Miscellanerous in Hong Kong

AM 0:18

Keith sent us a report of miscellaneous things fond in Hong Kong and Shenzen waiting for their night flight to Tokyo. Let’s look what he found there. 

Japanese long-seller food, Demae-Iccho 出前一丁, has its name value also in Hong Kong. Many restaurant have ones on their menu. It is popular Chinese noodle.  Nothing special, but we love it. 

Following Mr Endo’s instruction, cowboys went to the 5th floor of Sino Centre. What they fond there was…

An optician’s shop…??

They found the answer by passing the secret isle. There was a toy store collecting goods of Japanese anime in 50s to 80s! 

So many items inside the store which the owner got by Yahoo auction and from Mandarake. These are Valkyrie of Macross and Buritanica spaceship of Lensman which gripped Keith.  

In Sendatsu market, most shops are mobile shops.  

This is a mobile repair shop.

Sometimes, when they are lucky, they can find funny items. \

This is hand-maid iPhone cases. GAMEBOY version are also there.  

iPhone has been popular in Hong Kong for 3 years. That is surprising thing in fast trend changing place.

So, iPhone case shops are everywhere.

The design is really creative, decorative, and sensitive. We cannot find such cases in Japan! 

Though MTK based mobiles are popular in China, iPhone, Android and WindowsMobile are more popular in Hong Kong. But iPhone is the most. 

Oh, here is Demae again. It is truly popular food.  

Crossing the sea, cowboys landed on Wang Chai.

The place is down town of Hong Kong. The grade of hotels and shops are high. 

For computer loving cowboys, Wang Chai cyberspace castle is their destination.

They fond a  case for MacBook, rather, for future MacBook??? 

There should be a rumour that 10’2″ MacBook will debut before so long…?

And lastly, here is GoogKe mobile! Difficult pronunciation!

This is the end of Keith’s report.

Hong Kong seems to be really interesting place.

Shall we go there to find the goods like above?

Cowboys’s Adventure in China

As their annual visiting, cyberspace Cowboys went to Shenzen and Hong Kong looking for something interesting. 

Mr Yamane, a specialist of mobile phones, guided them. He showed and is showing really interesting things there. 

The first thing cowboys saw was a felt case for iPhone looks like iPhone. Other members got it the day before their arrival. How well made it is! We were really impressed that details of iPhone design was well realized on the felt, such as Bluetooth. 

It is a fake and smaller iPhone.

After such a surprize, they arrived Shenzen. Contrary to their concern that travellers may be victims to robbers, the place was so calm and not danger for traveller so much. The prices are not high, there are less beggars. Situation of Shenzen are surely changing.

OPhone is one of things cowboys wanted to get during this travel. Mr Yamane took them to the shop and they could get it easily, though he said OPhone is really popular in China and he concerned that it might be sol out. 

Customers are buyers from  all over the world. So many professionals gather there. The place is so flank and there are no dress code, people casually came there as if they come to groceries for vegetable or fruits. The place is such electric device market.  

We thought that inside of shops are similar to a radio department store in Akihabara, Japah. Shops gather closely. Many small shops are in one big building. They eat on the counter of the electronic shops.  They don’t waste their time, they do other things in their free time.

 Many shops are  being specialized, for instance, this shop specializes in stylus pens.

Here is a mock-up specialized shop, iPhone cases shops,etc.

iPhone cases are so popular there and really fashionable. They found many cases which we may not find in Japan, also its quality is good and the price is cheap. About 250 yen (2.8 USD) per one! They found a building where all shops of a floor sell the cases.  

Next, look. What do you think are they?

 They are all mobile phones!

These are fake “iPhone”s!! But they work as mobile phones properly… :-O 

Cowboys were trully satisfied with visiting there. When they returned to Hong Kong, cowboys asked unlimited mobile connection. Mr Yamane told them to buy the device of Android and SIM cards and took them to a high-tech devices market.

They got HTC TATOO, the latest HTC device. HTC TATTOO was a device for Android which equipped with unique ODP, HTC SENSE. 

This is a SIMs shop.  The number lined on the table is phone numbers of the SIMs.  The price goes high if the number is a pun or a lucky number. They got a pay&go SIM for 3 days unlimited internet access, supporting HSDPA. costed 65 HK$. It would be much cheaper than LAN connection in hotels.

Mr Yamane said that, a Tiwanee chip maker, called MTK, has the biggest share in China. So more OS for devices in China become the OS which MTK distributes for free. The shipment of MTK based device is 100 millions per year! Incredible! Because chip-set Android is yet expensive so there are less kinds of it than other ones. However, more Android devices, like OPhone, will be developed in the future tanks to its free OS.

Though some expected, we actually realized the merit of Android in China and Hong Kong. Because, only in Japan there is no pay&go unlimited access SIM. In America or Europe, pay&go unlimited SIM is already available.  Everytime we go abroad on business, we should concern how much will international access cost by using our Japanese mobiles. But with such unlimited SIMs, using Androids would be much more convenient and cheaper. So global executive would prefer Android.

Also, we realized another thing. In this trip, Keith spend time watching Twitter and Hatena blogs with Japanese DoCoMo’s device. If compared with it, the Android device, HTC TATTOO, is really useful and has good UI though still less than iPhone. 

When we uploaded photos took with TATTOO, we were surprized with its high speed though its resolution is low. 

However, some features of Japanese mobile are still better. One is “decoration mail.” Android lacks the feature  to decorate its text or e-mail and that makes Android a bit unattractive. We hope an app to write decoration mail will be released soon.

The Android Market in HTC TATTOO was automatically upgraded and surprisingly it is far better than Google’s Android Market. But, there are no apps like Simeji or Twitdroid, so we suppose the Market might be developed only in China.  Such development would be popular in the world, rather, we hope that because of its convenience. 

Some apps like Simeji can be downloaded and be installed directly from maker’s page.  (We tried to install Simeji in OPhone, but failed… OPhone is not Android itself but Android based OS, that would be the reason of the fail.)

HTC TATTOO was so popular in Hong Kong. It is about 2900HK$, cheaper than HTC HERO for 900HK$. Also, the features are almost the same. These points might catch the attention of people. 

We are really looking forward the futures of Hong Kong, China, and Android. After several years, if MTK device sold in Shenzen changed into Android devices, we would use them anywhere by developing Japanese mode. Furthermore, when we suddenly become need mobile phones in foreign country, we will definitely buy Android mobile and install Simeji in it so that we can use it in Japanese. 

Android is certainly a potential device!

For further information of mobiles in Hong Kong, let’s visit Mr Yamane’s page!

For more pictures in Shenzen, please visit Shin Ishimaru’s blog😀