Try Messages App From OS X Mountain Lion Now – The new version of OS X is coming, and it’s called the Mac OS X Mountain Lion. Apple is now calling the OS X instead of Mac OS X. Sounds cool, they are trying to differentiate betweet Mac hardware and OS X software.

One of the feature in the coming OS X Mountain Lion is the Messages app which eliminates iChat and bring iMessage and several other chat service like AIM, Yahoo! Google Talk and Jabber accounts under one app to Mac computer.

- Send unlimited iMessages to any Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.
- Start an iMessage conversation on your Mac and continue it on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.
- Send photos, videos, attachments, contacts, locations, and more.
- Launch a FaceTime video call and bring the conversation face-to-face.
- Messages supports iMessage, AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Jabber accounts.

I am trying it now and it’s kinda cool and fast. I can now iMessage with my iPhone friend and FaceTime video under one app. Download the Messages app here to try out now.

Nokia N9 – Good Concept, A Little Too Late – Last week, I was walking in Sunway Pyramid, a shopping mall in Malaysia and I saw a demo unit of the Nokia N9 on shelf. I was curious and went to have a little hands-on on it. The design looks very good and sleek with a 3.9″ capacity Gorilla glass display.

What’s so special about phone is the button-less homescreen. There’s no home button like on the iPhone or Android. It’s just a screen, with a function button on right and the volume key on the left. So how it works is actually on swiping the screen. Swiping the screen from right to left actually wakes up the phone. I find that it is a very good idea and concept. Swiping from left to right changes your opened application screen and from top to bottom is to close your application.

Sounds pretty cool right? It runs on MeeGo OS and has a 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU, with 8megapixel shooter on the back that is able to shoot HD-ready 720P video at 30fps. The feeling on hand is very solid, not too light, nor too heavy with a perfect size. The MeeGo system is smooth and has a good looking UI too.

Unfortunately, MeeGo is a late-comer where iOS and Android is taking most of the smartphone market share and Windows Phone Mobile is coming up while RIM’s BlackBerry is doing not so well. With apps that are already ready built for the other platforms, MeeGo might not get much third party app support and development. Well, I just got to say that the idea of the phone is very good, and sadly, MeeGo is just too late, it should have join the competition few years back when iOS and Android were released.

Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to show you the photos of the unboxing of the latest version, 2011 version of Apple MacBook Pro. =D Yes people, I just bought a MacBook Pro lately because my old White MacBook was failing on me. I bought via online through the Apple Online Store and through the education discount so it’s cheaper.

Sealed with plastic.

Some asked me why I don’t get at the Apple Campus Experience Store in my campus so I can bring it home right away and the reason is because I want to customize the display of the MacBook Pro. The original display is 1440×900 and I want to upgrade to high resolution 1680×1050. It’s only another RM300 (100US$) top up which total up is RM6474 (2150US$). It took them 5 days to deliver and shipped.

The address I put was my mom’s office cause I was afraid that when it’s here, I am not at home. The delivery via DHL was pretty fast as there’s not really a problem at the custom and airport. It’s transported from Shanghai – Hong Kong – Shen Zhen – Kuala Lumpur – Penang.

Actually I was checking the delivery status day by day and on last Friday, as usual I check through the status page and surprisingly saw it says “Delivered and signed by (SOMEONE)”. I was so excited and quickly jumped up from bed, get freshen up and went to the office to collect and unbox it.

It’s my first time unboxing a MacBook Pro and I was so excited and happy. I was just doing it slowly.

Asia power adapter.

Padding for the protection of the MacBook Pro.

Apple just wrapped and packaged it so well where everything in the box was so organized and nicely placed. I very salute them, it’s so unlike other laptops as they are just in a box with form. The Apple’s package was different, the adapter, the manual and the cable was placed very neatly and nicely in the box.

Power adapter.

Manual and CD.

Welcome to the world of the Pro and now I have another pretty box added into my collection.

The launched date of Apple iPad 2 was already predicted recently and I went to my campus to have a hands-on on the iPad 2, feel how special and nice it is. It’s nice that there’s an Apple store in campus so I can went to feel the Mac all the time. =D

I didn’t come here in the morning to check out the launch because I was sleeping. It says that only 1 purchase for each person. Well, there’s no buying extra but when I check with the stock just now, it’s still available.

When hands-on on it, it look exactly the same with the original iPad but when get a hold on it, it feels sleeker, thinner and the Apple A5 CPU is definitely the most obvious changes. The transition of screen is really smooth.

Just try the camera and nothing much on the iPad 2. It’s indeed cool but the resolution for the still camera just sucks. 1280×720 for back and front faced is VGA resolution which is just a fun camera. If it’s 5 megapixel like the iPhone 4 then it’s a perfect device, too bad it’s not.

White is pretty!

Smart Cover is surprisingly holding strong onto the iPad, however it’s still not save in my opinion as a stronger pull will drag it apart.

If you are asking me if I want it or not, of course I want but then I have an iPad already, no point buying this unless there’s trade in program, is there any? I want iPad 2!

I bought a BlackBerry Bold 9780 or also known as the Bold 3 to the BB fans out there for very cheap due to the promotion and contract by DiGi. Before this, I was so curious about the BlackBerry and keep on wondering why people here, especially KL people and Indonesian like BlackBerry so much. I always scratch my head and they influenced me.

So I finally got myself a BlackBerry, the latest device, an upgrade of BlackBerry 9700 and was released just recently. It’s something very cool, very sexy, the Boldness, especially the QWERTY keyboard. I really like QWERTY keyboard very much as it’s awesome.

With much anticipation, I switched my data card with BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) to the Bold and started BB-ing which turned up to be a disappointment to me. Now I will start ranting my dislike on the phone.

Perhaps I was on huge 3.7″ touchscreen Nexus One, switching to a small 2.5″ is not a favour. At first it’s OK, but as soon as coming to surfing the Internet, scrolling on the trackpad is getting difficult although it’s good.

Next, I tried the social media apps built inside the new OS6. Facebook is ugly when compare to a Android’s Facebook app. I didn’t try Twitter. The very famous UberTwitter is fun to tweet because it’s very fast but again the UI is ugly when compare to Twicca or TweetDeck on the Android. Foursquare is pretty much the same.

As for the application, to be honest there’s no fun application to play with like on the Android or iPhone. BlackBerry is just a plain emailing device. Don’t talk about the social media apps because it’s available on the iPhone and Android too. Nothing much special about it except the keyboard. Perhaps some people says that emailing on the BlackBerry is more secure, this maybe good to business people as the email run through their very own RIM server in Canada. If you are talking about Push Email service, Gmail app on the Android is just on par with the push service by BlackBerry.

BlackBerry is a device that need to use with the BIS, BlackBerry Internet Service. Without it, your phone is just a dumb phone which just can call and text. Even with a data plan, you can’t go onto the Internet, or WiFi, Internet is not available unless you have no SIM card in the phone. I feel it’s kinda ridiculous. I don’t really like it. And I need to add additional RM10 (3.5US$) on top of my data plan. Was thinking of using it as a texting phone but somehow other feature won’t work so I didn’t use already.

Then after using one day of data on it, I realised that my Nexus One is almost dead because many apps on the Android run through cloud service and requires data and I can’t afford a second data line. In the end, I switch back the data + BIS line to my Nexus One and stop using the BlackBerry.

This is an advice from me and personal opinion. I thought it was cool but after I tried it, it’s not. Perhaps you say you want to BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) with your friend, why not you use Kik, WhatsApp, Ping or GTalk? They are actually all the same thing. After using for a day, I don’t like it. It’s not a good phone. Stick with Android or iPhone, they are still better than BB.

Many BB-fans is going to dislike me but this is just what I am thinking about it. =) I sold my BlackBerry after then and back to Google Nexus One.

RIM just launched their latest device, the Blackberry Torch here in Malaysia. My friend Yong Xiang who is one of the lucky one who have been selected by the Maxis 10 program to review the latest unit. On a meet-up, I was luckily to get hold on the phone for a couple minutes and take a few shots of the phone.

The new Blackberry Torch is running on 6 OS which is the latest OS developed by RIM. I am not a Blackberry user but this hands on makes me think that the Torch is a pretty cool device with combination of capacitive touch screen and QWERTY keyboard. The touch screen is pretty responsive and the keyboard feels the same though.

I give a thumbs up for the touch screen. Now Blackberry is not only confine by QWERTY keyboard but both.Featuring 5megapixel auto focus, it is now on par with other smartphone on the market.

By the way, do you realise that Blackberry is becoming a trend now in the Malaysian youth community?

Apple Magic Mouse is pretty. My friend who is working at an Apple store here in my place told me that it’s out of stock at the moment.

After trying out the mouse in the store, it’s pretty but it still doesn’t feel as good as a huge mouse that I am using, it’s only pretty and special with the button less button. It scroll with a feel, right click with a feel but I can’t do pinch and rotate yet, any idea how?

Walked around the exhibition hall and found something to play and try out and that is the iRiver M3 GPS system. The design is not bad, but the screen is rather small, it will be nice if it’s widescreen. Since it’s indoor, there’s I can’t navigate around with this thing, so I place search on my house address and it works. It has preloaded maps of Malaysia and it search by cities.

What’s this different from Garmin is that it is also a media player which plays music, video, text and photo. The storage is via SD card and addition features are like local yellow page listing, 3D junction view, landmark icons and toll rates calculator.

Price at RM499 for PC Fair price, I don’t like this because the touch screen is unresponsive, I always keyed in the wrong word when searching for road and navigating around is not easy.

I went around the PC Fair to look for some cool gadget to play with but most of them don’t have demo unit. One of which is HTC which doesn’t have any demo set for their units which disappoint me a lot. I wanted to check out the HTC HD2 a.k.a. HTC Leo running Windows Mobile on their fast processor but somehow the HTC guy told me that they only got dummy set to show. That’s really bad.

The only thing I can try with the dummy set is feel the size and compare it. The HD2 will probably not be my wanted phone because it’s too huge. Although it’s thin, light, and the screen is extremely big, yet it still feel big, wide on hand and in the pocket. 4.3″ is a little bit too big IMO.

I haven’t tried a Android device before. It’s all looking on Youtube and reading about user experience in before, HTC Hero is the only Android device in Malaysia currently and, still I don’t get to try on it. Boring.

If you are looking for a phone, I recommend you to wait for Motorola’s MILESTONE or the new HTC Hero replacement in early 2010.