Yup, on my last visit to Simlim, here are the latest prices of the Memory cards I am intending to get when the price is right late this month:

• Transcend 4GB SD Card – $200 SGD (As of 25th March 06, from $499 in June 05)
• Kingston 2GB CF Card – $97 SGD (As of 25th March 06, from $230 in June 05)

Been monitoring the prices for about a year now. & I am glad I didn’t any purchases then or I will seriously be banging my head on the wall after finding out how much I’ve lost given how fast memory prices drop.

I will purchase the 4GB SD card when the price hits $150-180 & the 2GB CF Card $80 aimed at around end April. Other than that, any more price reduction will be redundant to me & its CHOW TIME BABY! Good things sure come to those who wait!

Important but Urgent?
or
Important but not Urgent?

These are the things which came to mind after a short chat with mum over lunch today at BM central, when considering the purchase of my laptop before school reopens. Maybe it wasn’t the calories in the popular Hainanese Chicken rice we were having which sparked my mind going on the matter.

Few months ago, I was seriously considering the Fujitsu T4020 as my primary laptop, till the release GMA950 & dual core laptops, then I started wondering whether I should still put my $3999 on this Fujitsu & be 2 generations old in 6 months time when dual-core 64-bits & Window vista comes around Jan next year.

Any layman given this problem will definately recommend to get a laptop when you need it, because technology always moves on. So as they think but I need to make my purchase worthwhile, not to mention able to last & be “technologically compatible” for generations to come. Considering that laptops are not as upgradable as their desktop counterparts.

On a research front, I am considering the Asus A6J Intel Core Duo laptop with 2Ghz T2500 Yonah processor, Radeon X1600 512MB HyperMemory, 100GB Harddisk, 1GB Ram, 1,3MP Camera for $2700. Another possible candidate is the Acer 8204WLMi (A brand which I usually don’t patronise) having everything the Asus A6J has but a 1680 x 1050 screen, VOIP Bluetooth phone, same carbon fiber body & few more extras for an additional $1299.

But all these are laptops! I had outgrown laptops 3 years ago & am more geared towards PDAs & tablet PCs now, but the 1 year old Toshiba Tecra is still retailing at $4222 & the New Yonah Toshiba Portege m400 is no exception at $4020 too (called Toshiba Singapore to confirm the prices last week). I can choose to get the old Sonoma T4020 now but that would definately be an insult to my research & homework just for impulsive wants. On the forefront there is the unreleased Asus R1F Tablet PC with a Core Duo processor, 13.3″ widescreen but unspecified on board graphics, due to be released in Spring 06, (which I hope won’t be too long for now).

Asus is reputable being an ODM for Sony, Apple, JVC & Dell. Fujitsu however, is notoriously slow to release successors or refreshes to their laptop line. Let be a speculated refresh of the T4020 around August/September this year, judging how long they take to release their Sonoma tablet in August 2005 when the chipset was avaliable in Jan that particular year.

As the saying goes: “Good things come to those who wait”
But next semester will have 2 computer demanding modules, haiz Fujitsu & Asus quickly release your new Tablet PCs… dunno should I still wait or get one now…

Mmm didn’t really get much of blogging lately. Anyway here are some worthy highlights of the last week worth noting.

I did mentioned that I got myself an Antec True Power-II 480W Power supply unit (PSU) on my birthday to replace my old Antec 430W supply. The PSU’s fans suddenly burnt out & stopped spinning. I only discovered about the fault after noticing the absence of lights from my computer’s led fans. Diagnosing the problem & shockingly, the PSU part of the case was too hot to touch (comparable to a metal kettle filled with boiling water).

The first thing which came to my mind was, no I didn’t overclock, neither did I power any fans down… Immediately, I powered down the PC after 4 hours up time only to find out that not only all 6 fans in my mid-tower are not spinning, the PSU’s dual fans are dead too. The only fans functioning are my GPU & CPU fans. & man was the air around the case warm…

😯 Fan power are totally burnt, but overall the system is still very functional & stable with the absence of cooling. Voltage to Harddisk, mobo & External Drives are all stable, so there is no damage or current surge which could damage other components. Guess its a “fail safe” feature I have to commend on Antec Quality PSUs. With this I can conclude that antec “fan only” connectors share the same output from the PSU’s only internal fans.

This PSU is about 5 years old already, an expected lifespan for a PSU at my given current daily computer up time of about 15 hours daily. Usually power supply failures will result in a full system burn out, i.e the taking the mobo & hard disk with it when the current surges on failure, giving not only a spectacular show of electric hisses, pops but see your system die in a cloud of blue smoke as well, not to mention a fire hazard as well. I definitely won’t want that for a birthday present! Overall I am glad I choose a truepower previously & I guess I have Antec’s experience in the PSU market to back for my new PSU too.

System up & running with only 1/2 day downtime, glad to see everything up & functional again. After $185 poorer.

Been trying out my new Oregon Scientific Weight GR101, its very niffy maybe I will write a review on it when I have the time.

Been surfing around a lot lately to check out good laptop buys, hoping to get one before school reopens. But there are just no good Tablet PCs around at the moment.

I was once fascinated with laptops in secondary school, where I got my first personal notebook in secondary two. It lasted with my till Junior college days, an old 333Mhz AMD Compaq Presario. Then it’s screen went “kaput”. Then till now I had always used my Dell Axim X50v as my personal net/email note taker when I am out. Thinking that I had “outgrown” laptops. But so as old habits are to stay, I think I am in need of another laptop again…

Then till I get to find out so many limitations a PDA can have, like not able to work out intensive programming/designing at Starbucks or MacDonalds which I always love freeing myself out of in comparison to slaving at my workstation at home or office. Moreover, when school reopens, it will definitely be a very good tool for studies.

Yes I may have out grown laptops & notebooks, that’s what I am getting a Tablet Pc this time – a perfect companion for lectures, school work, not to mention the ease of note taking. The thing is that with Windows Vista due to be released in Q1 2007 (yes its delayed). There are no good Tablets which can run windows vista currently except for those high end $4000+ ones, like the Toshiba Tecra M4 ($4222 SGD w/GST) & the newest Toshiba M400 ($4010 SGD w/GST), killer prices. I can get those dinky one year old tablets like the Acer C300 series or the Fujitsu T4020, but its not worth it considering that it will be 2 generations old in 6 months time.

I just hate this period where the new Intel Yonah chip being recently released, then it’s the “silent period” where we can only hope & pray that some new model just pop up in store one day. Even online review sites are all quiet on Tablet PCs now.

Till then just hope that Fujitsu/Asus/Acer refreshes their Tablet PC line in time for school reopens.

You might know the Alienware brand as an enthusiast gaming laptop manufacturer. They are largely and independent producer, who core line of business involve rebranding OEM gaming laptops tailored for extreme desktop and portable gaming. After some weeks of hiding in an out of the box, its official this time, Dell had acquired long time gaming rig OEM Alienware for an undisclosed price.

Well hopefully with the acquisition, maybe we can see Alienware products readily available to the Asia-pacific regions as opposed to currently.

Read more on the official article over here.