As the World Cup got underway last month, I finally succumbed to a long-suppressed itch to buy a new TV – one that could be mounted on the wall to free up my TV console and one which provided better contrast and clarity over my entry-level Full HD screen.

Thus began a long afternoon at Audio House, where I tested and re-tested several TVs, changed my mind a few times, before finally settling on a 55-inch Samsung C7000 (UA55C7000WM).

The C7000 is part of Samsung’s new Series 7 entry-level 3D LED TVs and it comes with your usual array of Internet-based features, such as the ability to watch YouTube (over a wired Ethernet link or optional Wi-Fi dongle).

More importantly, for me, the C7000 provides excellent contrast and smooth, natural motion.

But first, why 55 inches? In terms of screen real estate, the Samsung 46-inchers are not a huge leap over popular 40- and 42-inchers, which are significantly cheaper (think S$1,000 to S$2,000 less). After getting the measurements of my humble apartment (about 3.6 metres wall-to-wall), I decided to go for the bigger screen.

With Samsung’s ultra-thin wall-mount, the 2.65cm skinny screen is a mere 3cm from the wall and is literally hung like a painting using a thin but strong steel cable. This means the screen doesn’t look big at all, even in a living room that is typical of a three-bedroom apartment in Singapore.

Now, after a month with C7000, I am glad I went with the 55-incher. HD videos – whether they are in broadcast TV’s 1080i or Blu-ray’s 1080p – all look sharp. Surprisingly, SD videos look great too, possibly because my C7000 is hooked up to a Denon AVR-2310 that does a little upscaling to keep things looking sharp and in focus.

The dynamic contrast, which enables very deep blacks, and the vibrancy of colours are what attracted me to the C7000 at the showroom. One step down was the C6900, which I also liked, but which comes with a less aggressive sports/action mode (Clear Motion 4o0 versus the C7000′s Clear Motion 600) and no 3D.

In the end, the C7000 caught my eye, and I just had to have it after looking at it for half a day at Audio House. After all, I’d been quite impressed by Samsung’s excellent B7000, which I reviewed last year.

Like the older model, the eye candy in movies such as Avatar (non-3D) and Pearl Harbor is very impressive on the new C7000.

If you prefer the theatre experience, dim the lights and run the Movie mode on the TV. This way, the screen’s a little dimmer and “yellow” in colour temperature, replicating what you see in the cinema.

I personally prefer something with more impact and punch, so the C7000′s Dynamic mode does it for me with the extra brightness and contrast. And no, even after a couple of movies like Terminator Salvation and Pearl Harbor, the eyes don’t tire. They want more.

Blacks really look black, even when compared to LG’s excellent SL90 series from last year (which I considered as an alternative to the Samsungs). And how fast motion is portrayed can also be easily adjusted, whether you prefer the “computer-like” super-sharp/in-focus feel or one that seems more “natural”, so there’s no argument on whether the details are too soft or hard.

What impresses me too are the colours, which really come alive in a movie like Avatar. Here, you never fail to get a good sense of the beauty – and savagery – of Pandora because you are easily drawn into its multi-coloured world.

Details are extremely fine as well. You tend to take more seriously Colonel Quaritch’s safety brief early in the Avatar movie, when you see the battle scars etched on his skull in a stark close-up.

Of course, the C7000 is far from perfect. Quite a few folks on AV forums have complained about backlight bleed issues, especially at the edges where they could see “clouds” forming in place of a solid colour. I personally have not seen this, so either I am lucky or I have not been concentrating hard enough to find the problem.

Plus, some serious video buffs are still a little underwhelmed and are looking to the more precise dimming offered by the more expensive Samsung C8000 and C9000 (going at a cool S$12,888). But those models were surely out of my budget.

For me, a bigger issue I had with the C7000, until recently, was HDMI sync’ing problems with my Denon AVR. With my old Samsung 40-inch LCD, I could turn on my devices in any order and things would just sync up and I’d get sound and video within a second or two.

With the C7000, I actually had to apply a software patch from Samsung to solve persistent sync’ing problems, which a number of Onkyo AVR users have also raised. This mostly solved the problem, even though the occasional failure to sync still happened until I found a workaround.

The simplest way to ensure everything works is to turn on my AVR and source (StarHub set-top box, Sony Playstation 3 or HTPC) before turning on the TV. With this, I’ve never had a problem.

Since I’m at it, here’s another tip for fellow C7000 users. This is for folks running a set-up like mine  - I know there are lots of you out there who bought a Denon AVR in the past year and also use a Sony Playstation 3 as a Blu-ray player.

When playing Blu-ray movies, I had problems sync’ing a character’s dialogue with his lip movements, possibly because I’ve turned on the motion-enhancement settings on the C7000.

To get past this, try setting the Denon AVR’s audio delay to match the video on your Blu-rays. I set mine to more than 100ms and the problem went away immediately. I don’t see anymore out-of-sync lips now.

On the whole, the C7000 has been a big leap over my previous TV. With a list price of over S$6,000 (I got it cheaper after trading in my 3D glasses and 3D Blu-ray player), it had better be.

To be honest, I’m not blown away by the newfangled 3D feature. Going by shop demos, some content are hit-and-miss when upmixed by the TV’s 2D-to-3D converter.

But on regular 2D TV, I’m pretty impressed by the C7000. Great contrast and excellent colours make it an impressive screen for Blu-ray movies and even everyday pay-TV content. Well worth checking out if you are looking for a slim LED TV that packs in the goodies.

Apparently yes, especially if there’s money to be made off tech-crazy Singaporeans.

It’s not a gaming-themed show like last year’s Licence2Play, but the Singapore Great Electronics Sale 2010 this weekend at Suntec city (9th to 11th April) was supposed to be about 3D-TVs. Even though it is not, it drew in 30,000 people on the first day.

The event, which took up one convention hall on the 6th floor at Suntec, turned out to be a pretty meh experience for me.

Besides a few tech vendors like Samsung, LG, Panasonic and AudioHouse, the event was full of non-tech booths. DBS credit cards, crystal fengshui stuff and spa massages were some of the booths I spotted in my quick tour around the hall. It was an eclectic mess.

One of the more interesting booths I spotted was by Joco People, a niche shop selling toy cameras from Japan. The cameras cost around S$49 per camera for those displayed in the picture. Joco People’s website doesn’t sem to be up yet, but they seem to operate more via Facebook, and you can find more about them on their FB page.

Another interesting booth was selling powerballs, which was advertised as the world’s strongest sport gyroscope. It literally “explodes with mind numbing inertial forces” and can be used for strength training and rehabilitation of injuries for the wrist and arm, according to the official Powerball website. From athletes to musicians, the powerball can be used for “sports, hobbies or pastimes”, and can generate up to 40 pounds of resistance.

I tried it. You’re supposed to rotate your wrist whilst the Powerball’s gyroscope is spinning (which I was trying to do in the photo above, although that might not be clear), which creates resistance and tones your arm.

It’s a cute toy, but I doubt it will be part of my gym or sport regiment soon. And it ain’t cheap either. The 250Hz Classic in my hand cost S$39.90. There were a lot of folks gawking and trying out the powerball for its niche novelty, but I wonder how many folks actually bought the toy/training device. If you’re interested, the Singapore powerball website is here.

After some wandering, I finally spotted something I could wholeheartedly indulge in: A PC, PS3, Wii and Xbox games booth. The prices are slightly cheaper than the usual Funan prices, and that is PS3 Bioshock at S$29.90 and FF XIII (English) for S$69.90. As a PC gamer, I spotted the PC Mass Effect 2 going for S$49.90. Not a bad deal.

In summary, I would say that this Great Electronics Sale, compared to the IT Show that was just over in March, is a little underwhelming in terms of choice and range of IT products. If you went there for a dedicated gadget-hunting trip, it’s probably not worth it. But if you were in the vicinity and popped by (like I did), it might be fun for all the random weird stuff.

From April 30, all you couch potatoes will be punching in different numbers on your StarHub remote to access the channels you have grown so accustomed to over the more than 10 years that cable TV has been on the telly in Singapore.

Following other pay-TV operators like Astro in Malaysia, StarHub is changing all its channel numbers into three-digit numbers, themed along the genres they belong to.

So, your favourite Football Channel would be changed from Ch 27 to Ch 222 (Ch 200+ is for sports), while HBO would change from Ch60 to Ch601 (Ch 600+ for movies), for example.

StarHub says this will let users easily locate their more than 100 channels, to which they added four more at today’s announcement and demo.

But the real reason for doing this, I’d imagine, is to prepare for a market without exclusive pay-TV deals. Remember the long-overdue ruling against exclusive pay-TV content?

It means StarHub and its chief rival SingTel can no longer keep the good stuff – be it Discovery or HBO or Barclays Premier League – to themselves, after the current contracts expire in the next one to three years.

That means something of a free-for-all, especially when it comes to StarHub’s large stable of currently exclusive programmes. I can imagine SingTel would like HBO or Discovery or even CBeeBees, which StarHub wrested from the “red” operator last year, in the mio TV lineup.

With a big number of channels tied up for now, StarHub must be thinking which ones SingTel will attempt to grab a share of when their contracts end. It could also try to grab some from SingTel as well.

How will a change in its channel numbers help StarHub? The new system could very well prepare for new channels that are incoming – possibly ones which StarHub would like from SingTel’s current lineup.

The most attractive would be the video-on-demand programmes straight from the United States, which mio TV customers enjoy, as a perceptive journo pal of mine told me today at the StarHub event.

StarHub’s head of content, Kathleen Syron, says it has readied an entire 900 series of numbers to cater to channels showing “must-carry” programmes from its rival. You can imagine these could easily include channels it wants from SingTel too.

Of course, the StarHub folks were mum when asked which channels they were eyeing, or how many they expect to bring over or share with SingTel. They say they do not expect any change in channels this year (no surprise, given that the contracts usually tie up for three years, and the ruling only applies to contracts signed from this month).

Interestingly, StarHub chief operating officer Tan Tong Hai said there is a lot more to be discussed with the authorities, when it comes to the new ruling to kick out exclusive TV deals.

You get a sense that it is still being tweaked as we go. But I, for one, can’t wait for the day when all the barn doors are open, and exclusive pay-TV deals are consigned to the past.

Think about it – change comes not just to the pay-TV landscape, but also the market for this whole triple-play bundle of services that also includes mobile and broadband.

Without exclusive content to anchor a triple-play offering, operators will have to work harder to package their deals. And that’s a good thing for consumers.

Like many shoppers who’ve been to an electronics store lately, I’ve had a look at Samsung’s incredibly slim B7000 LED TVs (also known as its Series 7 LED TVs) and been pleasantly surprised.

With a depth of under 3cm for the 40-inch model, these svelte beauties never fail to get a reaction when you stare at them from the side – even my parents, non-techies that they are, were shocked to see how thin a screen has become these days.

Yet, looks aside, I never expected to be wowed by the equally stunning image quality on the B7000, which I had a chance to check out closely when Samsung sent us a 40-incher.

Watching regular TV on it, you get the sense that the clarity, sharpness and smoothness of the image are, at most, a small notch up over a good Full HD TV you can get for a third of the price. Sure, the blacks are blacker, the depth is natural, and clearly, with StarHub’s HD programs at 1080i, the B7000 looks pretty sharp, but this is still “just TV”.

What really earns the Full HD B7000 its S$5,399 price tag is Blu-ray movies. I was blown away when I watched Pearl Harbour on the 40-incher, which has 4 HDMI ports to hook up to your PS3, DVD player and other gear.

The sharpness and clarity were the best I’ve seen lately. I’ve had an old Samsung Full HD TV for almost a year now, and seeing the same movie on the B7000 was like doing so with a new pair of glasses for my astigmatism. Characters seem a lot more lifelike, with a sharpness and depth that are not seen on other screens. The same can be said for scenery, which really draws you in with fine detail, such as grass and metal, on-screen.

I suddenly find myself noticing details I never noticed before, like a US soldier running across the screen as a fireball erupts from an aircraft hangar, or the small, desperate sailors rushing on deck as a battleship begins to sink.

Even when a camera tilts up along a tower, as in a scene in Pearl Harbour, or when a plane zooms by in a split second, there is none of that annoying trail of blur. The B7000′s 100Hz engine apparently takes care of that, and your suspension of disbelief is well retained.

Usually, I’d keep a TV’s image settings to “natural” or “standard”, but with the B7000, I actually turned it to “Dynamic” and enjoyed Pearl Harbour tremendously. There’s little of the over-saturation on most other TV’s dynamic settings – here, the more aggressive tuning up actually works.

Yes, Pearl Harbour’s sky was bluer and the mountains greener, but if you’ve been to Hawaii, you’ll know how it all looks when the sun is up – the B7000 re-creates that lushness stunningly well.

To have a second look, I then fired up the Batman Begins Blu-ray. Again, the sharpness impresses, as does the contrast. In dim scenes, and there are many in the movie, you can make out outlines of a character better than on regular TV sets.

I’ve praised Pioneer’s plasmas in years past for their natural depth in movies, and Sharp’s LCDs for amazingly fine lines, particularly for games and animation features, say, A Bug’s Life.

But I’m happy to say the B7000 is the king of the hill now if you are looking for everything in a screen. Not just slim. Not just sharp. Not just deep blacks. Not just smooth motion. It’s got them all.

Yes, the B7000 also has as many frills as you’ll find on a TV today – there’s a second, egg-shaped remote, network connectivity, and photo viewing. But ultimately, it’s the image quality that really stands out. Even its slimmess becomes easily forgotten when you see what’s on screen.

If there is an argument against the B7000, it would be that motion can at times seem a little too “computer-like”. That is when a moving object stays very sharply in focus – more so than our eyes and brains are used to. I personally prefer this, up to an extent (I’d say no to Philips’ old PixelPlus, for example), though there are some who prefer a more “natural” image, say, in a plasma.

It’s one of those arguments nobody wins – like whether sound from a set of speakers is warm enough. With the B7000, though, I’d think a large part of its audience – folks used to sharp LCD screens and video games – will welcome the sharpness.

Of course, with a list price of S$5,399 (or over S$4,000 on the street), this is one expensive screen, especially as prices are falling like mad for other Full HD models. All I can say is go to a shop and demo it with a Blu-ray movie, preferably with lots of fast action and explosions, and be prepared to be impressed.

Sweaty crowds, loudspeakers and lelong prices. What else would you expect from the latest quarterly IT bazaar happening at Suntec City from today to Sunday, right?

Crowds at the ongoing PC Show seem thinner than the previous IT Show in March, perhaps due to the fears over the H1N1 swine flu, or maybe the bleak economy is finally getting to some folks. Sony, noticeably, did not turn up with a bang as before – there were no Level 2 booths you’ve come to see at Suntec City.

Still, there are bargains to be had. And here are my own few Goondu recommendations.

1. LG 32-inch HD-ready TV (S$499)
With 37- and 40-inchers going for as low as $899, the smaller screens are obviously free-falling in price. One deal I saw at the LG booth was an HD-ready 32-incher with a built-in terrestial DTV tuner going for a mere S$499.

Just a few shows ago, 32-inchers went for S$799 and they were not even HD-ready. At this price, this LG TV is great for a second TV in the bedroom, or for your console games.

2. Toshiba 42AV550E HD-ready TV (S$1,099)
By the time you head down to the show, this might be going for even cheaper, perhaps due to the competition in the halls. But still, a 42-inch HD-ready TV for about S$1,000 is a not a shabby deal. I saw this at AudioHouse, which have a few other Toshiba TVs on offer too.

3. Linksys Wireless N WRT610N router bundle (S$308 with USB stick)
I’ve been a D-Link fan for a while, but finally switched back to Linksys today. Yes, I bought the WRT610N router, which offers simultaneous 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, which is great for me as I am getting swamped by these nasty SingTel 2Wire routers blasting their 2.4GHz signals into my apartment.

Considering that the D-Link DIR855 is still too expensive (S$299), I thought about buying a cheaper WRT320N (S$169), which could do only 5GHz or 2.4GHz at one time, which is fine because I wanted to keep my old D-Link DGL-4300 router as a 2.4GHz router and run the WRT320N as a 5GHz-only access point.

But in the end, I was seduced by the considerably cheap offer from Linksys – a S$308 bundle for the more powerful simultaneous dual-band WRT610N + a WUSB600N USB stick. I’m going fully 5GHz now for my laptop and my wife’s laptop. The PDA goes on 3.5G!

4. Dell Studio XPS 435 (about S$1,999, depending on config)
Silly Dell did not bring any Alienware gaming notebooks on show, despite launching the much-vaulted brand in Singapore recently. However, it did bring the nice Studio XPS desktops, which were huge full-tower PCs with a nice reflective finish at the front. Chio!

5. XFX ATI HD4870x2 graphics card (S$539)
The guy at the XFX booth said that there’s only one of these king-of-the-hill graphics cards going for a whopping S$200+ off the regular Sim Lim Square price (about S$750 – S$800). By the time you read this, it might even be gone. If you are looking at a great deal for a top-end gaming card, quickly head 0n down.

6. MSI X340 laptop (S$1,188 to S$1,388)
Forget about the Apple Macbook Air. The cheap and good laptop that you can bring everywhere comes from MSI, the lesser-known Taiwanese motherboard maker. This svelte, ultra-thin notebook (at just 6mm at its thinnest) with a 13-inch screen is really something to fall in love with.

There are two models – a S$1,388 one with Intel’s SU3500 low-power CPU, and a cheaper S$1,188 one with a slower Intel Atom Z530 CPU. Both look great in black or white. If the cheap S$588 MSI Wind netbook (the cheapest netbook around, I think) doesn’t seduce you, then the X340 notebook should do the job of parting money from your wallet.

More pix here from the show… have fun shopping and tell us what you bought!

What’s the lowdown on the best deals this year? Well, despite the economic downturn and Sitex being usually smaller than the other shows earlier in the year, the halls are chockfull of bargains for those looking for TVs, cameras or memory cards.

But first, make sure you get in early, and I don’t mean in the afternoon.

As you can see from the picture below, the roads just outside the main carpark are jammed on the first day – Thursday – at 4pm.

Fortunately, if you want to get a taxi with that gigantic LCD screen you just bargained for, there were quite a few of them on hand, at least on this weekend afternoon. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that there’s an MRT station right next to Expo, unlike at Suntec City?

Cheap TVs
What first caught my eye were the usual TV discounts. Many manufactuers had Full HD screens for under S$1,700, like this 42-inch JVC (below) being a bargain at S$1,699.

It ain’t the only good deal. Just as you step out of the MRT, at the end of one side of the Singapore Expo, a Samsung Series 4 “entry level” 42-inch plasma TV (below) was going for even cheaper (though it’s not Full HD). S$1,399 with S$300 of vouchers, and home theatre and camera? Not bad at all.

The bargains didn’t just go with the big living room-sized screens. Smaller 32-inchers for the bedroom, maybe to hook up a game console, were also going cheap. Sorry if you just bought one for about S$1,000. A Sharp 32-incher went for just S$749 today.

Somehow we didn’t catch this piece of news last week, but it’s still worthwhile to mention that StarHub has a new Hubstation PVR that now does HD as well.

This is indeed good news for HD buffs who want to also record their favourite programmes on TV. Previously, there was the useful Hubstation PVR which did not do HD and the HD box which did not have a PVR. Now the Hubstation HD gives you the best of both worlds.

I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these, since I got HD on my menu now but want to use the EPG (electronic programme guide) on the Hubstation, which is a really useful feature to ensure I don’t miss my favourite History Channel Battle 360 and Dogfights docus and even some movies on HD5.

For now, the box is only for rental – at S$14 a month (the old Hubstation was at S$8 a month). That’s not bad if you consider a second regular digital box sets you back S$12 each month if you install one in your bedroom.

The other neat features of the old Hubstation are still there, including free fixed line voice, and more importantly, a free 1Mbps cable modem link, which comes in handy for hooking up your Xbox or PS3, which tends to sit next to your TV and cable box. It sure beats connecting over Wi-Fi, especially if your place has lots of blind spots like mine.

The new box, being an HD box, also has useful HDMI output, so the video goes nicely to your new HDTV or one of those swanky new AV amps like an Onkyo TX-SR606 or Denon AVR-1909.

Now the question is: will StarHub let people like me who have recently bought an HD box and those who own old Hubstations to upgrade easily? Come on, offer us a good price and we will upgrade and bring up the total HD takeup in Singapore!

(1) The Ultimate HP Student Offer (but they were willing to sell to this 39-year-old as well) at Booth 8428 level 4

It’s the new HP Pavilion dv5-1034TX running on Centrino 2 with a 512MB GeForce 9600M GT graphics card, Vista Home Premium, 15.4 inch WXGA screen, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, DVD-RW, 6-cell battery, integrated TV tuner and webcam going for S$1,699. It’s simply the cheapest Centrino 2 laptop with a decent graphics card for gaming that I saw at the show. The entire booth only sells this single product. Make sure this is your benchmark model when checking out a new laptop.

(2) The Lightpulse pen at level 6 Convergent Systems booth

This is a really cool gadget. it’s a pen with a built in mic and recorder. As you take notes, you are also recording what the speaker is saying. Now every word that you type is bookmarked to the corresponding portion of the recording, think of it like every word you write is an automatic bookmark.

So if you want to jump to line 3 of your notes to hear what the professor is saying about macroeconomics, just click your pen on that third line and the corresponding recording will playback.

There are loads of other cool stuff you can do, like drawing a set of piano keys and then playing a tune using Do Re Mi, getting the pen to do calculations for you and even translating a foreign language. It’s hard to describe this S$265 device – best you check it out for yourself.

(3) The Acer Predator gaming rig – at one of the Acer booths on level 4 near the entrance
There’s no discount for this new gaming rig which starts for S$3,999 but is definitely worth looking into. Gamers here have been waiting for Voodoos and Alienwares but they remain dreams. The Predator is possibly the first of such rigs that you can now buy in Singapore. It looks powerful, rugged and just right for my desk at home.

See the top orange cover,  it can be pulled down to reveal ports at the top as well as a dashboard to place your small devices and in Acer’s case the brochures!!

This dude comes with four easy to swap HDD drive bays which you can use to set up RAID 0,1 and even 5 (RAID is basically a system that lets you back-up your hard disk drive on the fly by putting multiple drives, so if one hard disk crashes, the remainder acts as backups, you need at least two drives but its better when you have four) You don’t even need to plug in the power and data cables to your hard disk drive. Just slot it in, push it back and it works!

In case you are wondering why its called the PREDATOR, the optical drives sort of ejects with “jaws” holding the drive at the side.

Here are the specs
Processors – Intel Core 2 Extreme quad core QX9650 or Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400
Motherboard – nForce 780i SLI
RAM- up to 8GB DDR2 800
HDD – serial ATA up to 1 TB, four HDD bays
Optical – two drive bays, both with the Jaws look
Graphics – dual Nvidia 9800GTX SLI graphics, single card option available
Ports – front – four USB ports, one card reader, headphone and mic
back – four USB, one firewire, two LAN ports, two eSATA and various audio ports

It also comes with a 24-inch 1920 x 1080 orange screen, G15 gaming laptop and G5 gaming mouse from Logitech. There are two bundles at the show – 3,999 and 5,999. The main difference in the 3,999 does not have Blu-ray, has only a single graphics (think it was 9800GTX) and uses normal Quad Core. The higher-end one uses dual 9800 GTX, Blu-ray and Intel Extreme procs.

Check out www.acer.com.sg/predator for more details.

(4) Samsung 2493HM 24-inch 1920 x 1080 monitor
I liked this monitor a lot – It’s 24-inch, Full HD, has HDMI, VGA and DVI and most importantly can pivot, swivel and tilt. List price only $599. I saw it at level 2 Samsung booth and level 4 as well.

Brands generally don’t set up their own booth and instead work with their resellers. It’s not a problem when there are 1-2 resellers representing each major brand at the show but when there are five different resellers within a 30 feet space representing the same brand, its a major confusion.

That was the case with one Acer booth where there were like Challenger, Harvey Norman and three other retailers all selling Acer laptops at the same booth. They all wore the same uniform, booths looked identical and sold the same packages and deals for the “official” deals listed on the brochure but each also had their own special deals (which is usually not on the brochure).

Dell was also very interesting. There were two huge Dell kiosks at level 4. The second Dell kiosk claimed that it was the real Dell while the other chap was a reseller but when I asked if I could downgrade the Intel Extreme processor to a normal one for the M1730 gaming laptop, they said I could only upgrade and not downgrade.

With so many different representing the same vendors, its simply good news for consumers. It’s no longer the case of simply comparing the same class of product, say like a 22-inch monitor, against different brands but also checking out the different booths selling the same brand to see if you can get a better deal. Trust me, it can still go lower than the “official” price on the brochure.

There’s a reason why the vendors have placards with space beneath the “list price” – they are meant to be SLASHED!!!

I caught these “cops” swinging light sabres at the M1 booth. Not sure what they were doing but this guy merrily posed for the cam.

The knowledge of salesmen at the show were generally skin deep and Intel definitely needs to spend a lot more marketing dollars to tell people why they should consider the new Centrino 2 laptops over the original Centrinos.

One salesgirl (I think it was from one of the big electronics superstores) gave me a blank look when I asked if she had any Centrino 2 laptops. Another peddling Asus laptops pointed out, erroneously,  that the laptops with the Intel Core 2 Duo processors were the Centrino 2s.

Even for those who correctly pointed out their Centrino 2 laptops, some claimed their models were launched in January (not possible since they just came out last month), some could not explain why Centrino 2 was better and nobody mentioned the fact Centrino 2 had two Wi-Fi radios built in so you could use the less congested 5GHz networks as well as mass market 2.4GHz. So please don’t just swallow wholesale what they tell you, you have to do your own research first.

Some retailers also employed interesting tactics like one-hour specials, five sets only specials, and more. This chap from the Gain City booth for instance suddenly took the stand and shouted his five-sets-only special of a Sony S-series 40-inch Full HD TV going for S$2,199, which was S$100 cheaper than the last time I checked at the other Sony booth on level 2.

The good TV deals seem to be a Audio House where they are peddling a 46-inch Full HD set for S$1,999 but I was not too impressed with the picture quality – it seemed rather grainy. But Audio House is smart, it placed a better 46-inch TV (going for S$2,399) the last time I checked with less noise and better picture quality.

A 37-inch HD-ready set also Sharp was going for as low as S$999. If you are looking for a TV this show, the Sharp ones at Audio House’s booth are the ones to beat. Based on my assessment, the TVs can go lower and as at day one yesterday, they were still too high. TV is still the hottest item, so keep checking for the good deals.

I decided to make a U-turn and head for Shaw Centre, my “secret” car park with plenty of lots whenever I wanted to avoid the crazy car park queues at Suntec, Millenia and Marina.

To my horror, the car park at Shaw was full and I had no choice but to make another run – this time to Raffles City. Phew, there were still 40 or so lots left although they were filling up quickly as well. Above is the car park sign board just outside Suntec City at about 2.15pm yesterday as I was going to Comex.


Check out the peeps getting up the escalator on level 1.

The entrance to level 2 of Comex. The entire ballroom and function rooms at level 2 were occupied by SingTel and Samsung. SingTel was out for the kill and appears to have the best freebies of the three telcos at Comex.

The red camp was throwing in a free Acer Aspire One (the Windows version) mini laptop for anyone signing up for its 8 Mbps plan at S$55 per month with a 2-year contract and a Lenovo G230 for those going for a 30-month S$79.95 per month 10Mbps deal.

SIngTel also put up attractive posters of Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy and other hit US TV series which will soon be available on its new Season Pass video-on-demand channels which offer the episodes just 24 hours after they are screened in the US.

To give customers a taste of the channels, SingTel threw in free mio TV installation, set-top box and one free Season Pass title for all who subscribed to a broadband package.

SingTel also slashed its mobile broadband 3G/3.5G rates by half with a 1 Mbps plan costing only S$11.21 per month (I think it’s the cheapest now) if you sign-up for a year’s contract. Note however, that SingTel still offers the 50GB cap and not unlimited use like StarHub and M1.

Here’s the pix of the crowd waiting for their Q numbers to be called at the SingTel broadband booth. The SIngTel area was the most crowded of the three telcos and at 2-3pm, there was a sizeable crowd which I had to weave my way through.

SingTel brought in the cavalry too, with the showcase of its F1 race car, but nobody seemed keen and was too busy sussing out the deals.

Just outside SIngTel’s show area was an even bigger one occupied by Samsung who was peddling everything they had in full force – TVs, monitors, printers, MP3 players and even washing machines.

The TV wall featured Samsung series 4, 5 and 6 TVs together. What is interesting is Samsung did not display the same content for its series 4 (HD-Ready) units (the ones on the far right column) compared to the Full HD series 5 and 6 units (middle and left columns respectively).

It was showing HD5 on th series 4 panels and a looping collection of pre-recorded HD footage – which includes games, documentaries and movies – on the series 5 and 6.

This made the series 5 and 6 look a lot better compared to the HD5 footage which was showing at standard def anyway at that time. You really cannot tell the difference between HD-Ready and Full HD at anything less than 46-inch and only barely at 46-inch. So save your money.

Level 3 was StarHub and Sony. StarHub looked like it occupied a lot more exhibition space than SIngTel, but the crowds were definitely smaller at green camp. I wasn’t complaining though since I don’t like squuezing through warm bodies filled with perspiration.

Here’s the registration booth at StarHub – definitely less people compared to the red camp. But maybe it was because it was already pass 3pm and the lunch crowd had gone back to work.

StarHub did not have free laptops to offer and its best premium is probably the Samsung flash memory camcorder VP-MX10A for its S$59.92 per month 8Mbps broadband line which includes a 1Mbps mobile broadband package as well.

StarHub’s strategy appears to be going for bundled deals instead of using its traditional end-of-year fabulous premiums strategy (I own two free HP laptops from SCV contracts). StarHub’s strategy hasn’t really changed in that sense, but SingTel has become a lot more aggressive in courting new customers by throwing in good premiums for sign-ups in the middle of the year.

What was really intresting however is the new video-on-demand channels which StarHub has just launched recently. For the longest time, StarHub has only been able to offer ‘near demand:” channels which is channels which screen movies at multiple fixed times a day.

The problem with this system is that if the show has already started, you have to wait for the next screening, although StarHub tries to resolve this issue by having multiple channels of the same show running simultaneously.

The reason StarHub could not offer VOD in the past is because of what I suspect is the limitation of cable broadcast technology. And the reason why StarHub can now offer real VOD is because, well, it’s using the Internet to deliver VOD.

How do I know this? Well I found out that my StarHub HD set top box cannot get the new StarHub  VOD channels and I had to switch to the Hubstation box (which is only standard definition) to get VOD. The Hubstation box is specifically needed (the normal digital cable SD box wont do too) because it has a built-in cable modem which can therefore stream the VOD channels.

The HD box does not have a built-in modem so if you are a pure StarHub cable TV subscriber you have to choose between HD channels and the new VOD channels.

However, you can plug-in an external cable modem to the HD set-top box but you need to have a separate StarHub broadband subscription for this.

For me, since I am a “triple hubber” with mobile, broadband and TV under StarHub, this is not a real problem but if only want cable TV, you are stuck.

SingTel’s mioTV, in comparison, also needs a modem and a set-top box to get the channels but SingTel does not require that you must have a separate broadband subscription. Of course this anomaly can be solved when StarHUb launches a HD Hubstation box.

Sony was also out in full force on level 3 with everything from TVs to VAIO laptops to camcorders.