as i clearly can't decide on what watch(es) to get in 2010...

its time to look at a few other favorite boyz toyz... lets see fast cars... check... great cameras... check... cool gadgets... check :)

FROM EUROTRIP [ girl in camera shop: wow is that a leica m6?

jamie: actually its an M7... its got the built in light meter

girl : so beautiful, so sleek, so powerful, hows the new lens system?

jamie: makes a nikon look like a disposable...

girl : u really know your cameras... n u're very cute... [lest just leave it there and just say that jamie gets a prize for owning a leica ;)]

we all need to tell the time, but shouldn't we have a nice watch to tell it with? ;) we all need to travel from place to place, what we want though is to do it in something nice... some folks want to do good photography & some want the very best... as this is gonna be a longish post wif a fair number of pics i'll just display these 2 above and if u're interested in lambos or leicas (or iphones for that matter) click on the expand link that follows for the full post...

[ click to read the rest of the post... expand or collapse ]

the car for me...

i've said it before and i'll say it again... cars in singapore just dont make sense. you lose a lot of $ on cars in our small island and theres no way round that. so some shots first of the car(or type of car) most of us want ;) its either a fezza or a lambo for 'OTT shouty look-at-me exotic'.. a 458 or murcielago Lp670-4SV in a heartbeat if you have some serious dosh. on the flip side, for stately but not boring, a nice and fast bentley perhaps or the new rolls ghost... hmm maybe the maserati granturismo/grancabrio, aston martin or jaguar as something of an imbetween...

but this kind of exotic is yummy... comes wif an amazing driving experience of course ;)

& so inviting... (at this point i nearly jumped in and sped away :)

to most folks though, the guys without the moolah to go for the european supercars will have to settle for the Jap variants. the GTR and all other rice rockets being there for enthusiasts who can't get an M3 etc. Well the thing is, the car i still hope to get (maybe someday) is not German and is from the land of the rising sun, and no its not the GTR :)

now at this time i can almost hear the 'shock-horror-gasp' from some that know me when they see the car that follows... but all i care about is the ride that I want to be in. note: i am not saying the German/European marques are bad choices, there are too many great cars out there(as well as a lot of wanker-mobiles), its just that they aren't for me, for now... the next one though... is :)

The Nissan S15 Silvia... A renowned drift machine but thats not what interests me... its the looks of it (at this point do note that bodykits and rims can always be changed to suit ones taste) but the base of it is just one very sweet looking car. aesthetically (again to emphasise, with the right kit and rims and body in white) it's nicer looking than... well a LOT of other cars (at least to me)...

FR = front engine rear wheel drive car, 1250 kg kerb weight only, 6 speed, 2 litre in line four cylinder turbo, dohc, VVT. Top speed 153 mph, 0-60 mph 5.5 sec (some minor tweaks to make it a sub 5second car) and 0-100 mph in 14.2 sec... horsepower 250ps with peak torque of 203 lbft... the S15 also nicknamed strawberry as 1 is 'ichi' and 5 is 'go' in Japanese and ichigo is also the Japanese word for strawberry...

i was about to negotiate a deal with my Chief Financial Officer but am holding back for a bit... still on the wish list but as its last year of manufacture is 2003, if they're all scrapped in Singapore at their 10th year[for foreign readers, Singapore has a pretty screwy car ownership system] or if a good condition one can't be found[this is the supremely hard part] than it will always just be a dream unrealised (which end of day i can live with :)

the amazing camera system... that's (sadly) not for me...

Leicas are pretty awesome cameras... they are mostly handmade hand-assembled in Germany(Solms) products and are at the top end of the camera world... solid, tough and capable of taking amazing photos with a special quality about them and having a wide range of small & fast lenses. [oh and they have such a nice retro chic feel about them too :) ]

the thing is though, these are rangefinders and from the film ones (old Ms to the M7 and MP) to the digital ones(M8, M8.2 and M9), they all require you to align two images manually to focus the camera. many great photographers have used these cameras and produced fantastic photos and art, capturing that decisive moment. so here's why it ain't it for me...

• I am an autofocus heathen :) i need fast and accurate AF for photos of my son(which i take a lot of) / family, and of sports, fast moving objects(which i take some of the time)...
• I need good macro and flash capability... rangefinders are almost all about available light photography and flashes aren't really catered for well with the system... macros are also not its strong suit...
• I don't do much candid street photography i.e. taking photos of folks on the roads without their knowledge or permission... actually i don't do it at all...
• film isn't for me as its a pain not to know what you've taken. u're stuck with one iso and color or b/w film that u loaded for the entire roll... and it costs a fair bit to process and digitize too... the only decent digital M with good glass will set you back one AP ROO though and thats just too much.

still the following 5 pics are from the M7 with the cron and well... i really really like the results. looks like i have to brush up on my post processing to try and replicate the awesome look of film and leica color and quality(if at all possible)

a date...

numbers...

makan time... (the little prince having lunch)

mama... (my grandma, an amazing lady...

and a great model for my portrait shot)

steamrollering justice ;)

shine me a light...

gadgets... iphone vs the windows mobile htc hd2...

and so it came to past that on a cool mid-week evening, a toy was bestowed to me in a little white box that contained... the iphone 3gs... i soon discovered it to be over-hyped and a good phone for games and a lot(and i mean a lot) of applications(some reasonably useful and fun and others... uhm whatever)...

both products have their strengths but for me its the windows mobile device that comes out top...

having been a windows mobile user with the samsung omnia before trying the iphone for 2+ days, i will say this, the windows mobile device and the opera and mobile IE browser combo on them is much better than the safari web browsing experience(i was gonna use the word trash but thought against it :)

a decent file explorer to transfer docs, movies, mp3s etc to locations u can browse on your phone is just so much simpler than itunes (uugh). if i want to bring the iphone to a base usable state(as compared with my omnia), one will probably need to buy a whole number of apps out there and spend a fair bit of time figuring out how to use em. not something i would look forward to really...

(note: the resco file explorer is better than the one that comes standard with the phone)

if folks are saying that the screen is da bomb on the iphone, i give u the htc hd2 with its bigger and nice screen.. and all the goodness of better browsing experience, similar levels of connectivity to social networking stuff(dedicated facebook, twitter icons) and email(gmail, windows live etc) and all sorts of access goodness :) oh and when i put in my starhub sim card, it immediately gave me an icon for free starhub tv which is nice... the iphone didn't hv that...

so what are the negatives of the iphone compared to my new htc hd2?

1) the iphone safari browser is not as good as opera... (see screenshots)
2) theres no windows explorer thing to see the folders/directories and contents of whats where. [resco file explorer is better than the stock file explorer that comes with the phone though]
3) its a pain for me to convert everything i have(a lot of stuff) on avi to mp4 [free coreplayer needed to play avi on the htc]
4) word documents aren't supported out of the box. theres a crappy notes thing. i do all my note taking and article writeups on word docs so i needs it.
5) the cursor can't stop in the middle of a word in the browser. (try it in safari) yes for opera u can move the cursor to any point of a word. for some other apple apps too, you can't move the cursor to the middle of the word u r writing... not so for the wm based devices.
6) task manager... instead of exiting and then going to another app. switch between apps and kill processes easily with this.
7) no up down left right navigation key on the iphone (as far as i can tell)
8) no mp3s as ringtones/message tones out of the box...

9) iphone has less useful and cool apps than hd2 out of the box

just based on the browsing experience alone, its the HD2 over the iphone and web browsing on my mobile is important to me...

BOTH could do with a secondary video call camera though... and perhaps a better camera/video as well...

negatives of the htc hd2...(updated 19 Jan 2010): its not for tech unsavvy folks

- you WILL have to apply hotfixes from htc as there are some bugs that aren't ironed out with the software they released it with. yes you have to google for some of em.

- you WILL have to install apps both on your desktop(eg to convert movies) to your phone eg. to have a better music and video player etc

of course if playing fun games, having a cool hip product, having access to mountains of accessories is more important than better web browsing, better usability and overall better functionality(out of the box) on the htc hd2, than the iphone is definitely for you... oh and of course if u've been using and are used to the iphone, then there may be no need to change... that left and right browsing business is horrid though...

- a good vs comparison here

- a more detailed spec list of HD2 vs iphone here

- a good review of the htc hd2 here

for owners

- if u r having slow sending for smses do this now: Go to Settings -> Wireless controls -> Phone -> Click on 'Menu' on the lower right hand corner -> Select 'Advanced network' -> Scroll right and select 'SMS Service' tab and select SMS over: GSM (instead of GSM preferred). Next soft reset your HD2 and test if it works (or just power it off and then on and see if it works). my sms service worked fine after this fix.

- theres another free browser that supports flash too... skyfire both this and opera are better than safari.

- checkout other cool apps here... jayceooi theres also a link to a sick puppy using a razor and scissors and keys on his hd2 screen...

- all htc hd2 support downloads (rom and updates) here

recommended tweaks

- Increase Number of Opera Tabs: In any registry editor tool, go to HKLM\Software\Opera\Prefs\User Prefs and change Maximum Allowed Tabs from 3 to another number eg. 9

- and do the camera tweaks and others u find relevant from this massive tweak page

ok and lastly... the possible watch(es) for me in the year ahead...

i love the work of the independents. have a serious hankering for a MB&F HM2 and was thinking of a Peter Speake Marin too... BUT a lot of my funds are in independents so to balance the portfolio somewhat, maybe more focus on the big/established brands this year? An AP / PP / VC / JLC / Lange perhaps...[ no more rolexes for me for now ]

hmm a ROO again?

or the MB&F HM2 ceramic rose gold... or somethin else...