DAHON is one of the very few companies that I fall in love with after just one purchase. Check out their philosophies and history, support center and photo gallery. One of the best websites I have seen: score 10 out of 10 in almost every aspect!

So looking forward to riding my Mµ P8 this weekend! Badminton + table tennis + tennis + biking … very challenging day!

I’m at my sister’s house now. She has the new iPhone. Her husband has the new iPhone. Their two teenage children each have a new iPhone. And today they took my other sister to buy her (yep - you guessed it . . .) her very own iPhone.

I’m the only holdout.

From my friend John Schertle via Facebook, August 12th

One of the best new features of iPhone 3G is its GPS function. Hong Kong is a pretty small (packed) place, so GPS is not that useful for driving direction. By the time its sweet voice tells you to “turn left at the next exit”, you’re probably already past that. In any case, it wouldn’t stop me from playing with it from time to time:

Routing from home to office :
(5.9km, 9 minutes? Yes, if I drive to work after 9 p.m. daily)

It looks pretty cool here, but the main problem is: speed. It took me nearly one minute to locate myself accurately, and another 30 seconds or so to find the destination and the route. It’s just too slow for practical use. I am not sure if it has anything to do with the network operator, it seems that the GPS speed is much faster when my iPhone is connected to WiFi.

This is my first post from iPhone using the native WordPress app. On the left is a photo I took with my iPhone last Friday at 6 Elgin Street, SOHO. For those looking for a quality coffee shop without the hustle and bustle of the big name chain stores, you would love Coffee Assembly at corkloft here. Yes, that’s the entrance - such a hidden gem! It took me almost an hour to find it.

Two weeks after iPhone Party Hong Kong (which drained most of my energy) and using my first iPhone (16GB White, HK$498 unlimited data plan), I’ve finally got the time to write my little review here.

As a Mac fanatic, I bet you wouldn’t expect me to say a lot of bad things about it. To me, mobile phone is a very personal thing, much more personal than a “personal computer”, so this review is also a personal one. I judged the iPhone based on my own needs. What is a “pro” to me maybe a “con” to others.

Pros:

• Contrary to what most people think, I think it is reasonably priced. To me, HK$300 of the HK$498 is for the voice+unlimited data plan and the remaining HK$200 is for the iPhone cost, which works out to be HK$4,800 after 24 months - and I can’t find any decent smartphone of its level at that price (say, HTC Diamond is priced at HK$5,600).
• Surfing the web using Safari and getting constant access to all my email accounts via IMAP is a joy. I still miss the push email in Blackberry but it’d be hard to beat Gmail’s search and spam filtering. I’m glad that my company’s email switched to Gmail Apps (free) last month. iPhone + Gmail = Winner.
• Absolutely love the SMS conversation threads. I can’t recall how much time I wasted on browsing the “Sent” folder on my previous phones for previous messages. Would be perfect if I could backup those conversations by desktop sync. There’re some messages I’d love to keep. (Update: I found this free app called Syphone that backup SMS)
• iPhone’s touch-based keyboard is ideal for female or anyone with smaller fingers. I could type as fast as on a physical QWERT keyboard, and the auto-correction intelligence is quickly building up my own library of frequently-typed words. I do wish it can let me customize the keyboard and shortcuts in future, after all it’s virtual, why not?

Cons:

• Battery life. Given iPhone’s big, gorgeous screen and 3G speed, I don’t think anyone else than Apple has done a better job in optimizing the battery life. It’s not really a problem for casual users or people with a second charger at office. But if you’re constantly using it (who wouldn’t with a unlimited data plan?) for email/web and wandering in the streets without a charging spot like I do, you’d better make sure you get all your important phone calls before 4 p.m.
• Chinese input. The character recognition support looks cool at first, but it’s just too slow and unreliable for practical use. How hard it is to put common input methods like Cangjie (倉頡) and Jianyi (簡易) on it? Even better, put the 5-stroke input (T9 五筆輸入) we use on most Nokia/SE phones on it.
• To-do list. Where is my to-do list from iCal? Still can’t seem to find it on iPhone. This is a really basic feature.
• Copy-and-paste. A missing feature that has been pointed out by many before. Rumours said that Apple is working on it, I hope so!

These are just some of the things I like to highlight, as I believe there’re more than enough lengthy reviews for anyone to find online. Again, I don’t think iPhone is a phone for the mass. It’s a revolutionary phone for a niche market. If you are not the type of people who care about syncing your phone contacts to desktop, it’s probably not for you.

As with every type of design, one could only appreciates it after knowing the limits it has to be created within. iPhone 3G may have made some compromises, but I really think it’s the best in its class.

SMS received at 11:46 p.m. tonight:

你好：

閣下之前已登記之iPhone已安排 15 -18 號到指定門市中環分店購買，如有疑問可致電 63360XXX 林小姐查詢或預約地址：中環德輔道中 127 號地下（近恒生銀行）

You see … organizing the biggest iPhone Party in town doesn’t mean I could get it first!

Finally there’s a decent voice pen that can record in MP3 format and look stylish. If you’ve tried voice recording using any iPod you’d appreciate what a genuine, handy voice recording device like this can do for you. The audio quality is so much better. The only thing I don’t like about it: it copied the packaging design of Apple.

Thanks a lot to Bill for advising me on the new camera. Without him, I would not be able to learn so much about these new cameras, and not to mention buying one. My current one is a Canon Digital IXUS 50 bought three years ago, it is a nice camera but a bit too outdated comparing to those currently on market. After shopping around for quite a while, I finally got a black Fujifilm Finepix F50fd tonight. I’m particularly impressed by its SuperCCD quality, we compared the photos taken at ISO 800 with others (Canon Digital IXUS 860is, Ricoh Caplio R6) side by side, and the ones taken with F50fd came out with least noise and highest image quality when shooting in dark condition. In technical terms, it is said to have a “low light / high ISO performance”. Since most of my photos are taken under low light indoor conditions like dinner or parties, I consider this edge a deciding factor.

Determined to resist my dream phone until it comes to Hong Kong “officially”, I had no choice but to get another phone today after my P1i was lost yesterday. The feeling of being without a mobile phone was not too unfamiliar with my vast experience but still very hard to take. Note that I now live alone without a land line phone, so I was completely unreachable for a whole day until I got the replacement SIM card and new phone this afternoon.

What did I get? I was in a rush and didn’t have any mood to shop around. So I just went to a small shop near my home and got whatever SE model that fits my bill. My requirements: Sony Ericsson (best compatibility with iSync), Bluetooth (so I could sync/transfer files wirelessly), the best looking one below HK$2,000. So here it is - Sony Ericsson W580i (pink).

As I remember this is the first time I get a “pink” phone. Well, other colors (white/black) look a bit dull and this pink isn’t that cheesy (not Hello Kitty pink). Besides, it doesn’t cost more than the white/black ones.

When I returned home, the first thing I did was to pair it up with my Mac using bluetooth and launched iSync. Unexpectedly, it isn’t supported by iSync. I didn’t panic this time, because I am pretty sure that it could be synced with some kind of third party plugins. Just one google search landed me a few free plug-ins that make iSync play nice with W580i. Saved me US$3 with more purchase with Feisar. But heck, that US$3 saving can’t help much with my HK$3,700 P1i lost …

Last but not least, happy birthday to my dear friend Andrew! We had a great buffet at Cyberport tonight and it was so fun talking to THREE walking tennis databases at the same time!

Yes, I did it AGAIN. Blame the cold weather, I was wearing a lot of clothes and probably couldn’t feel anything when my 7-month old Sony Ericsson P1i dropped out (or stolen). No idea when, where and how I lost it, really. By the time I realized and tried to call, it was already turned off. Damn!

The wicked thing is - I was thinking about getting a new phone just a few days ago! It feels like being dumped by someone just before I wanted to say it. Sigh … now I’m pissed and undecided, should I get the iPhone (which I’ve been resisting for a year) or just *whatever* phone that I don’t fancy at all?