What I Bought at the IT Show 2008

Photo via Hardwarezone

anwar ibrahim, nurul izzah anwarThe annual local IT and consumer electronics exhibition show at Suntec City (6-9th March) has ended by now and I bet there’s plenty happy and equally irate buyers

I guess that depends on their purchase :)

I was there to buy some items with Hairol last Friday. I’m glad he tagged along, it’s been awhile since I saw him. He look good, although he was surprised at my long hippie hair I’m sporting now

Other than the year end SITEX, this IT Show is great to buy computer and electronics bargains. You find prices literally being slashed

For example, my total purchase today, I saved up to $110 in savings, compared if I went to buy it at a usual retail store

MyBook Essential 750GB – $269

The Western Digital MyBook Brochure

I bought an external hard drive, MyBook Essential 750GB for $269. I was planning to buy a 1TB capacity at $299 but it was sold out at the Western Digital booth.

Mind you, I came on the second day of the show and it’s sold out! The show is held for a total of four days

I was totally surprised by that, so I searched others booths for the 1TB capacity and it seems other lucky buyers did their homework. They came early to the show and snapped the HDD

Well I learned my lesson, I’ll come even earlier next year

This is how my ‘rig’ looks like

This external hard disk drive is to be my backup-backup to my precious data

Yes you heard it right. I already have a back up to my computer data, but since I can afford it, why not get a backup to the backup.

Am I being too kiasu? Well I don’t think so, hehe

When you’re in the line of hosting, designing, blogging that earns a living, some data are worth keeping. And no, it’s not porn if that’s what you’re thinking

My external HDD capacity

One thing I learned about buying gadgets is that, what they print on the box may not reflect when in use. For example, the MyBook promised 750 gigabytes but instead on my PC it reads as 698GB.

Very misleading right, you thought you’ll get 750GB but I got otherwise

As we all know 750,000,000,000 bytes makes out to be 698GB. 1024 bytes makes 1MB. So do the math

The analogy is like how you pronounce tomato vs tomahto.

Your purchase will usually underperform and the stats on the box are usually optimum performances done under lab condition for which your PC can’t emulate

By the way, I recommend SyncBack software to sync and backup your data. It’s freeware and a godsend. No more worries about copy, paste issues, backup scheduling and such

JVC Camcorder – $269

The camcorder brochure

Recalled my earlier entry of me needing a video cam to get hold of my sprint workout timing, well I purchased a cheap DV camcorder

It was the cheapest of the lot I’d might say

Initially it was priced at $299 but the guy reduced it to $269. I didn’t even bargained.

Maybe they’re trying to clear the stock, or perhaps no one is buying. Whatever it is, I’m glad I saved plenty

I did my research online on the camcorder before buying it and it has positive reviews.

It’s a no-frill simple DV camcorder, coupled with basic video recording functions and a good optical zoom at the low affordable price

I also bought at the IT fair a firewire cable and a IEEE card (PCI slot), so as I can turn the video recording on MiniDv tape into digital form saved into my local PC

A test video

Other Purchase

I also bought couple of other small items for my computer like USB speakers and such.

The price difference for the smaller items doesn’t vary much from outside retail however, but still any kind of savings, do bring it on

Here are some of my personal advice for such IT Show

Research - Over four levels and over 800 booths, do your online research online for what you want to purchase or you’ll get aching feet. It’s good to narrow down to a couple of options, rather than go to the show and walk around aimlessly. I usually hang around Hardwarezone forums to find out the show layout plus a sneak prices of the items

Come Light – Wear comfortable feetwear and bring someone to help you lug that bulky purchase. Luckily this year no one stepped on my feet. To think I was wearing slippers too, keke

Bring Cash – It’s better to pay by cash as some booth have better deals for those paying by cash. I withdrew the money in advance at my place as I know there will be long queues at the Suntec or City Hall ATM machines. But do watch out for pickpockets. Always helpful to put it in your bag, zipped, locked or otherwise

One gripe about our local IT show is that, plenty of papers gone to waste. The floors littered with brochures macam (like) confetti.

Maybe one day when prices have caught up with technology making it affordable, I would flip out my PDA or Blackberry to check out the products and prices at each booth.

Such pricelist or data is transferred to me via wireless from respective booth.

No more brochures, we save paper. Now that’s cool eh

Other Pingster Bloggers at IT Show 2008

• gamerz
• claudia
• chillycraps
• kriscell
• sweetgift

See you all next year