Long before the term ’smartphone’ was invented, I knew I needed one. I was always lugging around an organizer of some sort and I’ve always wished there was a faster, more efficient way of keeping track of my appointments, phone numbers, and other frequently used data. And I’ve always thought perhaps there was some way of incorporating all that in my mobile phone.
The first smartphone I ever owned was a Palm Treo. I loved its fast startup, its stability, its ability to switch from one program to another with ease. But then the screen got damaged and I couldn’t get a replacement for it. So I bid goodbye to my Palm Treo.
Then I had a Dopod 838Pro. It was big and heavy like a small brick but it had WiFi, bluetooth, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a combination of features that no other smartphone had at that time. It had a great dialing feature — I’d dial the first few numbers or letters of a person’s name and the Dopod 838Pro would give me suggestions that matched those criteria, either by number or by letters. Unfortunately, it ran on Windows Mobile, which meant extremely slow startup and constant unexplained freezing.
You can imagine my excitement when the iPhone was first unveiled. Long before it reached Malaysian shores, DH somehow managed to secure one unit. So if you look closely at my unboxing video at the portion where I was putting in the SIM card, you’ll notice that there’s a small cut-out on the SIM. That was to accommodate a wafer-thin SIM-like device that I had to put in together with my SIM just so I could use the iPhone with my local number.
How I loved the iPhone’s slim profile, its crystal-clear screen, and the almost magical way with which one can pinch and swipe to zoom in and out and browse images and documents. But I hated the absence of an onscreen keyboard, made worse by the iPhone’s pathetic predictive text feature. And its 3-megapixel camera is such a disappointment with its grainy images.
Hence, despite the introduction of the iPhone 3Gs, I stood my ground and resisted the temptation to join the iPhone bandwagon. That’s because the camera is still crappy. And so is its built-in predictive text app.
Then came the unexpected opportunity to try the HTC Desire. I deliberately avoided reading any review so as not to taint my perception of the phone. Nor did I read the manual — it’s my litmus test for user-friendliness. And you know what? I was blown away by the phone’s features. By its speed. And its stability. And its user-friendliness. I only opened the manual once and that was merely to double-check the method of opening the cover because it felt kinda stuck and I didn’t want to risk breaking it.
The HTC Desire is not perfect, as I wrote in a previous post. But there are so many things about it that I love.
1. I love its intuitive text input system, which is a thousand times better than the iPhone’s. I send text messages in English, Malay, Indonesian, Cebuano, Tagalog, French or a mixture thereof and it remembers the new words that I use. It even remembers which words I use most often. Somehow, it almost always gives the most logical word choices even as I type just the first few letters of the word. And even though I misspell my words, it’s uncanny how it can suggest the word that I actually intended to type in the first place.
2. I love its uber-cool People program that allows me to link my contact’s details from Facebook, from Gmail, from everywhere…then lists in separate tabs all my emails, calls and text messages for and from that same person. Perfect for refreshing my memory about someone just before a business meeting…and for stalker-type folks ;)
3. I love its gorgeous screen that elicits gasps and wonder for its crystal-clear images and for its wondrous but battery-draining live wallpaper feature.
4. I love its intelligent dialing capabalities, a carryover from its Dopod 838Pro days. All I must do is type in the first few numbers or the first few letters of the name of the person whom I want to call, then it gives me a list of possible contacts who match such criteria.
5. I love its 5-megapixel camera, which can switch from still camera to video camera almost effortlessly; whose settings I can tweak to my heart’s desire — contrast, brightness, saturation, sharpness, white balance, ISO, metering mode, self-timer, focus mode; for giving me the options to have my photograph in grayscale, sepia, negative, solarize, posterize. The camera’s not as good as the one in my Nokia N82…but very, very close.
6. I love its removable battery, which means I should be able to buy a spare one somewhere.
7. I love the fact that it comes with a MicroSD card, from which I can get the contents via USB card reader. External memory is always good, just in case something happens to the phone *knock on wood*.
8. I love its smooth integration with Google — emails, contacts, calendar.
9. I love its amazing visible pattern security system in lieu of a password. And I love even more its backup plan: when I forgot my visible pattern, it gave me the chance to unlock it by logging on to my Gmail account.
10. I love its seemingly magical way of auto-adjusting the width of the text when I zoom in and out as I browse the internet.
All in all, the HTC Desire is a great device for someone who values practicality over branding, for someone whose job can benefit from the HTC Desire’s Calendar, calculator, Quickoffice and numerous productivity apps, for someone who wants his/her online life simplified — Twitter, Facebook, email, browsing the Net, sharing photos online. The HTC Desire is beauty and functionality in the same package. Yes, there are some compromises — that’s why I call it ‘great’ instead of ‘perfect’.
And so my two-week test drive of the HTC Desire comes to an end. Thank you, Maxis, for giving me the opportunity to take part in this amazing social media marketing experiment. It’s been a real blast. Should you need my services again, you know how to find me ;)
As for all of you who have been following my blog from the beginning, thank you for putting up with my HTC posts. I realise they’re not the usual topics usually covered here but gadgets ARE close to my heart and, just like any other gadget geek, whenever I get a new toy, I just can’t help but talk about it for weeks on end. That’s how I ended up writing mostly about the HTC Desire during the entire review period instead of writing such articles in between my usual posts. My apologies for that.
For whatever reason you are reading my blog right now, I hope you’ll find yourself entertained with this short feature film that I worked on during our usual two-hour lunch break last Friday, which I edited Friday night and most of Saturday morning under the watchful eyes of my most unforgiving critics — my children. (‘Feature film’ sounds so much more exotic than ’short movie’ right?) Enjoy! :)
Ahh, my Desire… how can I possibly live without you now, after having known what life is like when you’re with me?
Tags: Android, cell phone, HTC Desire, review, smartphone
My 20th-June deadline is looming and the past few days have been hectic like nobody’s business. So in lieu of a long, wordy review, here’s a quick mano-a-mano comparison on the key features of HTC Desire vis-a-vis those of the iPhone 3Gs:-
After an objective assessment of the features and after having used the HTC Desire for almost two weeks now, I can look you in the eye and tell you that I’d pick the HTC Desire over the iPhone 3Gs anytime. And not just because I got to play with it for free ;)
My next post about the HTC Desire: How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways… Watch for it!
Tags: HTC Desire, iPhone 3Gs, review, smartphone
At first glance, Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian language) and Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language) look very similar. Most of the words are the same — makan (eat), ikan (fish), rumah (house); the structure of sentences are also the same, e.g. Ini anak saya (This is my child).
Malaysian (left) & Indonesian flags
But after countless trips to Indonesia, it is becoming more and more apparent to me that these two languages are as disparate as oil and water.
Here are some words that Malaysians and Indonesians should take note of when communicating with each other, to avoid any misunderstanding. This is not a comprehensive list by any means but it’s a start:-
1. Jemput. DH likes to tell this anecdote of a Malaysian friend whose Indonesian friend came to KL for a visit. The Malaysian invited the Indonesian to his home, saying “Saya jemput Bapak, ya?” (I jemput you, okay?). You know what happened? The Malaysian ended up waiting for his friend, who never showed up; the Indonesian also waited in his hotel, waiting for his friend who never came to pick him up. You see, jemput means ‘to invite’ in Malaysia but ‘fetch/pick up’ in Indonesia. Moral of the story for Malaysians: instead of jemput, it’s safer to say undang. This is why wedding invitation cards in Malaysia say ‘Kad Jemputan‘ but in Indonesia, they say ‘Kad Undangan‘.
2. Pusing. If a Malaysian invites you to go pusing-pusing, he means he’d like to take you around. But in Indonesia, pusing often refers to pusing kepala, which means ‘to have a headache’! Malaysians, use putar in lieu of pusing.
3. Cadangan. If you’re in a meeting in Jakarta and you want to ask for suggestions, please don’t use the word cadangan because in Indonesia, it means ’spare’, e.g. kaos cadangan (spare shirt). Use the word usulan instead.
4. Senang. In one episode of Upin & Ipin, Susanti tells her new Malaysian classmates “Saya senang sama teman-teman” (I like you all, friends) which made Upin and Ipin whisper to each other “Masa bila kita susahkan dia?” (When did we make things difficult for her?). You see, senang in Indonesia means ‘to like’ (i.e. Malaysian: suka), not ‘easy’, as it means in Malaysia!
5. Ibu. When I first came to Indonesia, I thought people addressed me as ‘Ibu‘ because well…I’m a mother, which is what ibu means in Malaysia. Weeelll…ibu can also mean the same thing in Indonesia. However, the more common use of Ibu is as a form of address, i.e. ‘Mrs’ or ‘Madam’ :P ‘Miss’ in Indonesian is mbak, which should not be confused with the Javanese mbah, which means ‘grandmother’!
6. Cakap. Malaysians use this word to mean ‘talk’ or ’say’. In Indonesia, however, this word means ‘good-looking’ or ‘cute’. So the next time you say “I cakap…” and find your Indonesian friends looking amused, you know why.
7. Buntut/Bontot. Remember my previous post on language being a hidden danger of travel? This word means ‘tail’ in Indonesia and is a common item in many restaurant menus, i.e. sop buntut (oxtail soup). In Malaysia, however, you can get into hot water (or get laughed at) for using this word because in this part of the world, it refers to one’s behind!
8. Butuh. Malaysians, if you are in Indonesia and you find yourself in need of something, don’t bother using the word perlu (’need’/'must’); use the word butuh instead, e.g. butuh uang (in need of money). Conversely, to all my Indonesian readers, please be careful in using this word in Malaysia because…erm…I was told it is a very, very vulgar term for the male genitals. Or something to that effect. I never really did find out because (i) it felt too awkward for me to ask people about this word and (ii) all my friends whom I did dare ask just giggled and answered “Something like that”.
9. Pantat. I was browsing an online forum about baby skin care one day and I got the shock of my life when I read one mother write nonchalantly about pantat bayi. You see, in Malaysia, this is a very, very coarse and vulgar word for the female genitals. In Indonesia, however, this word refers to what is known as buntut in Malaysia (see #7).
10. Seronok. This is the term that Malaysians use to mean ‘fun’ or ‘entertaining’. Unfortunately, in Indonesia, it refers to lewdness, e.g. foto seronok refers to ‘lewd pics’, which may not necessarily be your definition of fun.
11. Bareng. I once saw a roadside eatery that announced ‘Makan Bareng‘. I thought to myself, “Eat while lying down? Huh?”. I thought the Indonesian bareng meant the same as the Malaysian baring (’to lie down’). But no. Bareng means ‘together’. So makan bareng is ‘to eat together’.
12. Sore. I used to get perplexed with text messages that began with ‘Sore bu‘. Sore? Sorry? “Is he apologising?”, I thought. Silly me! Turns out sore in Indonesian means ‘afternoon’! Sore bu is just a shortened form of ‘Selamat sore, ibu‘ (Good afternoon, Ma’am). Uh, Indonesian friends, when you’re in Malaysia, please say petang instead of sore. Thank you!
13. Sikat. If you go into a mini market in Indonesia and ask for a berus gigi, don’t be surprised if all you get in return is a blank stare. ‘Toothbrush’ in Indonesia is sikat gigi. And sikat rambut means ‘hair brush’, not ‘comb’ as what we mean when we say sikat in Malaysia, my confused friends.
14. Lucu. You know how parents are always so proud to flash countless pics of their children at the slightest encouragement? Now, now, my dear Malaysian readers, please don’t feel offended when your Indonesian friends look at your child and comments ‘Lucunya!’. They don’t mean ‘funny’ as what we mean when we say lucu in Malaysia; in that part of the world, lucu means ‘cute’!
15. Sandal. If you forgot to pack your slippers in your bag to your Indonesian trip, don’t ask for selipar in the nearest shop. Ask for sandal instead. Because that’s how they refer to slippers there. Shoes and sandals are called sepatu instead.
16. Cocok. Cocok in Indonesia means ’suitable’, despite its similarity in sound to the Malaysian cucuk, which means ‘to pierce’.
17. Bual-bual. If you want to sit and chat with your Indonesian friends, please remember to invite them to ngobrol-ngobrol over coffee or drinks. Do NOT, by any means, say bual-bual because that term means ‘to tell lies’ in Indonesia!
18. Kurang Manis. In Malaysia, it’s quite common to order a drink and request “Kurang manis ya?”, meaning ‘Please make it less sweet’. If you’re watching your sugar intake, make sure to remember this phrase instead: “Gula dikurangin ya?” (Please reduce the sugar, okay?). This is because if you say “Kurang manis” to your Indonesian waiter, he will only end up adding more sugar to your drink, thinking that you’re complaining that the drink is kurang manis (’not enough sweetness’).
19. Kosong. Kosong in Malaysia means empty but when you’re in a Padang Restaurant, you’re asking for your favourite jus alpukat (avocado drink) and the waiter tells you ‘alpukat kosong‘, he only means they’ve run out of avocado. On the other hand, dear Malaysians, if you want to ask for air kosong (’plain water’), ask for air putih instead. Or ask for Aqua, the brand name that has become the generic term for mineral water, as Colgate is to toothpaste.
20. Budak. It’s very common in Malaysia for people to refer to a child as budak and to children as budak-budak. Use this term with caution once you’ve entered Indonesia though because over there, budak means ’slave’!
21. Kakak. This is a polite form of address, which means ‘older sister’, is used in Malaysia to refer to a woman who is slightly older than you. [NB: Much older women would be referred to as makcik (auntie); really old women are addressed as nenek (grandmother). If you're not sure between kakak and makcik, kakak is safer, so as not to offend the person whom you are addressing.] In Indonesia, however, kakak can be used to address both an older man or an older woman. This term is not to be confused with the Indonesian kakek, which means ‘grandfather’!
22. Kereta. If a Malaysian tells an Indonesian (who’s not familiar with the Malay language) that he owns a kereta (’car’ in Malay), the Indonesian is bound to be amazed. This is because kereta in Indonesia is likely to be interpreted to mean kereta api/keretapi, i.e. ‘train’. The Indonesian term for ‘car’ is mobil.
23. Sotong. If you want to order squid in Indonesia, do not use the word sotong, lest people think you want to eat sotong kurita (octopus). Ask for cumi instead.
24. Cili. You’d think the simplest word ‘chili’ would be the same in Malay and Indonesia. But no! Only Malaysians say cili; Indonesians say cabe. [NB: The letter 'c' in Indonesian and Malay languages are pronounced as 'ch', as in the word 'chop'.]
25. Lumayan. Finally, when Malaysians say someone’s gaji (salary) is lumayan, they mean that person’s ’salary is quite a lot’. Indonesians, on the other hand, would interpret gaji lumayan as ’salary that’s just enough’ (cukup-cukup aje).
Now do you agree with me when I say that Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia are as different as day is from night? Perhaps one of these days, I’d actually sit down and write a handbook of such Malaysian/Indonesian terms.
Feel free to add in the comments section some other Indonesian and Malaysian terms that you know that might cause some misunderstanding :)
I’m talking about you, HTC Desire. Yes, you, with that dazzling AMOLED screen of yours disguised as a fingerprint magnet. Ever since you came into my life, you’ve completely taken over my thoughts, my dreams, my waking hours, my spare time. Heck! You even got me stroking you in the middle of meetings.
Oh how I hate you, Desire. I hate how you’ve possessed me, despite knowing that you’ll only be in my life for two short weeks. Yes, HATE. It’s a strong word, I know, but there’s just no other way to explain how I feel about these ten idiosyncracies of yours:-
1. Out Of Sync. You. CANNOT. Sync. To. My. MacBook. Pro. Unbelievable! I mean, come on! You’re no Windoze device. You’re an Android! How could you possibly give Mac users this ultimate snobbery?! Good grief! Good thing fellow geeks out there have worked out some kind of workaround for people like me: they advised that I export my Address Book contacts into my GMail account, then sync it with your People program. (Why’d you have to call it ‘People’ anyway? What’s wrong with ‘Contacts’? :P) That saved me hundreds of hours of inputting my contacts again into your memory. Now if only I can get iCal to export properly (I still keep getting that annoying ‘Failed to import events: Unable to process your iCal/CSV file..’ message)… But the point of the matter is — this is not syncing per se; it’s just a geeky workaround. Can somebody at HTC do something about this very important issue pronto? Because of this little glitch, I totally forgot about an important meeting last week just because I had it in my laptop but not in that beautiful memory of yours.
[Update: 15-June-2010 15:19 hrs: There's a software called Missing Sync for syncing an Android with a Mac. If I get to keep the HTC Desire after this 2-week assignment, I'll buy it! In the meantime, I'm downloading a trial version here.]
2. Low Battery Life. What was I thinking? With your dazzling screen, your amusing animations, and all the clever things that you can do, of course something’s got to give at some point. And that’s your battery. *Sigh* It doesn’t even last a day. Good thing I can charge you via USB. And miracle of miracles, I can use the Nokia N97 Mini’s charger on you! It’s about time these darn mobile phone manufacturers decide on a common charger. But that’s another story altogether.
3. Music To My Ears…NOT! The sound from your built-in speakers is so tinny, it gives me an earache in less time than it takes for someone to pronounce supercallifragilisticexpealidocious. And those earphones that came with you in that beautiful white box of yours? They’re a joke. The sound quality is awful and they don’t work properly as the antenna for your FM Radio program to work as it should.
4. No Video Calls. Desire, Desire, oh my dear Desire…with those looks of yours, why didn’t your creators equip you with a secondary camera so that I can make video calls with you? I mean, video calls aren’t exactly cutting edge technology — Nokia’s been producing mobile phones that are suitably equipped for video calls for the past couple of years now. I travel a lot and I go home quite late on evenings so those short video calls to my children mean a lot to me — they help me keep my precarious career/motherhood balance. And I can’t make any such calls with you! Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! (Or as Upin and Ipin would say, ‘Ish! Ish! Ish!’)
5. Limited Apps. In this digital day and age, it’s the tiniest details that matter, Desire honey. When I browse your market, I see an impressive enough amount of apps (including awesome free stuff like games for my twins) but the selection’s not quite as extensive as those of Apple’s App Store. It’s all about choices, my dear. People. Want. Choices. You also get to make a lot of money that way, i.e. by making people feel they have a false sense of control over what goes into their smartphones.
6. SD = So Difficult. Sure, you’re sleek and slim. But why do you have to hide your microSD card inside the back cover AND require me to remove the battery first before I can access it? Please take some pointers from my oldie but goldie Nokia N82, whose microSD card can be removed easily from a tiny slot on its side. *Shaking head*
7. Music, Schmusic. Your built-in Music program needs a lot of work. I especially hate the way you sort my songs. Helllllo?? HTC people, are you reading this? :P
8. Screen Scream. I did mention how much of a fingerprint magnet your smooth screen is, right? Yes, right up there — the second sentence of this heartfelt missive of mine. Your screen is beautiful, true, but only indoors. It’s completely unusable once I’m outdoors.
Okay, okay…so I can only come up with 8 things that I hate about you. But I’m keeping the title anyway just because “Ten Things I Hate About You” sounds way catchier than “Eight Things I Hate About You”. (It doesn’t hurt that I loved that 1999 movie. Heh!)
So there. I feel cleansed. Purged. Relieved to have done this confession of sorts about how much I hate you. But I do love you, you know. And in fairness to you, I will also be telling you very soon all about the things that I love about you. And why my life has changed because of you. And how I can’t imagine living without you when I have to return you to Maxis on the 20th of June. *Sniffle*
Now please excuse me while I go look for a tissue to wipe away my tears and blow my nose. All this talk about parting ways with you in less than a week is just making me so sad… Waaaaahhhhh!!!! :((
Tags: Android, cellphone, HTC Desire, Maxis, mobile phone, review, smartphone
You’ve never truly seen the sky until you’ve seen it from 30,000 feet above sea level, where the sun and the clouds juxtapose to create a ‘landscape’ unlike anything you’ve ever seen before — blinding white light, pools of molten gold, glaciers of clouds (click on photos to see the full-sized images)…
Where the rosy fingertips of dawn lightly caress an inexplicably fluffy mass of grey and white and blue…
Where the clouds are not mere clouds, but an almost tangible blanket of carded sheep’s wool…
Where mounds of clouds rise up into frothy mountains of whipped cream…
Where wisps of clouds fly past like newly-spun cotton candy left floating in midair…
Where the overwhelming vastness reminds you of your insignificance vis-a-vis the might and power of the Creator…
All photos taken with the HTC Desire, straight out of the camera, no editing or resizing whatsoever.
