My little housemaid has finally arrived.  We named it, Bolo.  Its an amazing little thing.  Out of the box, I pulled a yellow tag to activate the battery, and  ‘tuutiluu’ Bolo greeted me to life .  I set it to charge and within a couple of hours, the little thing were set to go.  I set it to do it’s duties every morning at 9am, so that we wouldn’t be bothered by the vacuuming noise. Today was it’s first day, and boy, the floors are spanking shining.  Unfortunately, first day at work didn’t go all too well for Bolo.  It picked up of my pants behind the drawers and got stuck.  Fortunate enough for me, he was almost done, except for some corners.  The great thing about Bolo, the iRobot Roomba 560 is that it does all the work it suppose to.  And the disappointing thing is that it aint that perfect. It knocked down our ironing board and got stuck on the toilet rug.  It works well with carpet as the weight of the carpet allows it to free itself, but a light toilet rug, just follows it where ever it go.  The funny thing about the entire package is that the charging or docking bay is black, while the charger or power adapter is white in color.  The Roomba 560 comes with two ‘light house’, two little transceiver that tells the little thing where the room divide.  This is so that it can finish the first room before moving to the second room.  Else, it will just go where ever it wants.  I didn’t really mind so I just let the little thing rip.  The two little light out also was not in matching color.  the entire module felt like a lego set, with each items having its own color scheme.  It would be nice if the colors are in sync.  Will let it roomba tomorrow morning at 9am again and see if it can get those spots…

One of the most formidable rule of shopping is not to settle on the first price you see.  I was looking for a skin for my iPhone, and was browsing at one of the IT mall at Hua Qiang Bei.  As I was going up the escalator on the first floor, I spotted the item I wanted, it was RMB 35 for one, with a simple question,’can it be cheaper’, the price drop to RMB 30.  It was a little more than what I was willing to pay for a piece of rubber.  So I soldiered on to the 4th floor and came across another shop, with many more color choices and the price was RMB 15.  With much haggling, the price remained the same.  So I bought two, for the price that I would pay to get one on the first floor.  This is why, never settle for the first price you see.  You never, know, it might be much cheaper just a few floors up.  Oh, by the way, pink is for my wife, so don’t get any funny ideas.

Yes, you got it right, I bought this glamour phone for just a little over four hundred ringgit.  I bought it over at Hua Qiang Bei in Shenzhen and it got one year warranty.  I was amaze by the feature this little gadget pack and how it looks and works.  The photo viewing works fine with pinching zooming capability.  The music player goes to album view when the phone is tilted.  This is something that other models could not do.  The cheapest I’ve seen starts at RM3xx and all the way to this model RM4xx.  I found out on the web that this phone’s name was CiPhone and it was a fake that gets as close to the real thing as possible.  Just search for CiPhone at youtube and you can see a wealth of video about this phone.

Out of the box, the device came with a sleve, earphones, charger, usb cable and a user manual.  All looks like the real thing.  You can check out a video I made unpacking this thing.  There are so many “iPhone” models over at Hua Qiang Bei, All the model except this one supports dual sim card and they comes with two batteries.  However they are much thicker and the dimension are much bigger.  But they have much more functions, some could even change song when shake, like the sony handphones when it first introduced. 

There are a couple of things that might turn you off, first there seams to be a lag on this phone, you will notice it on my video.  Secondly, the phone battery indicator can go up and down, especially if we let the phone hibernate, the next time the phone wakes up, you will notice the battery indicator shifts up a little.  This phone only supports single sim card, while other models support dual cards. Lastly, there seams to be a problem with the phone where after some time, the music player would reset the phone whenever I click on the music player icon.  The shop guy first says it was virus, then he said the mp3 format not compatible, which is all loads of BS.  Somehow the Chinese Songs that came with the phone seams to be fine.  So there goes, want perfect working beautiful iPhone, stay away from fakes.  if you dont mind this, then, it is a cheap glamour phone for you. 

China Iphone from Kew L. Ang on Vimeo.

My short shoot on the four hundred ringgit glamour phone I just bought. Poor shoot quality prevent me from going further, especially on dwelling into the operating system and how it looks inside. I recently found out that this phone was called ciphone and you can find tons of video about it in youtube. This was supposedly the best copy of the real thing. I have some qualms on this phone and will share them later.

My new addiction is on my new PSP game, Patapon, a well spent $19.99, which take my nights away, leaving me with puffy eyes and a rhythmic daze. Patapon is a new PSP game just release a month ago which shares the same art director as Loco Roco. It is a 2D game, where you only go forward to the left, you guide a bunch of eyeball warriors moving forward to the right fighting other enemy pons and monsters, destroying walls, buildings and rocks. Unlike Loco Roco, which I loved the gameplay, this game test your patience and keeping your cool in rhythm. I have been playing the game for a week, and I am stuck at level 8, and I am giving up. God of War has been released, and I got my sights set on it. I will most probably go back and play loco roco till God of War arrives.

You can try the flash game here.
Watch how it looks like in youtube.