A visit to the KL tower, Malaysia

An evening at the KL Tower, Malaysia

We were tired after a long journey from the airport to the city and after taking sufficient rest in our serviced apartment which I had written about earlier (you can read it here), we decided to quickly make a dash to the KL tower. This was pretty nearby to the Vortex suites and though it is walkable there is a bit of elevation as you approach the tower and it is not entirely possiblet to climb so much unless you are fit.

Taxi is a better way to reach the top and it should not cost you too much. There are two floors to the tower one being the observation deck only and the other having a restaurant and an open air observation deck from where you can see the city much more freely for photography purposes. The observation deck is fully housed in glass and hence provides for very less photography opportunity in a clarity sense.

The tickets are sold on either individual or combo basis. The observation deck for 2 adults and 2 kids must set you back about 150-170RM (1RM = 17Rs) whereas if you opt for other packages you will end up paying more but get to see other things such as aquarium, upside down house, and mini zoo. There is a normal queue and a priority queue for those who booked using booking sites such as booking.com. We thankfully had a priority queue entry though the number of people in normal queue were not many when we went it. However this number had swelled by the time we finished seeing the tower.

We spent a good hour going around and clicking photos of KL’s landmarks including the Petronas towers which is visible from one of the sides and I somehow found taking a photo of the twin towers from KL tower better than the other way round. It was just a choice between the two keeping costs in mind and I chose the KL tower this time.

Besides the KL tower observation deck, there is information and souveniers available everywhere around and you can buy them if you wish. The latest trick of having your photo taken and processed for you will earn those guys a few ringgits and make you poorer by that much as well. These are not photos that you yourself cannot take or process but remember everyone may not have access to good phones or cameras and for some, the moment captured in a pic is just what they need in return for some cash.

Written with StackEdit.

Apple to likely introduce the 7-inch iPAD mini to compete againstcurrent bestsellers

In the crowded tablet marketplace, we already have thousands of android tablets like Samsung, Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle HD, Barnes and Noble Nook, Acer Iconia, Asus Padphone, Blackberry which was a failure as such, and a host of Indian ones like Beetel, Micromax, and few others.

(image courtesy: Engadget)

While Steve Jobs always believed that a greater than 9 tablet was the most perfect form suitable for daily use, the myriad 7 tablets already in the marketplace seems to defy that logic and in fact being more suitable to be carried around and used more effectively. Now with Steve gone, Tim Cook and co, seems to be thinking otherwise to increase their tablet market share by entering into the categories of 7-inchers with the iPad mini which is to be announced shortly.

It would be interesting to wait and watch how well Apple does in this segment of overcrowded 7-inchers. With microsoft entering the tablet with its surface offering, its only time that will tell whether the fragmentation is an exact 33% of the big three: Google, MS and Apple, or whether Apple would still dominate this category as well going forward.

Well whatever it is, this proves more and more that only the big and powerful market leaders can actually get some sales going in anything they make be it hardware or software, though some others keep trying in a bid to win over them either in form or in function.

Via: Engadget

Tags: bangalore, bengaluru, blog, apple, ipad, mini, india, launch, date, a6, processor, 7-inch, tablet, android, surface, microsoft, google

The new Nokia Lumia 900 review from The Verge website. Great phone, but software has to catch up a lot !!

The Verge put up a crisp review of the new Nokia Lumia 900 which was released by AT&T recently in the USA. One can compare this to the Samsung Galaxy Note in terms of dimensions. However this has a clear black display and not an AMOLED and the focus point about this phone is its industrial design in terms of hardware. Since microsoft uses lots of playing around with fonts for its menus, and not much of icons or pictures, the phone is definitely fast to use. However not many people would be comfortable with this mode of user interface and menus after seeing Apple and Android which would deter them from buying this phone. After the Nokia Lumia 800 dropped to 23000 from 30000, a straight 7000 jump in amount in India, it is clear that this is to make way for the next hardware beauty the Lumia 900. One can expect this to be priced at 30000 and further drop to about 25000 in coming months after launch.

What is left then is to see how people receive the windows software and how many more useful updates are provided by Microsoft in future. Hope you enjoyed the video. Do leave your comments and let us know if you will buy this phone or not?

Tags: 900, bangalore, benglauru, blog, design, india, industrial, karnataka, launch, lumia, mango, microsoft, nokia, phone, price

Asus EEE Transformer Prime Quad Core Tegra-3 Honeycomb Tablet review by Ritchiesroom (upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich)

Ritchie’s room recently did a quick review of the Asus Transformer Prime Android Tablet. The design elements are very notable as compared to previous tablets in this one. To understand what you will get for a sweet price, read on to know more.

Notion Ink Adam preorder now possible, but is it worth it?

(source androinica.com)

(source www.notionink.com)

The Notion Ink Adam is finally out for preorder. Fine. But the details have been so seriously sketchy that Indians have no idea about what exactly it costs in India, and how one can get hold of the Android tablet. On an average in the USA the notion ink adam costs roughly close to $450 or in Indian money a little over Rs.20000/-. As of now shipping to any country via DHL costs a whopping 50 USD or roughly Rs.2500/-. While this is ok for other countries, a product conceptualized, designed in India is manufactured in China and sold all over the world first.

I think the Indian government should seriously consider policing such product launches. Given the fact the person designing the product has an office in Bangalore, has studied in an enviable place like IIT and has been Indianized all long the way, this becomes unacceptable. Using Indian soil for product launches elsewhere. This applies to Apple in part too. Look at them, they have launched iPAD everywhere other than India. I can understand their sentiments. India perhaps is still not fully ready for a device like iPAD. But lets take Samsung for instance. They came, they saw the opportunity and they conquered.

Yes its a bit high in price no doubts, retailing at a whopping Rs.36,000 for a silly tablet running android. But then my iPhone is also the same price and I guess its justified if I own one over the other. However for people who were looking at affordable computing with a tablets – congrats folks, your dreams have just been shattered by Samsung. The only other way you can own one is to get into the infamous and dubious EMI trap and keep paying for years together.

Coming back to the Adam product, its flawless and most suited for today’s market if launched properly. But the distribution, returns and servicing strategy is not fully enlisted for both local and international users. There are no reviews of it with production quality hardware. The user interface looks great no doubt, but still not shown anywhere on the actual device. This makes the first set of devices questionable on their use. The keyboard looks fantastic and hopefully will allow for faster typing unlike other miserable touch screen devices like the Galaxy tab or iPAD even.

In summary one only hopes that Notion Ink shapes up its distrubution policy to be more transparent, ties up with banks in India and charts out a proper business growth plan for India. And yes please ship us the device for a 500 bucks instead of a 50 USD !

Tags: bengaluru, blog, karnataka, bangalore, notion, ink, adam, tegra2, android, gingerbread, froyo, tablet, dual, core, transreflective, display, pixel, qi, hdmi, gprs, wifi, 802.11, 3g, usb, micro sd, card, reader, connectivity, adobe, flash, notion, ink, adam, eden, tablet, launch, preorder