Samsung releases Galaxy SIII mini to match iPhone 5 real estate; sells for PHP 14,990.00

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 11th, 2013

It’s like Samsung kicked Apple in the balls and said “Oh so you made your latest phone slightly bigger? OK we’re going to make our biggest phone slightly smaller just to match your dumb iPhone 5. And we’ll do it in a few months.”
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Lenovo announces S720 (P9,999), A690 (P5,299) and A800 (P6,999) for Q1 2013 at CES

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 10th, 2013

OK since Qualcomm said that we’re all BORN MOBILE (LOL!), we have a new generation of smartphones made available by Lenovo to the local market. Out of the five phones announced in CES 2013, we now have local information for three of the five, including local pricing. The three phones are the S720, A800 and the A690.

To differentiate the three models, the S720 is essentially your multimedia phone that sports a crisp IPS screen. The A800 is your mid-range performance phone while the A690 is Lenovo’s entry-level Android device that doesn’t suck (some entry level phones from manufacturers aren’t even worth it).

The S720 comes with the following specs:
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Nokia unveils the Lumia 620, most affordable Windows 8 smartphone; estimated to release below PHP 10,000

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at December 10th, 2012

Everyone wants to give Windows 8 a chance and the best way to do this is to make these metro-inspired devices more affordable for everyone. And that’s precisely what’s so great about the Nokia Lumia 620. If you’ve tried Windows Phone before, you’ll be amazed at how efficient the software works with the hardware. Unlike some Android devices where there are inconsistencies with how both the OS and hardware work together (it gets mighty laggy!), this breed of mobile OS works amazingly well across the board regardless of device.

The Nokia Lumia 620 comes with a dual core Snapdragon processor, dual cameras with support for future NFC implementation.

Sub PHP 10,000 is our guess.

Tech Specs:

OS: Windows Phone 8
• Display: 3.8” TFT WVGA 800×480, ClearBlack
• Memory: 512MB RAM (8GB internal memory, Micro SD support up to 64GB), 7GB SkyDrive cloud storage
• Camera: 5Mpix autofocus, LED flash
• Front Camera: VGA
• Video capture: HD 720p@30fps
• Connectivity: NFC, WLAN 802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4Ghz +5Ghz, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, micro-USB, 3.5mm audio connector (AHJ + WP Controls)
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon™ S4 processor with 1 Ghz dual-core CPUs

Nokia_Nokia Introduces New Nokia Lumia 620_datasheet

Sony VAIO Tap 20 is its own market segment (I mean it!); sells for PHP 59,999.00

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 22nd, 2012

As the global launch of Windows 8 approaches, we’re starting to see the OEM’s dish out the devices that will run Microsoft’s new platform. In the wild, we’ve already seen the Sony VAIO Tap 20 and I’ll tell you a secret: if you were to ask me, right now, to choose between a brand new iMac or this, I’d choose this. You actually need to see it in the flesh.

Here’s why:
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Samsung Galaxy Camera sells for PHP 23,990; why would you want one?

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 17th, 2012

The Samsung Galaxy Camera (PHP 23,990) is a vagabond of sorts — not in the definition that it is impoverished, but because it wanders the thin line between being an Android device and a camera. Usually the definition for an Android phone unsurprising to include a camera but in this case, this device IS a camera.
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Lenovo launches two new dual SIM phones: 3.5″ A60+ for PHP 4,999 and 5″ S880 for PHP 14,999

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at August 30th, 2012

UPDATE: BOOM! CES 2013. We have the lowdown on 3 new Android phones announced with pricing! Check them out!

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The dual SIM Lenovo S880 looks amazing in white.

Lenovo is becoming more and more agressive with their phone launches. The other day, Lenovo Global paid a visit to the Philippines to introduce two new phones — the A60+ and the S800. In summary, the A60+ is the spiritual successor to two phones they launched in the last few months — the Lenovo A60 and the Lenovo A65. To those of you who bought an A65, you **might** experience some buyer’s regret as the new A60+ comes with more or less the same specs, with a slightly different form factor. It is also more affordable at only PHP 4,999.00
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Product Review: CD-R King Rice Cooker (does it really work?!) for PHP 350.00

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at August 23rd, 2012

Due to popular demand from friends, we decided to pursue a second episode for the CD-R King review series. Again, we’re not sure where to go from here but it seems like this is really going somewhere. Anyway, in this episode, Rico and I respond to a question most of you have been dying to ask: is the CD-R King rice cooker for real?

This episode actually turned out better than expected because Rico and I don’t know how to cook rice.

Also, we decided to put our videos up on its own domain.

16GB Google Nexus 7 Priced at PHP 17,999 (Villman)

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at July 23rd, 2012

OK two things here:

Villman is selling the new 16GB Google Nexus 7 at PHP 18,000 pesos. That’s twice the price in retail when you buy the device in the USA. Stocks are limited and that’s what you get when demand is high. It’s actually a bad deal if you think about it — you’re paying more than twice the price for this device if you peg the dollar at PHP 44 (total SRP should be around PHP 8,600.00) which is an amazing steal that destroys all other affordable tablets the local scene.

But then you also have to realize that Google is HALTING new orders for the new 16GB tablet, making only the 8GB model available for sale on the Play store.

The company has now halted further orders of the 16GB version of the tablet, costing £199, on its Google Play store in the US and UK. Orders made in the period up to the end of last week are due to be fulfilled, but a shortage of stock now means a hiatus in sales.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s forever gone. It’s more like .. are you willing to pay almost twice the price of an affordable tablet or wait a bit longer?

I go for WAITING. And this is for the simple reason that the USD $200 SRP is a feature of the device and paying anything more than that mitigates the amazing price point. If you’re going to pay PHP 18,000 for this tablet, you might as well have gotten an iPad.

[info c/o John Nieves]

Nokia Asha 305 is full touch screen, dual SIM; sells for PHP 3,890.00

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at July 14th, 2012

A number of days ago, we saw Nokia release the Asha 202 which was an entry level S40 feature phone that was bundled with games from Electronic Arts.

This week, enter the Nokia Asha 305, its upgraded sibling that has full touch capabilities and looks light years more attractive than the 202. For a few hundred pesos difference in price, it is well worth it. Also, it’s dual SIM.
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Google Nexus 7 Tablet vs Kindle Fire in the Pinoy context

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at June 28th, 2012

(Ed’s Note: This piece is a work in progress)

Google Nexus 7 Tablet. Yay!

So if you live in the Philippines, the announcement of the Google’s new Nexus 7″ “reading device” by ASUS should bring good news of great joy. Here’s the context: my father in law owns a Kindle Fire (apart from the more traditional Kindle) and if its one thing that it can’t do locally, it’s really almost everything. The Fire makes use of the Kindle sign in credentials and not your Google account which means you’re pretty much screwed if you’re going to avail of the cloud services and app downloads. No international support. This is odd because everything works fine on a “regular” Kindle.

Enter Google’s Nexus 7 tablet. The video says it all. I’m impressed by the tech, but really the one thing that’s got me excited is the fact that I’ll be able to do everything the Kindle Fire does but using Google’s sign in process. In short: It’s international and won’t be a $199.00 brick when it arrives in the Philippines.

The Google I/O conference will focus on the content you can access with the new affordable Nexus 7 by ASUS.

Lenovo A65 is Dual SIM, Android 2.3, bigger steal at P5,499

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at June 21st, 2012

EDIT: If you’re after a more powerful device in the PHP 10,xxx range, check out the Lenovo P700 that runs on Ice Cream Sandwich, has a bigger 4″ screen and a larger battery life. It’s also dual SIM.

Met up with John Rojo, the new Business Unit Head of Lenovo Mobile (Open COmmunications) and he showed me a bunch of new tech they have coming. One of these was the new Lenovo A65 which is their exciting follow up to the A60 released in October of last year.

Well guess what? I forgot to take photos. Because I was took busy making chika. You know. So instead, here’s a photo of the A60, because the A65 looks very similar and the differences are really in the internals.

For one, the new A65 comes with the latest firmware update that is a MUST. If you were an early adopter, the old issues had a recurring problem with SMS getting disabled. Fortunately Lenovo addressed this with a firmware update that fixed this one and only issue.

The new A65 is near-perfect given its price point of below PHP 6,000. It levels up the competition with the Samsung Galaxy Y and the Alcatel Blaze / Alcatel Glory because it sports a bigger 3.5″ screen and a faster 800Mhz processor (the A60 had a 650mhz processor).

So, really. Reasonably fast user interface, Android 2.3 OS (you don’t need ICS for this), dual SIM, huge 3.5″ screen. Then factor in a price point of only PHP 5,499.00 and it’s really a steal. A bigger steal than its precursor which retailed for above PHP 7,xxx.xx

Verdict: Highly recommended. I wouldn’t call it a budget phone because ‘budget’ connotes sacrificing functionality. But it doesn’t. I’m still wow-ed by the impressive price-point.

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