Gadget hunting! Spent more $$$

Recently, due to an affliction called 'hiau ka chui' (Hokkien phrase which sorta means 'itchy backside' or punggung gatal..heh), I went and bought a brand new gadget. A costly one, too. Well, it's costly for me la, but for others, it may be considered cheap lo. You see, I went and bought a PDA phone.

Ok, ok, all you updated, high tech fellas out there must be laughing now, thinking I must be crazy to think a PDA phone is some new fangled thing. Well, it may not be all that new in the market, it is new to me la. So, please bear with me here. I have more to write about it.

Anyway, just like most kiamsiap ku (that's kedekut in Hokkien, also another affliction, but this is quite a common affliction amongst Penangites...), I went around looking at different brands and comparing prices and specifications. And I found out one frustrating thing, well, actually a few frustrating things.

The first one is this: blardy hell, why Nokia here, Nokia there, Nokia everywhere? I am looking for PDA phone la, not just a phone pretending to be a PDA phone, okay? Sure, there are a lot of handphone shops, handphone stalls, handphone shacks, handphone whatever everywhere but PDA phone???? Well, susah la want to cari.

First I went to Gurney Plaza and immediately realised I made a huge mistake. The handphone shops there are more like handphone boutiques. I am looking for bargain prices but there is no such thing there. Besides, the PDA specialist shop which I bought my ancient PPC (that's Pocket PC, for the less gadget inclined) from sudah tutup kedai. The few handphone boutiques there aren't that well stocked either, not to mention a tad 'high fallutin' with hidungs in the air and the sales people looking down at me from their blue, sharp pointed noses in the air. Woi, I may be wearing slippers and shorts but it doesn't mean I can't afford one okay? Only Charlie Communications offered a friendly service but no less cheaper. Choices were also very limited in the mall. The only PDA phone brands to be found were Asus and HTC (formerly Dopod) and one or two O2.

From there, I went to Prangin Mall and browsed through the many handphone stalls on the ground floor. Hmmm...there must not be a market for PDA phones cause most of the stalls don't have any! The only PDA phones they have is Nokia N-something or other. Look, Nokia-pretending-to-be-PDA-phone is over-priced and over-rated okay? I don't intend to spend that huge amount of money on a tiny so-called-computer-but-not-really-a-computer when the same amount can be used to buy a brand new laptop from Dell. Or better still, can buy one of those ultraportable tiny notebooks, Fujitsu Lifebook. There was one stall who tried to push the O2 XDA on me at a very low price. It was so low, I was suspicious. But still, due to the great service, I gave it great consideration before walking away. Hey, I'm a Penangite la. I don't buy things, especially expensive ones, without comparing the prices and other brands till I am satisfied it is the best I could get!

Then on to Bukit Jambul Complex where I was told there is practically a handphone street within the mall. Well, it is true. There are about 20 (or more?) handphone stalls along the walkways of the mall. I went from stall to stall and guess what? Cehhh...only about two or three stalls has PDA phones while the rest all sell only handphones. The brands available? HTC, Eten Glofiish and again, handphone brands pretending to be PDA phones.

Sigh...that's not much comparison to go on right? In the meantime, I surfed around on the net and found that the few reliable brands are HTC, O2, Palm and iPhone. Palm and iPhone is definitely out for me coz I use a PC, not an Mac/ Apple and those are more Mac/ Apple compatible. Those are also quite expensive.

So, I went to Queensbay Mall. My gawd. The digital section is practically a ghost town (it is very near the toilet bowl restaurant with the toilet food which I wrote about here) It has only a few shops. Discouraged by the lack of choices, I only asked two of the shops there though the salesmen were not much help.

Why most of the people jaga-ing the counters in all four places don't know the specs or even the basic functions of the gadgets they were selling? Err, hello?? Aren't you the salesman? Hey, if you don't know this, don't know that, you expect a newbie gadget-gal like me to know ah?

Finally, I went to Prangin Mall again and this time, I went to the tech section on level four (or is it five?). Here, I found several shops selling PDA phones and realised I should have checked here in the first place! I finally bought a HTC PDA phone at the shop called Gadza due to the sterling service, great bargain and me becoming tired of going around looking for a PDA phone!

So, what did I learn from this whole experience?

- the PDA phone market in Penang is a small one with very limited shops selling a variety of PDA phones
- salesmen selling handphones are not always well-versed with the products they are selling
- there is no such thing as a cheap PDA phone, all are above RM1k and most are around RM2k.
- buying a PDA phone means extensive research on the reliable brands and some knowledge on what specs I needed it to have to suit my..er..needs
- when buying a PDA phone must get it from an established shop for after-sales service because PDA phones are all about software updates, applications updates and proper usage!
- it is important to check the whereabouts of service centres for the brands as it is not that easy to repair a PDA phone as compared to a regular handphone
- the reliable/well-known PDA phones on the market are HTC / Dopod, O2, Palm, Asus, HP to be followed by the handphones pretending to be PDA phones such as Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia.

I finally decided on HTC Touch because of the price (RM1688) and the colour (burgundy) and the design (slim and small) and the specs suit my needs. I was seriously considering HTC Touch Dual (at RM1999 by SenQ which is a steal considering all other shops sells it at RM2,399) but decided that I don't have to splurge so much on a PDA phone.

Hey, I'm the person who buys RM300 basic handphone and only change handphone when old phone rosak, so getting a RM1,688 PDA phone is considered VERY unusual especially when my handphone is still in good working conditions, okay?

This is a video of my brand new gadget which I found in YouTube when I was researching on it:



So, now that I got my brand new gadget, anyone any idea what I should do with my old PPC/PDA? Its an old HP iPaq without camera or phone. The shop I bought from don't even want me to trade it in. Yep, it is practically valueless (thus my hesitation to splurge too much on a PDA phone since it will be obsolete and unwanted by the time I decided to change it!) and err..obsolete.

Sigh, want to go put it into the recycling box but feel its a waste, want to trade in nobody wants it, want to sell even worse nobody interested, so now, it is gathering dust and taking up space in my drawer.