if you're someone who is just like me who wouldn't want to fork out more than RM1,000 for a phone. I think this would do just fine. It's good enough for you to pretty much do almost your daily necessities such as calling, sms, email as well as going through social network. Plus if you're a blogger like me, you can easily blog with the QWERTY keyboard.
This phone would have been perfect if the camera support flash, and also vibration may be slightly stronger. Apart from that, I don't really have any problems with this phone. It's a good upgrade from the TYTN II that I was previously using. I was able to play Angry Birds on it, so I think it's kinda meet my expectation.
So if you're looking for a budget Android Phone, this would be just nice for you. As for me, I'm quite satisfied with the product considering the price range. And just meet my daily needs of going through facebook, blogging, whatsapp and skype. Feel free to comment or if you have any question on this phone. Hope this will help you in making your decision to get or not to get this phone.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="Android Tablet + Leather Case Keyboard"][/caption]
Today I'll be talking about the 7" Android Tablet Review. For those of you may have wondered what is this tablet all about. Basically, you can pretty much do quite a number of things with it. Well, for starters you can browse the net, check emails, do some work, play games, and basically as a form of communication as well. Armed with thousands of Apps which you can download free from the market, you could say that this would pretty much replace your bulky laptop especially when you're traveling.
The actual size of the pad is at 11.5cm wide, 19cm long, 1.3cm thick, weighs about approx 500g, but with the additional of the leather keyboard it probably weighs in at about 800g. In terms of size this 7" would fit just nicely in your back pack or carry it around like your own personal planner and people won't even know you are carrying a tablet!
From the video above, which was being compared to a Via Processor WM8505 you could see that the Telechip processor is faster. Running at 720 mhz, it's speed runs twice as fast compared to the Via Processor. From the very first tablet that I got which was the Via Processor, and this telechip I was extremely satisfied in terms of it's performance. At least I can bring this pad around without having to wait a long time for it to boot up or do anything else with it. So what am I going to do with my current Via Processor tablet? Probably will just turn it into a multimedia device in my car or something. :) So what can I actually do with this pad you may wonder?
Work
Word Documents, Spreadsheets & Powerpoint Presentations One good thing about this tablet is that it is portable. And again people won't know what are you carrying until you open it up and start doing something with it. What sort of work can I actually do with it? Well, for starters it does come along with Documents To Go where you can do word processing, or excel worksheet. And of course there is also Powerpoint viewer where I can actually do presentation to someone maybe in a coffee shop or just anywhere without having to bring a laptop just for that specific purpose. And if I was able to connect to the internet, I would be able to access my documents inside Google Docs and update my files from there. You can view the video I've made using Documents To Go.
Email Being able to check my eMails is probably one of the major things that I need to do wherever I go. Especially when I travel, to be honest I felt that carrying a laptop around is not really a good solution for me. Despite of having a data plan with my phone provider, checking emails on my phone at first it was all right. But as time goes by, I find it a little bit straining on the eyes. But not with this 7" tablet, armed with a USB keyboard. Replying mails has never been the same. Plus I can add all my email to my android email client, and give them different color codings to know which email are they coming from. So you can pretty much separate your work emails with your personal emails.
Daily Planner Well, let's just say with this tablet I pretty much save at least RM3/year for a daily planner book. By saving a book, I'll be saving a tree as well. All I need to do is just add all my appointments to google and it will sync it whenever it gets connected to the Internet. Not only that, if let say I were to meet a client and probably may need to schedule another meeting, I would be able to check the date to see if I'm available or not. Plus once I update on my tablet, again it will sync it with my google calendar online. In one of my work, I actually post up my google calendar where people can actually sort of make appointments with me. So this would be a great help especially whereby I would sort of get a friendly reminder 24 hours before the appointment. So I will never miss an appointment, ever again. LOL.
Writing Notes & Memo I'm not a type of person who will go around carrying pen and paper. But at least with this thing, probably that would sort of change my mind. By lugging this thing around with me each time I go out, I will have no excuse not to write notes with the facility of having the keyboard. Plus, if there's a sudden rush of ideas (especially when song writings comes in), I could just use the sound recorder that comes with this tablet and then play it back again on my laptop once I reach back to my work place.
Working with my webstore I'm currently in the midst of adding an application to my tablet where I can actually check and see if I have any orders as well as how much stock I have left. So far there's one that seems to do the job, but may need to upgrade it to a full version just to get rid of the ads. By using my phone as a wireless hotspot, I would be able to check the amount of remaining stock that I have and of course if there were any new sales at the same time. Either that, I would just need to sign into my website via the browser can also be done. But never the less, it's going to save me a lot of weight especially with budget airlines who seems to charge anything and everything.
And everything else that I need to work with Inside the market, there are thousands of apps which can be downloaded to suit your needs. There are even apps for checking stock market, exchange rates, rss reader (for those who love to read the news), and much more. Plus the numerous of apps that are currently being develop, which expected to over take Apple apps by 2012. All you need to do is find the right app for the type of work you are using.
Leisure
Gaming All work and no play makes Alex a dull boy, as they say. Well probably this would be one of the activity that I would use for passing time if I was waiting for someone and don't really feel like getting any work done for the moments. Here are a few games that I actually installed on the tablet itself.
Social Networking For those of you who can't get enough of facebook, there's an app which enables you take pictures as and share them on facebook. Plus you can update your status or check what's happening to your friends & family as well. Not only that, there are apps such as FourSquare where you can actually "check in", and who knows get special rates for certain areas. Or if you're a tweeter, you can be sure you won't be left behind as well.
Casual Browsing Being portable, and sometimes Starbucks table are not as huge as it is suppose to be. This would be a perfect for normal browsing to websites you normally visits. Unfortunately for this tablet is currently running on Android 2.1 (whereby we heard that they may be developing an upgrade) that does not support flash. There are browsers such as Skyfire which actually solves that issue. But if you don't visit heavy flash sites, you won't need to worry about it as this would get the job done as well.
Communication You can actually install applications such as eBuddy or Nimbuzz which actually enables you to add multiple chat clients on to them so that you can stay connected wherever you go. Not only that, you are able to install WhatsApp as well and send SMS or picture / videos for free (provided if you're connected to the internet). Unfortunately I was not able to install Skype onto this tablet due to a lot of bugs that Skype probably need to sort out. Plus they are only focusing on a few certain models for the time being. But never the less, there's a 3rd party application which does the job just nice as well.
Book Reader There are thousands of ebooks which can be downloaded and read using the book reader. I personally use Aldiko as it's more easy to use and less hassle as well to set up. Not only that, as I normally play piano in the church I would put all the songs in it for easier and faster page turning. Plus I no longer need to print out papers just to play a song, and I can easily store them in the library. And there are also quite a number of bible applications (in different translation as well) found on the market that helps.
Entertainment
Youtube Like the IOS, since it does not support flash. Youtube has an app for android users as well. Where you won't have any problems viewing them. Especially when there are links being added on facebook. Sound playback works great too!
Mp3 PlayerThis tablet is able to Mp3s or other audio formats. Since you have 3 gb of space, imagine the amount of songs you can put inside there. But if you don't have enough, there's always the SD Card!
Movie Player If you intend to go for a 2-3 hours flight, you can entertain yourself with your own in flight entertainment. Plus with the headsets you should be able to get a good 3-4 hours of video playback. Plus did I mention that you can play up to 1080p?
Digital Photo Album Gone were the days when printing photos and carrying around hundreds of photos just to show your friends and family where you've been and what you've did. With this you can actually load thousands of photos (if each picture is about 3mb, 1GB could hold about 333,333 photos) and imagine the amount of money you can save on developing those photos. Plus with a 7" lcd screen, you can be sure you won't need to strain your eyes to look at those photos.
HDMI Output & Streaming Over The Air With this tablet, there's actually a HDMI out that can be connected to your HDTV. Imagine watching movies downloaded onto your tablets to be played on the HDTV. And if you recall the about being a digital photo album, your photos will also be output onto the HDTV.
Plus another great thing I love about this tablet being android, you can actually stream your music or videos off your computer via wifi that is currently in your LAN. Imagine the number of things you can do with this tablet in terms of entertainment.
In Conclusion
In terms of work wise, it's great for writing out draft work. And probably you may still need a PC after that to do some final touch up on your work. Gaming wise on this thing is not bad, as certain games may require higher requirements so sometimes it helps without playing any sound on them. But those are for higher end games.
As for the entertainment side, I think it would work out just fairly good. The speaker is louder compared to an Iphone 4, and believe me I did make that comparison. Plus with a larger screen, I think it would fit just nice in front of your lap especially on long haul flights. But never the less, it's a great way to pass time with it.
As for the battery life, I've managed to get it to about close to 6 hours max. By decreasing the brightness of the screen, as well as turning off the wifi when I'm not using it. As for the charging time, it varies from 1 hour to 1 and half hours. Probably the best way to charge the pad if you are not using it, just make sure the switch is on the off position instead of on. That actually helped speed up on the charging time.
Camera on this thing, well don't expect too much for a 0.3MP front camera. Plus we've not yet try to figure out how to get the front camera to work as a web cam. Hopefully when they upgrade it to the next version of android that issue will be solved.
Touch screen on this thing is quite responsive compared to the one when I was using the Via processor tablet. Probably the higher processing speed as well as bigger ram does play a major influence. Well being resistant touch screen instead of capacitive, I would say that it works just fine. For the price of course, where you can't really complain much. But my mom commented that her hands were slippery, so she uses the + and - button instead on the screen.
Well, for those who probably have not used an Android OS before may need to take some time adjusting oneself to get used to it. It may seem more complicated compared to the IOS which I must agree, but once you get the hang or feel of it. You can do a lot of wonders with this tablet.
Love is in the air. And both Dennis and myself are back in business again. Sorry for being "missing" for the past 2 weeks, due to the Chinese New Year festival. So everything should be back to normal starting this week. Lots of things been happening but all is good. Never the less, we are back here again to entertain you guys once more.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="425" caption="Happy Valentine Day from Good Morning Kuching Show"][/caption]
So as we know today is Valentine Day, and we know some of you would be going out to celebrate, while others may decide to stay home. Never the less, we have the perfect solutions for everyone. Unless we missed out something, do feel free to comment.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="456" caption="Music Performed by Juzz Friends Trio"][/caption]
Plus, today's music being used is from Juzz Friends. You can purchase it at only $0.99 for each song, and yes they are a group from Kuching. So do support them. You can check out their website here :- http://www.reverbnation.com/juzzfriends
Chinese New Year is around the corner. A week so to speak, and a week from now we would have pride ourselves with Chinese New Year Eve reunion dinner. During this time, it will only be the time where all family members will gather together and asked how's life hanging. And of course for those who are single out there, the number one questions relative would be asking especially when you hit the mature age is "When will you be getting married?"
For me I suppose it was pretty much passed that stage when I brought Deluxe home the first time during Chinese New Year back in 2007, but fortunately for her she has been interviewed years back when most of the relatives were here in Kuching. Funny thing, how relatives tends to ask you questions even your own parents don't. I guess maybe that's what they are there for. To ask questions that parents won't even dare to ask, so get the relatives and pretend to be on your side. LOL. But never the less, it's all good. Lol, but I think a lot of you may have similar experience maybe you might want to leave a comment and talk about it.
First and foremost both Dennis and myself have been busy for not doing any podcast for the past week. As you notice I didn't even had time to update my blog. Lol. So you can pretty much tell you that I'm also super busy. Anyway, this morning we talked about Chinese New Year preparation on what normally people do during their preparation for Chinese New Year. Have a nice day!
Esther loves to sing and dance. I guess all children loves to do it as well. Anyway, how this song came along was that, she tends to sing a lot of songs when she was young. Plus, she tends to make up her own tunes and lyrics. This was one of the many songs she composed which caught my attention. so I went and asked Deluxe where did she listen to these songs. Deluxe told me she didn't know either, as she tends to sing a lot of songs where she would sort of "composed" on her on. Deluxe then sort of challenged me that maybe I should help fill up the gap of all her songs. And I thought it wasn't a bad idea as well. So hence this song came quickly so to speak that night. Will probably do a remake of this in the future when she grows up a little. Till then God bless.
[youtube EE0-PckwjuA]
Everybody Praise The Lord
Chorus :
Everybody praise the Lord,
I want to praise You Lord,
I want to praise You God!
Verse 1:-
I may be small, I may be 3 feet tall,
But in my heart I want to praise You God.
I wanna sing, and jump and shout for joy,
Cause in my heart I want to praise You God.
Pre-Chorus :
Cause You love me, just the way I am,
And You care for me, just like a little lamb.
Chorus :-
Verse 2 :-
I give You thanks for mom & dad,
I give you thanks for grandma & grandpa,
I give You thanks for all the things,
You're my best friend who's watching from afar.
Today's podcast we talk about what you should do if there happened to be a flood in your area. Find out what you can do the holan way or the right way :)
It's another podcast to welcome the new week. We woke up to a very cold morning this morning, hence the reason why both Dennis and I sound so sleepy. Lol. Anyway, we're currently on the new server which apparently allowed us to convert to a lower quality for you guys to download even faster and save space as well. Sit back and enjoy the rest of the show!
We're back again this morning to bring you laugh and joy for the rest of the day. Joining us in this morning podcast is Lord Kevin, who is one of our faithful listener. And we would like to thank Kevin for joining us in this segment, and do excuse the quality as there were some technical issue we face.
In today's podcast we talk about where you can good meals here in Kuching. And of course most of the places we recommend here are mostly affordable places. Anyway, thanks for coming in and listening to us. Enjoy :)
Dennis and I are back once again to entertain you this Monday morning to kick off your Monday blues and holiday mood. We only got one email this week and didn't get any other questions or request over the weekend due to the holiday.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="389" caption="Conversation with Kevin"][/caption]
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