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Last week, I was invited to join the HP’s “Touch the future. Now.” media summit in Beijing, China. It was a 2 days event.

The transports, accommodations, and meals were on HP. It’s also the 1st time I was invited to such a mass event.

What’s HP PSG?

HP PSG Regional Media Event is the annual Asia Pacific event where HP unveils their latest products.

From left: Dennish Mark, Vice President, Desktop System Unit. Chua Hwee Koon, Vice President, Mobile Business Unit. See chin Teik, Senior Vice President, Personal Systems Group, Asia Pacific & Japan.

Some highlighted products this year are: HP Mini 110, HP Pavilion dv2, HP Pavilion Elite & Slimline, and, HP MS200 all-in-one PC.

HP Mini 110

I always wanted to get a netbook. The pink color (also available in Black and White colors) HP Mini 110 caught my eyes. The artistic pattern on the cover make it a perfect gift for your girlfriend.

Mini 110 is only 1.06KG and 1 inch thick, completed with standard netbook features. The new netbook has a sync feature which allows you to sync content with your primary PC.

What surprised me is the price of HP Mini 110. It’s only US$299 (~RM1043)! (Malaysia’s price is yet to confirm)

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It’s my honor to be invited by Maxis to the BlackBerry Storm Preview. I got a chance to play BlackBerry Storm in my hands and it’s the 1st time I touched a BlackBerry phone. Is BlackBerry Storm for you?

Review BlackBerry Storm

The BlackBerry Storm has a big display like Apple iPhone. The size is just nice to fit in my palm. It is heavier (155 grams) than my Nokia N95 but I like the sturdy-feeling of the phone. The display automatically changes to landscape when you rotate it.

The touch screen of Storm is “clickable”. You “touch” to select a menu on the display, then “press” to confirm/execute it. This is the world’s first “clickable” touch screen, which you can’t get on other touch screen phone.

I like the display clicking but it also means I will leave more noticeable fingerprints on it.

The video playback on Storm is smooth. Volume is loud enough. It has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack for your own headset.

Somehow, I crashed the media player while testing it. The media player buttons just refused to get away from the bottom of the screen. The crew had to reset the device to get it work properly again.

BlackBerry Storm has 3.5G, bluetooth, GPS but does NOT support WiFi. That surprised me and feeling disappointed.

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Do more pixels means better?

Based on the camera ad… YES! More pixels is BETTER!

Note: More pixels do NOT mean better quality.

[image from imgbit]

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Matt Cutts (head of Google’s Webspam team) revealed his latest desktop setup of 3 monitors: 30″ Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP monitor + two 24″ Dell monitor!

Matt is running Windows XP (left & center monitors) and Ubuntu (right monitor). The total display pixels of 30″ + 24″ + 24″ is more than 8.7 million pixels!

Matt’s previous desktop setup is similar to my current workspace, 2 x 24″ displays. He added a 30″ Dell 3008WFP UltraSharp monitor (cost RM4,699 in Malaysia).

I am drooling on the 30″ display but my lovely iMac can only connect to 1 external monitor… The alternative solution is to use the Matrox DualHead2Go but the input is VGA (analog), not DVI (digital).

Anyway, I have more than enough display pixels than needed with my dual 24″ displays, plus Mac OS X Spaces.

If you think Matt’s 3 monitors desktop is great, then take a look at this 3 x 30″ + 23″ displays desktop!

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Last week, I went to the PC Fair 2009 (I) held at KL Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur.

(photo by saimatkong)

What I noticed in PC Fair 2009 (I)

• DSLR everywhere. there were many people bringing their DSLRs, flashgun to take pictures of the showgirls. I didn’t bring mine and I would be too shy to ask the girls pose for me.
• Less showgirls. Compared to previous PC Fair, I saw less showgirls this time. Is it due to the economic crisis and the companies are cutting cost?
• Less buying. It was still very crowded but I see less people were buying. They came out PC Fair with empty hands.
• Broadband war. Malaysia broadband providers (wired or wireless) were compete in PC Fair. They had the largest booths and hired most sales persons. I rather hope they will improve service quality and coverage area first.

What’s new in PC Fair 2009 (I)?

I don’t see many new/interesting gadgets in the PC Fair. Notebooks and printers are the main products. Netbooks are RM200 cheaper than previous PC Fair.

Asus promoted EeePC 1000HE on their brochure but it hasn’t yet available in Malaysia… Very disappointed.

More booths were selling GPS products. Only one of them has the GPS data logger (used to record your positions during trip) but overpriced. GPS data loggers are priced less than USD$100 in USA.

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