Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by Reuben

[WTS] Zotac Geforce 1080 TI AMP! Edition

Reuben — Sun, 06 Jan 2019 11:52:58 +0800

Item(s):

Zotac Geforce 1080 TI AMP! Edition (2 units but can be sold individually)

Back2Gaming Review

Package includes:

Box set with graphics card

Price: (!!!NOTICE!!!: Sellers are required to display the exact selling prices of their products. Failure to do so will result in the deletion of the topic)

RM2300 per card. Discount if buy both.

Warranty:

Around 4 years Manufacturer warranty. Both tested

Dealing method:

COD if in Kuching, Post if others.

Location:

Kuching

Contact method/details:

Whatsapp or PM +60 13 8119120
---

Item(s) conditions:

Used but in great condition (see pics)

Picture:

Reason for sale:

Upgraded to GTX 2080 TI

WTS Bitcoin Antminer S9 11.85 th & S7 4.73 th

Reuben — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 14:11:29 +0800

SOLD

Item(s):
Most advanced Bitcoin miners available today!

1 x Antminer S9 12.73 th

1 x Antminer S7 4.73 th

Dual fan version.
Does not come with PSU.

Price:

Antminer S9 11.85th (+-5%)
RM6,500.00 (inclusive of GST and shipping)
Still within warranty
If you want together with official 1600W PSU 93.8% efficiency add RM700.00

Antminer S7 4.73th (+-5%)
RM1,700.00 (inclusive of GST and shipping)
If you want together with official 1600W PSU 93.8% efficiency add RM700.00

Warranty:

30 days (does not cover OC or burnout due to misuse)

Dealing method:

Online bank-in/Bitcoin

Location:

Direct to your doorstep from Kuching. Sent via courier (Nationwide/GDex etc).

Contact method/details:

PM or Telegram messenger @reubster

Item(s) conditions:

Used but fully working. Unlike other used miners, these are mined in aircon and clean data room so will be much more clean than those mined in normal farms.

Picture:

Antminer S9

Antminer S7

FAQ:

Q: How much will I make?

A: Don't expect to get rich. This is a hobby miner. You can find Bitcoin calculators to do the math.

Q: Why are your prices more expensive than Bitmain's?

A: Mine are actually cheaper and are available immediately. You can do the necessary conversions and compare.
Otherwise you need to factor in preparation time (5 working days) + delivery time (7 days) which all means lost mining time and also deal with customs and you have to factor in shipping cost and GST. You would also need to buy the BTC to get these miners incurring further costs since BTC price in Malaysia is higher.

Learn about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Reuben — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 19:05:10 +0800

Hi guys! I am a big cryptocurrency fan and thought I would like to share my knowledge with everyone as too often the lack of knowledge is being used to scam people such as unethical Ponzi/pyramid schemes like OneCoin, Capricoin, Utoken, MMM, Bitclubnetwork, BitKingdom, Coinbit, AviaBitcoin that use Bitcoin to evade BNM regulations by accepting Bitcoin deposits only.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have about Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies and I'll be happy to answer.

To begin with here's an introduction to the top 10 cryptocurrencies accurate as of today in terms of market capitalization.

SUMMARY OF TOP 10 CRYPTO CURRENCIES IN TERMS OF MARKETCAP

1. Bitcoin (6.3 bil market cap) The first decentralised cryptocurrency. Most merchant adoption and public awareness. Currently going through some disagreements on how to upgrade it to handle increased transaction load.

2. Ethereum (757 mil market cap) Very hot new crypto. Doesn't seek to be a currency but as a decentralised platform for applications to run. For e.g. self executing contracts that once placed in, will auto perform it upon conditions being met free from third party interference. Recently enjoyed a huge boost in price.

3. Ripple (271 mil) More aimed at banks/financial institutions and payment networks as a settlement infrastructure technology. This allows banks to settle with each other quickly at low cost reducing transaction fees.

4. Litecoin (145 mil) Used to be the no.2 cryptocurrency. Was the first altcoin that hoped to make transaction times faster and for mining to be decentralized. However these improvements have been replaced by better solutions in other coins. Development has slowed a lot and has not developed any innovative features in a while. However, still a lot of people invested in it which keeps it alive.

5. MaidSafe (45 mil): Recently gained a lot in price. Intends to replace centralized datacenters by building a fully decentralized data and communication network. That means people who participate in MaidSafe allow part of their computers to be used by other people in the network be it computing power/disk space. For e.g. it's like Dropbox except that instead of being held in Dropbox centres, your data is spread throughout the network by everyone who uses MaidSafe too in a safe and encrypted way.

6. Dash (26.6 mil): Aims to compete directly with Bitcoin as a digital curency by solving all major problems that Bitcoin has. This means instant transactions, anonymous transactions and eventually decentralized payment processors and easy to use APIs. Has a self governance model that allows stake holders to vote on the future and direction of Dash (unlike Bitcoin which relies on miners and core devs). One of the few currencies that derives its funding from its own blockchain.

7. Dogecoin (23.6 mil): Started out as a joke coin and has almost the same features as Litecoin. Fun and wide community support but little in the way of revolutionary features. One of the earlier cryptocurrencies.

8. Factom (19.7 mil): Aims to be the premier solution for records management and notarial services. For e.g. in medical records, supply chain management, voting systems, property titles. It creates an immutable audit trail. Whereas Bitcoin's blockchain stores transactions, Factom is designed to store any data.

9. NEM (15.2 mil): Experienced a huge gain in price recently. Doesn't require mining and uses POI. Has integrated messaging and multi-signature. Distributed its coins through a crowd sale. Secure messaging. Aims to be the premier solution for creating your own tokens, ledger system, asset listing without having to maintain or create your own blockchain.

10. Monero (11.6 mil): Monero focuses on privacy with privacy at its very core. Unlike other blockchains which are transparent and publicly viewable, Monero's blockchain is opaque meaning people cannot trace your payments.

HOW DO YOU GET BITCOINS?

Get yourself a proper wallet. For Android, I recommend Mycelium, for iOS I recommend Breadwallet. For desktop usage, I recommend Multibit HD or Electrum.

You can technically also mine them but you won't get much in most cases for it to be meaningful unless you have a lot of money and a source of cheap electricity.

You can grab them off Malaysian exchanges or through trading groups.

These are the three I trust:
Coinbox Fastest deposits and withdrawals. Malaysian company. 1% fee on withdrawals but free trading.
BitX Great mobile app and website. Competitive market. 1% fee on taker.
Coinhako Buy and sell Bitcoins easily.

Although I trust them, they are by no means foolproof as regulatory approval is a bit grey. Trading groups can also be very risky so as a newbie I would advise sticking to the exchanges.

[WTS] Bitmaintech Antminer S5 1155 GH/s ±5%

Reuben — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 21:45:07 +0800

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssBLA2nXbvU[/YOUTUBE]

An excellent starter Bitcoin miner. Easy to setup.

S5 Specifications:

Hash Rate: 1155 GH/s ±5%
Power Consumption: 590 W (at the wall)
Power Efficiency: 0.51 J/GH (at the wall)
Rated Voltage: 12V
Dimensions: 298 mm x 137 mm x 155 mm
Cooling: 1x 12038 fan
Operating Conditions: 0 °C to 35 °C
Certified By: FCC / CE
Network Connection: Ethernet

5 x units available
Location of item in Kuching (but can ship for a small fee).

Notes:-
1. Power consumption figures vary with your PSU’s efficiency, the ambient operating temperature and the accuracy of the power meter.
2. PSU: A power supply unit is not included, and you will need to provide an ATX PSU. There are 4 PCI-e connectors for +12V DC input and all four are required. Do not connect more than one PSU to the same hashing board.

Status: In good condition. Some have the side panels removed for better cooling.

Price: RM1,450 per unit.

Discounts available for more purchases.

[WTS] BitCrane Liquid Cooled BitCoin Miner

Reuben — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 17:54:22 +0800

Official Distributor in Malaysia

Price: RM2,599.00 inclusive of shipping (cheaper than buying direct from BitCrane!)

Free Shipping to Malaysia and Singapore!

Estimated time to your doorstep is ~1 week or less.

T110 or T110S.

T110 has 1.1 th/s power but is more noisy
T110S is 1.0 th/s but is much quieter and is certified for home use.
Both have the same price!

T-110 Bitcoin Mining System

Best in class ASIC mining system designed for high performance mining and optimal stability. With an optimal hashrate of 1.1TH/s and nominal power consumption of 1100W. Each system is equipped with two UltraHoist mining modules and two direct contact liquid coolers.

UltraHoistTM Module

Our state of the art UltraHoistTM heavy duty mining modules are based on a single 28nm ASIC architecture and deliver a whopping 550Ghash per module.

EZ StackTM

T-110 EZ StackTM design lets you easily setup multiple mining systems with minimal footprint in a rack-less environment. (* recommended no more than 4 units per stackTM .) T-110 offers one of the most light and compact designs (includes power supply) compared to other models in its class. Dimensions: 42.5 x 31.6 x 16.6 cm Net Weight: 9.1 Kg.

BitCrane Miner Control Panel

Simple plug and hash design with minimal configuration required. Start mining within minutes after opening up the package.

Industrial Grade

BitCrane Mining Systems are designed using leading edge technology and manufactured with Industrial PC grade quality components and standards to ensure the best possible quality and performance.

Our own review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCaC9v_XyUw

5 Malaysian Banks' Websites receive the F rating

Reuben — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 21:26:30 +0800

We recently conducted a HTTPS security test on Malaysian banks' online websites and the results surprised us with 5 local banks scoring the F grade.

Original post on BolehVPN Blog:
http://www.bolehvpn.net/blog/2013/10/how-s...https-security/

Reposted by Lowyat:
http://www.lowyat.net/2013/10/28/14502/may...grade-ssl-labs/
http://www.lowyat.net/2013/10/28/14511/mor...grade-ssl-labs/

Many of these vulnerabilities are not just theoretical and in certain cases breach the minimum standard as imposed by PCI (Payment Card Industry) for credit card payments which is ironic seems many of these same banks impose security compliance to obtain e-commerce IDs for merchants to accept credit cards.

For full disclosure, we do have Maybank and CIMB accounts but were not sponsored in any way to write this post but thought that users should know and hopefully this would put some pressure on the banks to improve their security and update their outdated banking systems. I won't name names, but one of these banks promised an update one year ago and yet it seems the improvements are only graphical without affecting the antiquated backbone.

We also had informed at least one of these banks of this vulnerability a few months ago but was never replied to.

Banks that Scored the F rating
Maybank2u
Maybank2e
Affin Bank
Bank Muamalat
BSN

Lowyat has contacted the relevant banks for an answer so hopefully they'll reply and improve their security.

[WTS] BOOMBOTIX Portable Speakers Weather Proof!

Reuben — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 17:47:24 +0800

BOOMBOTIX SPEAKERS

GeekZen is the official sole distributor of Boombotix products in Malaysia. We are the only guys able to honor Boombotix's famous

ONE YEAR NO MATTER WHAT WARRANTY!!!!

All Boombotix speakers come with a "no matter what" one-year warranty. This includes, but is not limited to, break-dancing accidents, fixed gear bicycle stunts gone wrong, overshooting or over-rotating a jump on skis or a board, you name it. We want to hear about it. Pictures, video, and/or a good story are strongly encouraged. Boombotix products are not backed for misuse, loss, or theft (this includes any accidents involving flammables, explosives, alcohol and mugging).

Read more: http://boombotix.com/support/warranty

Our prices are also generally lower than US RRP! <3

BOOMBOT 1

The Boombot1 is our wired, ultra-loud portable speaker system that works with any audio device. The Boombot1 allows audio fanatics to enjoy their tunes on the go in a package that sounds as amazing as it looks. The Boombot1 is our entry level portable speaker model, but don't let that fool you! Expect some serious BOOM for the buck.

DGPH LIMITED EDITION ARTIST SERIES RM119

NORMAL BOOMBOT 1 Price: RM99

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BolehVPN Minecraft Server

Reuben — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:15:31 +0800

Hey we're hosting a free Minecraft Server for fun

Currently limited to 8 players but will increase as needed if it's a hit!

Current Players:

1. Reuben
2. Vindii
3. Dregith
4. CainD
5. KyleTomatoes
6. ZacKler

Vanilla atm until I can figure out all the mods or if someone is interested in administering it.

12 December 2011

Great View from Mountain Fortress underway by CainD with KTM travel

The weird structures that come from poor planning

Vindii's Mob Grinder

10 December 2011

[WTS] BolehVPN: Freedom Through Security v3

Reuben — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:29:33 +0800

[YOUTUBE]vgRYD3go7M8[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]stPKmZT8UTI[/YOUTUBE]

Previous threads:
BolehVPN v2 183,410 views, 3,058 replies
BolehVPN v1 110,368 views, 2,552 replies

Visit our website at http://www.bolehvpn.net

WHAT DOES BOLEHVPN DO?

Secures your internet connection and data from prying eyes

Allows you to access geo-specific content like Hulu, Pandora, Veoh

Encrypts your connection to bypass traffic shaping, accelerating your P2P

Unlock censorship

WHY BOLEHVPN?

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

CONTACT US

E-mail: sales@bolehvpn.net
Forums:: http://www.bolehvpn.net/forum

PRICES & PLANS

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

To order, head on to our Order Page. We accept Malaysian online banking, cash deposits, BitCoin, DogeCoin, DarkCoin and Paypal.

FEEDBACK

This is but a sampling of our positive reviews and there are simply too many to list!
For most recent updated feedback, refer here.

RECENT FEEDBACK

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Quote from FangedFluffy 19 March 2012:

QUOTE

Bolehvpn has awesome customer service. Chris was great; he spent the time necessary (almost 2 hours) to solve my computer's issues. I strongly recommend Bolehvpn to everyone; they most definitely do not ignore customer service. I am a customer for life. 5 stars for Boleh and for Chris.

Quote from El_Ay_es 14 March 2012:

QUOTE

BolehVPN is a wonderful service. I feel very lucky to have found it. I was able to slip mention of it into a message to all my family and friends on multiple topics once, hopefully without making anyone any more suspicious of me than they already are. They know I'm big on making reasonable efforts at Internet privacy just on general principle. I'm thinking of doing another message sometime soon. It's only a few hundred ordinary people, so most of them won't be especially interested. Many people don't seem to care at all that governments, advertisers, and others interested can find out the color of their underwear without them hearing about the fact that someone was nosing about. I hate that. Me I grew up long ago, before most people had even heard of computers, and we believed in family privacy except perhaps with doctors and clergy.

Anyway, I've been using BolehVPN for several months now. I am very pleased with the price, the ease of use, the speed, the stability, the customer service, the informative and highly professional website, and the mostly friendly community environment.

After having read some older posts here I am especially impressed with the continuous efforts that Reuben and his partner and the rest of the BolehVPN staff have been making to improve service and security.

Thank you for your excellent service! Onward and upward!

Quote from MayiBay 13 March 2012:

QUOTE

1.Staff responds quickly to your problems

2.IPT access.Try to find this with any vpn service.Good luck.

3.Speed.I always get great speed using BolehVPN

4.Cost

5.Unless BolehVPN shuts down,I will never leave.

6.What are you waiting for....Sign up to the best vpn service now

Quote from matt29adai 7 March 2012:

QUOTE

I have been unbelievably satisfied since I have found out about BolehVPN. I really wish I would have found out about it sooner! I never experience downtime and the speeds are great. The price is extremely reasonable, the ease of use and simplicity is great, and the free gift is just icing on the cake. I cannot thank Reuben and everyone else with BolehVPN enough. I have already got one of my friends to join me along with many other happy customers. I am going to spread the word! Thanks again!

Older Feedback:

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Quote from Cody Brent Tremaine Richards, 4 November 2011

QUOTE

An excellent service. One of the few perks to this service is that it allows P2P transfer over the network. It is completely unrestricted. I have use many services including Hotspot Shield and Strong VPN and they all seem to cripple my connection. This service has no problem almost matching speeds of what my connection is. Thanks. #vpn #BolehVPN

Quote from: talkmukul September 14 2011

QUOTE

Being informed by one of my friend I have strated using bolehVPN - didn't realize I have already passed almost one year. Managed to download all my favourite HD (1080P) movie torrents with bolehVPN. Excellent service, probably the ISP will be screwed as they won't be able to throttle anymore. If you are a movie buff or downlaod freak get a an internet connection and a boleVPN subscription - satisfaction guarrantied. Only worry is soon you might be addicted to downloading... p

Quote from Mentora September 20 2011

QUOTE

To be honest there is not much I can say about BolehVPN that can reflect how I feel.
We live in a world where we are constantly being screwed and abused although being the customers.

BolehVPN has changed that with

- good customer service
- reliable after sales service
- stable servers
- continuous improvement (the GUI login with update ability is simply excellent)
- continued growth
- simple payment plan
- and most importantly, you respect us as customers.

Thank you guys and keep up the great work.

Quote from: singh2india, 22 September 2011:

QUOTE

Really ... Awesome ...in china...m a new user ..but now after few days of use..i can guarantee that this is far better than any other available vpn service in China mainland..i ma going to stick with this service in coming years..recommended

Quote from: manutdfans7, 27 October 2011:

QUOTE

BolehVPN is definitely worth the money. They have multiple servers for you to choose from, thus providing you different IP ranges. I use this mainly for surfing US-only sites as this is a premium VPN that has quality. Definitely one of the best VPNs around the world. Keep it up guys

Quote from Ian Steward, 20 September 2011

QUOTE

I do not have anything bad to say cause there is nothing bad to say. Simple as that. Any issues are rectified quickly. Any queries are answered asap. Pricing is affordable and the services that is provided is stable.

I have gained more through sheer downloading using BolehVPN in this year alone compared to the more than 5 years I have been a Streamyx subscriber.

Thank you guys and keep up the great work.

leealex IGadgets / Asia Mobile @ Lowyat Plaza

Reuben — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:44:21 +0800

Forumer you are complaining against:
leealex / IGadgets aka Asia Mobile

Item being sold/bought:

Motorola Atrix

Date of transaction:
12 April 2011 (date in which item arrived with IGadgets)

Details of the complaint :

This complaint is regarding a warranty claim that has gone on for an inordinately long time (2 months) and that doesn't reply to my smses or PMs or gives apparently false information when I call him.

I bought this item from Paul (user: item.com) (he is NOT the person I'm complaining against) through this Lowyat Thread:
http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=1784088&hl=

on the 14 March for RM2,600. It was a brand new phone then so it is at a huge premium and the whole point of paying it early is to get it first.

However, phone had major issues with the touchscreen and so I contacted Paul who said he will send it to IGadgets to claim for warranty.

I made videos of these problems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9IeQ3147wo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P2MZD_FOpo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z56BSYFh3BE

I at first thought this was a software bug issue since in Motorola it mentioned something about the Motorola being 'programmed' to disable certain portions of the screen when there's a prolonged touch and there were other people reporting the same issue so I thought it was merely a software bug until I realized there was a dead portion of the screen. I even got a 2nd atrix from another seller and the phone did not exhibit these symptoms so I decided to send this Atrix in.

After going through some troubleshooting, I decided that I should send it in for a warranty claim. I posted this Atrix for warranty claim under Nationwide TRACKING NO 41658457-059830 on the 11 April and it was received by IGadgets on the 12 April. Paul had told me to get in contact with Alex or Rachel from IGadgets saying that they're a reputable company and they will respond quickly and it should be a matter of a few weeks. I told him I was particularly worried since I've heard horror stories of people not getting their phones after 2 months and he told me that he will follow up to ensure it will be fast and that he's dealt with them many times before.

Now I don't remember the exact chronology of events but several times I had contacted Alex to ask for an update on the status either via sms or phone call and he'll say that he is obtaining the parts from HK or that it is still 'processing'.

Most of the time he doesn't reply to my sms so I usually ask Paul to assist me to follow up with him. I usually follow up like once every 2 weeks cause I don't want to bother them too much as I know they are busy people.

When I first called Alex, he asked me to pay for the warranty replacement or at least share the cost of the warranty replacement as my phone wasn't covered under warranty despite it being less than a month old. I called Paul and said, isn't this covered under warranty? Paul called Alex and Paul told me that Alex misunderstood and confirmed that my phone is under warranty just that Alex has too many phone biz until he's confused.

Late April

Called Alex and he told me that as the Atrix was rather new, it was hard to get parts and they will have to source for it from HK. I accepted the explanation and waited.

Early May
Same thing, Alex said it's still processing.

Mid May
Sometime middle of May, I called Alex and he told me that he already got the parts and that I should get my Atrix soon and that he will double check for me and call me back to confirm. He never did but I assumed maybe everything was ok and did not want to upset Alex for his help.

25th May 2011
I smsed again asking for news from Alex and I didn't receive a reply. Paul helped me and Alex told him that everything was ok and that the item will arrive within these next few days but I still didn't receive the item.

8 June 2011
I smsed Alex again and no reply. Paul got a reply from Alex saying that the item was still in HK for warranty claim...
I got angry at this point since they have been talking about HK for more than a month and it seems that the warranty claim was moving backwards instead of forwards.
PMed leealex through LYN giving him until today to reply. No reply received yet.

9 June 2011

Rachel from IGadgets called.

For some reason Alex had told Rachel that I have my own technician to repair the phone???

I told Rachel that this was not the case and I frankly have no idea how to go about repairing it. In my opinion it's the responsibility of warranty provider to repair.

She say I would have to wait even longer if I wanted a repair.

I proposed to her that she refund me RM1,900 which is the market price of the phone at this point in time and I will consider the matter solved. This means I lose RM700 already and didn't even get to use phone but whatever la.

10 June 2011
Paul was informed by Alex that they would send me a BRAND NEW SET.

17 June 2011
Alex informs Paul that phone was shipped out two days before and everything sorted but I did not receive anything.

20 June 2011
Alex informs Paul that phone was actually not yet shipped out and will ship it out on the 23 June 2011 as he's on travelling.

22 June 2011
Rachel ships phone via Gdex.

23 June 2011
Received phone. Phone was my ORIGINAL phone not a brand new set.
The phone now has a scratch on top of the M and worse is that there's a huge smudge INSIDE the screen where the front facing camera is rendering my shots crappy.

Informed Rachel who said she will revert to me asap.

[attachmentid=2291271]

I bring this up not to accuse leealex / IGadgets as a scammer as he hasn't done anything that indicates otherwise yet but I am complaining that
a) he does not honor warranty requests in a timely manner
b) he gives false representations that your phone will be returned soon and does not honor his deadlines nor his promises to call you back.
c) extremely poor service

I hope bringing up this post will draw attention to my warranty matter and serve as a warning to buyers of phones from IGadgets or products that are backed by a IGadgets warranty. I believe I have been extremely patient on this matter and this is a matter of last resort.

Motorola Atrix 4G Call Quality & other Problems

Reuben — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:35:29 +0800

For those of you who have the Motorola Atrix, do you have any problems with call quality where the other side hears your voice as rather muffled?

I tested this myself with my other phone and couldn't even get a clear call through. I could still hear what I was saying if I really concentrated hard but this is contrary to reviews saying it had awesome call quality.

I think buyers of Atrixes should be aware of the current issues the Atrix faces:

1. Occasional app crashes (possible fixed in the latest update (but is still in beta)).
2. Skype does NOT work on the Atrix http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=799905 Outgoing calls have loud static noises. Skype says it's Motorola's fault.
3. Latest update breaks all root with no known fix
4. Call quality issue as detailed below
5. No custom roms due to locked bootloader

Device

Phone: Motorola Atrix 4G (AT&T)

Problem:

Outgoing voice quality sounds muffled to other party regardless of noise suppression settings.

Relevant Reports and Announcements

Official forum:
https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/347857#347857

Motorola Announcement:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/24/motorol...quality-issues/

QUOTE

Motorola Mobility is aware of a very small number of ATRIX 4G users who have reported low audio issues when placing voice calls. Motorola ATRIX 4G is designed and tested to meet our high standards for audio quality. As part of our longstanding commitment to delivering high quality products that our customers love, we believe in reacting even when identified issues impact only a handful of users. Motorola is evaluating further optimization of audio levels in a future maintenance release. Any consumer who experiences this issue should contact a Motorola customer support center.

Motorola takes great care to ensure devices are developed with quality in mind. We appreciate consumer feedback and will continue working to refine our product experience.

PCWorld:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/223254/moto...e_problems.html
This indicates a hardware issue but is unconfirmed and looks to be different than what Motorola is saying.

BGR:

http://www.bgr.com/2011/03/24/motorola-inv...quality-issues/

Streamyx Capping International Connections v3

Reuben — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:13:32 +0800

Previous threads:

Version 1
Version 2

CAPPING RELAXED

Source Post

7 December 2010

QUOTE

Btw, pleased to report the team has been hard at work and we are completely changing the parameters and optimizing international bandwidth tonight. We have analyzed the profiles of the complaints and have confirmed that the majority are heavy users. Of course our real concern is the pact to non heavy users and business customers. Hence we will still maintain some form of traffic management.

BUT it's important for them to know that there is an order of priority for business users and high end packages specifically.

We will report back officially tonight but hope you an relay the message that there should be substantial improvement past midnight.

IMPENDING DOOM

3 December 2010

From Aizuddin Danian's post who has been acting as a 'go-between' of sorts between TM's official reps and Lowyat users:

Izlyn Ramli VP of Corporate Communications:

QUOTE

The capping will not be rollbacked or removed, only "relaxed".

They will continue to watch the performance of the network in the coming week and make further tweaks.

QUOTE

Apparently, they tell me that got people who wrote to that address (impact@tm.com.my) to say that things are OK.

/facepalm

They say that this proof that the service is better now.

gg lah like that.

Technically the CEO didn't lie:

QUOTE

We will find a way out immediately, today we are looking at some parameters that will allow the equilibrium of usage. If it’s still a challenge in the next 1-2 days, I’m going to pull that out first and then we will relook, get feedback from our users and see how we can do this better.

"IF it's still a challenge..." being the key phrase. I am totally perplexed as to how can they have come to this conclusion which basically ruined all the goodwill generated from the previous announcement.

People who know about the impact address are most likely people who are upset that they are capped, I can't imagine a huge amount of people e-mailing them to tell them that their speeds are fantastic.

I personally have NOT received a response from TM from impact and it seems TM shouldn't even bother having a corporate communications department if this is the way they put out fires.

Dato Zam also responds via BFM Radio 1 December 2010

Also posted with a more details report on my blog.

[youtube]ZGQiBz8ilec[/youtube]

Dato Zam Interview with BFM

Part on capping is at 37:41 into the interview.

Some excerpts:

QUOTE

Fair Usage means that all our paying customers means they should be treated fairly. Heavy users tend to hog the network at the expense of the non-heavy users. The challenge is how we can implement this best we can and so that it is truly fair for the customer.

On how he is going to resolve the capping issue:

QUOTE

Updated with TM's Official Response on the International Capping.

If you are still experiencing problems you should send your speedtest results to impact@tm.com.my on the 1 December 2010 onwards (e-mail is at the time of writing not up yet).

Best way is to enclose speedtest.net reports from SG and Cyberjaya and compare them with the other MY servers and TM's own speedometer.

QUOTE

Telekom Malaysia Bhd ™ wishes to clarify on our Fair Usage Policy (FUP) and address several comments in the blogosphere on allegations of a ‘hard cap’ for international bandwidth being enforced by TM.

Firstly, we apologise for the inconvenience that our customers are currently facing on our internet services.

We would like to assure all our customers that it is not, in any way TM’s intention to enforce any ‘hard caps’ on our customers.

As a matter of principle, however, TM needs to abide by a FUP to ensure that the network caters to all customers in a fair manner, and this has been in place for a few years for Streamyx which is a contended, best effort service. This means the Streamyx network is catered to be shared by everybody at any point in time to ensure everybody gets a “fair share” of the bandwidth. Currently UniFi is not affected, as it is a new premium service.

The Streamyx “Fair Usage Policy” is available on our website (http://www.streamyx.com/customer_care/customer_care.php?id=customer_care_fair_usage_policy) and it basically describes the list of specific heavy usage activities (like P2P and gaming) that will be managed during peak periods.

As you all know, this kind of bandwidth management or FUP is a global and common telco and celco industry practice. It is already in place in Malaysia amongst the mobile broadband players and aimed at making sure our broadband service is fast and reliable whenever in use. It is designed to benefit all users, especially normal or non-heavy users during peak periods, so that all can enjoy higher and fair browsing and surfing speed.

In general, TM’s FUP and implementation is aimed at providing an optimum internet experience to all Streamyx customers by rationalising the internet speed during peak periods (3pm – 1am).

Of late, our traffic profiles are changing quite rapidly, and we are noticing that network congestion can hit different parts of the country at different times of the day or week. When congestion hits, depending on the usage patterns, customers subscribing to the same package but generating different traffic patterns may experience different levels of service performance.

In an effort to ensure a fair distribution of resources amongst all customers at all times, whenever congestion occurs, TM’s network is able to calculate how many users are active at any given time and allocate dynamically the resources across all customers with active sessions.

In rare cases of heavy congestion, we ensure that no customers may get below a minimum threshold of international bandwidth, but there is no ‘ceiling’ to the bandwidth each customer can get.

The problems some customer are experiencing now may have stemmed post a successful pilot of a new traffic management model we ran a few months before, following which we went nationwide about 3 weeks ago. Clearly there is room for improvement and we are working hard to resolve this.

As dynamic allocation of bandwidth requires some specific settings that need to be fine tuned area by area, we elicit and welcome feedback on the experience in different parts of the country at different times of the day. We have set up a special email account where you can send your readings for our review: impact@tm.com.my effective 1 December 2010.

From our analysis, the current traffic patterns are, for most part, in line with our expectations on traffic management, and the speeds being delivered should suffice for a smooth internet experience.

Where the internet experience falls short, we will further investigate both individual cases and the service in its entirety to address specific concerns that they may be facing, and will respond to these customers directly.

Rest assured, TM takes note of all customer feedback to continuously ensure improved customer experience end-to-end.

From a market communications perspective, the FUP awareness campaign is already ongoing and we will further clarify as to the rules we are implementing – and why.

In fact, a bloggers briefing has already been scheduled for 17 December post our engagement with LYN and Kambingz earlier. About 40-50 selected bloggers will be invited to represent the wider blogger community to keep them abreast with our efforts to improve service delivery and customer experience overall, and to seek constructive feedback on these efforts. We hope to address, or at least start to address many concerns at this forum.

We thank you for your continuous feedback and ask for your kind understanding and patience as we work to deliver on our commitment to service quality and overall customer experience.

TELEKOM MALAYSIA BHD

Updated with New Info on How to Complain 28 November 2010!

PROBLEM

TM appears to becapping INTERNATIONAL traffic on certain Streamyx accounts. This has happened for perhaps the past 2 weeks or so.
This is regardless of

a) usage of the user (both low usage and high usage users are affected)
b) type of traffic (HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/P2P are all affected) as long as they are international

I initially posted this on my blog.

SYMPTOMS

1. The caps appear to be hard caps. There is NO fluctuation in speed, it just appears as if it's maxed out at 50 kB/sec. Some 4 mbit users report being capped at 200 kB/sec and I have a 512 customer being capped at about 25 kB/sec and saw some 1 mbit customers having the same thing. It does look like an intentional cap as they are in common multiples.

2. No appearance of packet loss though at times there may be high latencies.

3. Speedtests to local servers except Cyberjaya are fine but speedtest to Singapore/Cyberjaya/any other outside server shows the hard cap speed.

4. This appears to be indiscriminate as it applies to ALL types of international transfers be it http/P2P/FTP.

5. Cap appears to come on a schedule where people are capped in the afternoon then uncapped in the evenings or vice versa. Schedule appears to be different for different people.

HOW YOU CAN HELP/RESOLVE YOUR ISSUE

QUOTE

The problems some customer are experiencing now may have stemmed post a successful pilot of a new traffic management model we ran a few months before, following which we went nationwide about 3 weeks ago. Clearly there is room for improvement and we are working hard to resolve this.

As dynamic allocation of bandwidth requires some specific settings that need to be fine tuned area by area, we elicit and welcome feedback on the experience in different parts of the country at different times of the day. We have set up a special email account where you can send your readings for our review: impact@tm.com.my effective 1 December 2010.

What this means is, if you feel you're experiencing international cap symptoms, you should send your speedtest results to impact@tm.com.my (effective 1 December 2010).

Best way is to enclose speedtest.net reports from SG and Cyberjaya and compare them with the other MY servers and TM's own speedometer.

The info below is deprecated:

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

LYN REPORTS:

Many LYN Reports also appear to show the same thing:

badang_1785
MrComot
disket
figure8
myandylai
ericee9
huh?
MX510
Hornet

MY CUSTOMER'S TEST RESULTS
I'll let my customer's report detail it:

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Streamyx Capping International Connections v2

Reuben — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:16:53 +0800

IMPENDING DOOM

From Aizuddin Danian's post who has been acting as a 'go-between' of sorts between TM's official reps and Lowyat users:

Izlyn Ramli VP of Corporate Communications:

QUOTE

The capping will not be rollbacked or removed, only "relaxed".

They will continue to watch the performance of the network in the coming week and make further tweaks.

QUOTE

Technically the CEO didn't lie:

QUOTE

On how he is going to resolve the capping issue:

QUOTE

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Streamyx Capping International Connections

Reuben — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 19:08:15 +0800

Dato Zam also responds via BFM Radio 1 December 2010

Also posted with a more details report on my blog.

Dato Zam Interview with BFM

Part on capping is at 37:41 into the interview.

Some excerpts:

QUOTE

On how he is going to resolve the capping issue:

QUOTE

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Voice Server Hosting (Mumble) in Malaysia

Reuben — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:15:32 +0800

Hey H@H@ gave me the go-ahead to post here

I am looking for reputable SE Asian based clans to evaluate our Mumble voice server as a replacement to Ventrilo and will be offering at least a one month trial of our server. All we need from these clans/guilds is a commitment to genuinely use the server and give us feedback.

For those of you who don't know what Mumble is, it's basically like Ventrilo/Teamspeak except it has lower latency and positional audio. Audio quality is pretty good as well and noise suppression is best among the competition.

Should you be interested, drop us a mail at sales@bolehvpn.net with the Subject Mumble Clan Trial with the following details:

1. Name of Clan/Guild
2. Game
3. Number of members in Clan/Guild
4. Active Times (approximate)
5. Link to Guild/Clan website
6. Where are your Guild/Clan players from?

Please take note that we have limited slots so please do not take it personally should we be unable to approve your application.

You can also refer to my main lowyat post here and our website here

Looking for Clans to Test out Mumble

Reuben — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:02:14 +0800

Hey all!

I am Reuben from BolehVPN and we're proud to be among the first (if not the first) providers to provide Mumble Voice hosting with a webadmin.

I am looking for reputable SE Asian based clans to evaluate our Mumble voice server as a replacement to Ventrilo and will be offering at least a one month trial of a 50 slot server for these clans. All we need from these clans is a commitment to genuinely use the server and give us feedback.

For those of you who don't know what Mumble is, it's basically like Ventrilo/Teamspeak except it has lower latency and positional audio. Audio quality is pretty good as well and noise suppression is best among the competition.

Should you be interested, drop us a mail at sales@bolehvpn.net with the Subject WoW Mumble Guild Trial with the following details:

1. Name of Guild
2. Server
3. Number of members in Guild
4. Raid Times (approximate)
5. Link to Guild website
6. Where are your Guild players from?

Please take note that we have limited slots so please do not take it personally should we be unable to approve your application.

Thanks all!

For full details of our VOIP prices/plans you can head over to here.

Regards,
Reuben

Opera Mini 5 Browser for Blackberry Review

Reuben — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:29:13 +0800

Taken from BolehVPN Blog.

Opera Mini 5 Browser for Blackberry Review

Blackberries have been plagued with an antiquated browser that chokes on Javascript and most modern pages. It’s slow, it doesn’t fit text properly and has possibly the weakest browser of the major smartphones. RIM has realized this and are developing a webkit based browser but there’s been no estimated date of release.

Now if you can’t wait, there’s a really great alternative available now which comes in the form of Opera Mini 5.

The test device used was a Bold 9700 running on OS5.0.0.593 but should be more or less the same on other Blackberries.

The start screen is great for mobile devices and it condenses all your favorite pages in an eye-catching format allowing quick access.

Now Opera can open most links throughout the Blackberry through a link in the menu but I haven’t found a way to make Opera your default browser.

Pressing the Menu button on your Blackberry doesn’t open your familiar text menus but opens a toolbar which gives you access to Bookmarks, History, Saved Pages, Downloads (woohoo!) and settings. Sleek, a bit of a departure from your familiar UI but still easy to use.

Most importantly, unlike the Bolt Browser’s font which is ugly and the inability to zoom (split screen is pretty lame to be honest), pages display in its entirety as how you would expect them to appear on your desktop and then zooming is very simple (and accurate in fitting the text to your zoom!). You can also do tabbed browsing via the + button on the top end. You can also cut and paste by holding the select button over text and it will allow to cut and paste text (a feature that I had to find!). The numbers 2, 4, 6 and 8 can be also used as a directional pad to zoom about quickly through the page without the need to scroll.

If I had to gripe, there are some really small issues. One of it is that it takes a short while to start up so you must keep Opera open all the time should you wish to have a speedy browsing experience. There also seems to be a bug where sometimes Opera uses your TCP connection despite BIS being available. This can be very annoying since using a TCP connection kills your BIS connection and you have to close the browser to re-establish BIS access. However I found this was a problem only with certain phones (I’m using Celcom) where the APN settings were set inside the TCP/IP section under Advanced Configuration. Once I disabled my APN configuration, Opera used BIS once again and everything was smooth and I could keep Opera open. Re-entering my APN settings also kept Opera using BIS so it was only a one-time fix. Remember if you’re using BIS, you most likely have to change your settings in opera to use HTTP mode instead of socket mode.

Boleh: Fast browser, displays pages accurately, tabbed browsing, zooming works great, solid browsing experience.

Tak Boleh: Takes a while to get used to the UI, May default to TCP mode without you knowing it, no direct Blackberry integration beyond the Open in Opera Mini, no integrated video viewing (Bolt does this!)

Verdict: It’s free, it works great and it’s the best browser available for the Blackberry right now. No reason not to get it while waiting for RIM’s webkit browser. Grab it at http://mini.opera.com

Offsite Backup Choice

Reuben — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:35:23 +0800

Hey All,

In need of an offsite backup solution.

Would be preferable if those who reply have an experience in backing up business data as compared to just home data.

We're a relatively small business with about 50 employees and are in need of an offsite back solution for about 100 GB in data (though preferably more for expandability).
We have all our servers backup to our main server which we then backup to a USB hard drive just for ONSITE backup. Our main server runs on Windows Server 2008.

I was thinking of the following offsite backup solutions:

1. Tape (we tried this in the past but due to tropical conditions easily 'seh koh' and very expensive). Also painfully slow. The tape drive itself we were quoted about RM8k from Dell. Then you need the software....
2. USB Hard drive (Easy and portable but concerned about reliability).
3. High Speed pen drive with encryption (rather expensive and limited expandability along with limited read/writes). However very portable.
4. PowerVault RD1000 (see link here). Disk based enterprise level backup. However proprietary and may require customized software. Probably very expensive as well.

We have ruled out online backup due to the slow speed of our Streamyx

Now my question:

What offsite backup solution would you recommend and what software would you recommend? Any experience using this particular setup?

Thanks all!!!

Blackberry Bold 9700 Review

Reuben — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:31:25 +0800

Update 29 December 2009

So I have been using the Bold 9700 for almost a month now and can now comment on its long term usage. Have upgraded to v.5.0.0.351 without any problems.

Battery life remains superb, I however found myself longing for the keyboard of the Bold 9000 as the 9700's one feels more stiff and less easy to type on. In fact give me a Bold 9000 with a better camera and optical trackpad and I'll gladly switch to the old form factor.

Prices on the Malaysian market have dropped significant ranging from RM2.1k to RM2.4k (depending on warranty, addons and also whether it has a tattooed telco on it).

The audio on the speaker is also a LOT more tinny after listening to it extensively in the car and comparing it with my old Bold.

Finding a micro-usb cable besides the one provided is also a daunting task which is rather annoying since I tend to like to have my cables ready to plugin at several locations at a time.

I'm still pretty happy with the phone though still think it's not really worth it for current Bold users once they have upgraded to OS5.0.

Original post is from the BolehVPN Blog.

There have been quite a few reviews on the Bold 2 9700, but thought I would share my own personal thoughts of it especially in relation to its use in Malaysia and a direct comparison to its predecessor the Bold 9000. To avoid confusion I would refer to each of the Bolds by its model number.

Looks: Size & Weight:

The 9700 does look quite sleek but doesn’t push any design boundaries sticking very firmly to its Blackberry roots. Rubberized buttons, chrome finish and a leather backing still makes it feel like a premium phone but it doesn’t stand out as much as a phone say like the Droid. In fact it looks very similar to a Tour + Curve combined.

The 9700’s size has been shrunk a lot and is now just very slightly longer than the Curve 8900 (in fact unless you put them side by side, you won’t see the difference). It is a HUGE difference from the 9000.

Weight of the 9000 is 136 grams while the 9700 is slightly lighter at 122 grams. Holding it in your hands, it’s hard to tell the difference except that the 9700 feels a lot more ‘dense’.

9000 on the left, 9700 on the right

Back view. Both using the leather backing.

As you can see the 9700 is slightly thinner

The memory card slot is only accessible once you take off the cover on the 9700. It's that groove in between the camera and flash.

Minor gripe is that unlike the 9000, the 9700’s memory card slot can only be accessed when taking off the battery cover. The 9700’s battery cover mechanism is a simple sliding mechanism as compared to the 9000’s dual clips but the 9700’s cover still fits snugly without rattling and makes those battery pulls a lot easier.

Keyboard:

The keyboard has been shrunk slightly and those who are used to the 9000’s plush keypad will find that it takes a while to get used to the 9700’s. However it is worth noting that the 9700’s keyboard occupies almost the entire width of the phone as compared to the 9000 which still has a chrome edge, so you aren’t losing as much as space as you would think.

Tactile wise, there’s a good bounce to the keypad, similar to the 9000 and typing is a pleasure and feels less plasticky than on the 8900 or the 8520 .

Trackball vs Trackpad:

This is an obvious win for the 9700. The first few seconds felt weird when you were used to feeling a sphere for rolling about but the trackpad works VERY well. Slight strokes were detected and it was a lot more responsive than the trackball. No more dirt and grime to ruin your experience and no more replacement trackballs.

After a few days of use, you realize how it changes your experience of your Bold positively and to me is a significant step forward.

Battery Life

This was another very pleasant surprise. Now the Bold 9000 and 9700 use the exact same battery. For testing purposes, I used my 9000 battery inside my new 9700 one just to see how much of a difference it would make. Previously on OS5.0, the 9000 would last maybe about 14-16 hours before going into the red with moderate use. Now this jumps DRASTICALLY with the 9700. Using the exact same 1500 mah battery, it lasted past the 20-22 hour mark with moderate to heavy use with 3G on. In fact I think it might have gone well past 24 hours but I decided it was best to charge it to prepare for the upcoming day. This is pretty amazing considering it packs the same processor and it’s on 3G.

The 9700 also seemed to get a lot less hot than its predecessor which sometimes can feel a bit toasty.

Call Quality/3G Signal

Nothing that notable here. Similar sounding to other Blackberry phones. It is perhaps a little clearer as the ear piece is less depressed as compared to other Blackberry models. I haven’t had extended time to test whether calls are dropped but as of yet, no dropped calls yet.

I found something particularly peculiar. Whenever I streamed Youtube or Flycast my connection to the Blackberry servers will cut off but the streaming will go on with no issues. Once the youtube video ends, it would resume the 3G connection after a short wait. Not sure if this is a telco, OS or hardware issue. I had similar issues with the 9000 so perhaps it’s a telco issue.

Speaker

The sound from the speakerphone seems slightly inferior to the Bold’s sounding slightly more tinny and had a more ‘echoey’ effect. This is probably a result of the shrinking of the form factor. It is however still decent and can be used for casual listening.

OS5.0 and Responsiveness

I won’t cover this too much here as I have done so in my previous post but compared to the 9000 running on OS5.0, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did seem a tad snappier and more responsive than the 9000 despite it running on similar hardware. I believe I can attribute this to the 9000’s OS5.0 build still being a beta unreleased version while the 9700 being a more refined version.

Browser did feel more snappy with it loading pages with no issues.

I did notice that the Blackberry Messenger now allowed you to decide which size to send your pictures in (something I did not notice previously on my 4.6 build which forced you to send in full resolution) which is a very important and nice touch. Having already wiped my previous Bold of all data, I am unable to test if that BBM had a similar feature.

Camera

The pictures the 9700’s 3.2 megapixel camera takes are pretty respectable and performs its job well. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Last pic is a low light picture taken at 6.40 PM.

Screen

Screen is luscious with it boasting a 480×360 resolution (same as the 8900 curve and the Storm 2) which is up from the 9000’s 480×320 resolution. Ultimately this to me makes little difference as the screen is too small to actually notice such minor differences.

New Buttons

There’s now ‘buttonless buttons’ on top of the 9700. The left one locks the keypad while the right one sends the device into standby. A nice touch but I remembered accidentally putting the phone on standby and looking all over for the Mute button. Yes, real men don’t read manuals…

Price Currently

The 9700 is available in Malaysia from unofficial sources ranging from MYR2500-3000. Prices are similar in Singapore. Prices are now starting to dip as 9700 sets become more available. I bought mine at MYR2700.00. Frankly this is way too much to pay for a slight revamp of the 9000. I expect prices to be a lot lower once Celcom and Maxis officially release it though there has not been a price indication so if you are not in a hurry, I suggest you wait.

For reference when the Bold 9000 was first released it was at RM1800.00 and then price increased to RM2.2-2.4k.

Conclusion

The Bold 9700 is a good update improving on all of its predecessor’s shortcomings (browser is still not perfect but has improved). However it also does not introduce anything really new or revolutionary and hence cannot be considered a ‘must-upgrade’. I would however recommend this highly for anyone moving from the older 8xxx series or are new to Blackberries. The Bold 9700 provides a stellar ‘Blackberry’ experience with no major gripes besides its currently high price.

Pros:

* Amazing battery life
* Great trackpad experience
* No obvious flaws
* Good responsiveness
* Camera is pretty respectable

Cons:

* Currently expensive price
* Nothing revolutionary, just an update of the Bold 9000
* Still needs a new browser
* Smaller keyboard might not suit those with big fingers

Blackberry OS 5.0 Review

Reuben — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:42:26 +0800

This article was originally posted on the BolehVPN Blog

Remember my previous post about my 10 gripes with Blackberries?

It seems that RIM were aware of these issues and were working on them (for some of them at least!).

Update 21 Jan 2010: Tested 5.0.0.411

The random reboot issues faced in 5.0.0.384 seems to have been resolved by the 411 Build. Bell Mobility has a EastAsia version with Chinese character support. Otherwise everything working as it should and speed wise is very similar to the Bold 9700. Only problem is the 9000's smaller device memory so you cannot have as many apps as in the 9700.

Phone: Blackberry Bold 9000

OS Build: 5.0.0.348 (not an Official Release so may have some bugs till a final version is released)

Speed:

OS5.0 is FAST. Menus open and close with no noticeable delay and the device feels generally snappier. In fact, those that reviewed the Bold 2 9700 often attributed it to the newer device or the application memory but it appears it was entirely the new OS5 that comes preloaded with the new Bold. Upon loading it up in the older Bold 9000, the same snappiness was experienced.

This is the single biggest improvement of OS5 and makes using the Blackberry a real pleasure.

Battery Life:

Battery life seems to have improved a bit. With 3G turned on and moderate use, surfing, streaming Youtube, lots of Blackberry Messages, Google Talk running in the background, couple of texts and a few short calls and 17 hours later, I just hit red at 6% battery. This used to run flat about 3-4 hours earlier with IM off! Do note that my battery is rather old and it may have lost some of its original charge holding ability but you can expect your phone to last the day without the need for a recharge with moderate use.

Reception:

Now reception is a tricky one considering even on the 4.6 builds, this varied greatly from build to build. However I didn’t see any notable difference between this and my previous build 4.6.303 which is generally a good thing!

Bootup Time:

Another thing many reviewers reported was the faster bootup time. I’m actually not too sure about this as on my build, it did seem a tad faster though I have a suspicion it’s a psychological effect due to the new progress bar shown while on bootup. The bar gives you a rough idea of how far its into the bootup process and gives you the feeling that ’something is moving’ rather than just a blank hour glass loading that has no apparent end.

On my test, my Bold took 5 minutes to boot-up, still far too long, but the progress bar makes things better.

Media:

Now perhaps the most important thing that was resolved is that thumbnails load quickly now and media scanning no longer takes an eternity.I loaded some 187 songs into my phone, complete with album pictures and folders and it scanned them all in less than 10 seconds. A pretty good improvement considering that it used to take minutes.

There are also some slight UI changes though nothing significant.

Media is now segregated within the folder now.

Some added shading on the buttons

Horrible song if you ask me

Browser:

Slightly faster, but still chokes on Javascript. We probably still have to wait for their Webkit based browser.

Almost the same just some slight cosmetic tweaks

Blackberry Messenger

Many of you who had upgraded to BBM version 5.0 which is available on the older OSes would see no surprises here. Those who haven’t would see use of Avatars, a nicer UI, the option for Blackberry Groups, barcode scanning and very importantly remote backup of your BBM Contacts.

Blackberry's Killer App is improved

Threaded SMS

For those of you envying IPhones for their threaded SMS feature, envy no more! Threaded SMS is here with a variety of styles and works pretty well making it feel like a BBM conversation. Expect your SMS bills to soar.

Threaded SMS finally!

IM Contact on Home Screen

I’m unsure if this is a new feature of OS5.0 or simply an updated function of Gtalk and MSN but now you can place contacts on your Home Screen or folder for quick access! I felt this was pretty neat.

GoogleTalk contact

MSN Contact. Teddy!

Video Recording

Video recording screen has been changed slightly.

Closing Thoughts

Now I didn’t have much expectations of OS5.0, expecting it to be a minor cosmetic update. Although yes the OS remains by and large the same, the speed improvements and snappier feeling, improved battery life combined with the faster media scanning makes it a must upgrade for Blackberry users (who know what they are doing). OS5.0 is a huge step in the right direction and all the Blackberry needs now is a real browser (and perhaps a slightly snazzier UI) and a bigger app library. Annoyingly, you still can’t easily add a new number to an existing contact….

It’s a bit of a bittersweet feeling as I recently purchased myself a 9700 Bold which will now feel almost exactly the same as my old Bold in terms of responsiveness since it has the same 624mhz processor. Battery is still at 1500mah and I have a feeling we’ll get similar battery performance. Suddenly the 9700 Bold seems to be a much less compelling upgrade with only a better 3.2 megapixel camera, trackpad, a smaller form factor (which to those with large fingers is a bad thing) and a higher definition screen (which in real life is practically unnoticeable).

Is the 9700 Bold worth the high RM2XXX price if you are an existing Bold user? Probably not with OS5.0 running so well on the 9000 Bold. I’m frankly quite surprised that RIM did not take the opportunity to upgrade the processor further but perhaps they didn’t see the need to with OS5.0 running so smoothly already on existing hardware. I do feel that it was a missed opportunity to really have a device that stands out considering the Bold IS the flagship device for RIM. I think this was most apparent when the 9700 Bold and Storm 2’s release was almost entirely overshadowed by Motorola Droid’s release. RIM seriously needs to get its ’sexy’ back.

Oh and would appreciate if comments were steered away from ‘IPhone ROX’ sort by the Mac fans among you. They do rock as a lifestyle device but still have ways to go before becoming a true business communication device with secure e-mail and multi-tasking still unimplemented and a short battery life which I’m sure would be rectified in future releases.