Smartphone Lovers at Bangkok & in Singapore

* Pictures on right: Singapore Off Line meeting on 19 Jan, 2005.
(Some how, All Treo600 users.)
* Pictures on left:Bangkok Off Line meeting on 17 Jan,2005.
(Many Pocket PC users attended.)

I attended the OFF Line Meeting at Bangkok & in Spore, just after 3 days & 5 days later from Shin Yokohama OFF Line Meeting in Japan.
At Bangkok & in Spore, we Japanese can use smartphones even though, we cannot use them in Japan.
But we Japanese want to use these smartphones in Japanese Language.

How to localize in to Japanese? Just same way is effective as Japanize normal PDA.
However there are many troubles and see many Fatal Errors if we Japanize smartphones.
Maybe something is not same between normal PDA & smartphones.
Of course no support from palmOne, because of localizing to Japanese.

So that's why attending these Off Line meeting is quite important for Japanese who live in oversea & loves smartphones.
We can discuss about any troubles which no support in officially and exchange some tips information like " how to send Japanese SMS"(I will make report about this topic later on this weblog site.)

Meeting at Shin-Yokohama on 14 Jan

I live in Bangkok, but whole last week, I was in Japan for business trip.
But After job, I can meet palm users in Japan.

This time, my friend Hasegawa(A) announced the meeting details in public,
just 3 days before, but 12 members came to the meeting.

We drank and had talking until 3:00am.
(I took 2 hours sleep and took early morning flight for backing to Bangkok.)

I use treo600 as my main palm machine more then a year.
GSM mobile phone cannot be used in Japan. Because in Japan, we have PDC,W-CDMA, CDMA2000 systems only, no GSM or no CDMA system same one as in U.S.A.
So I am waiting for Treo650 GSM version released.
But somehow, I met Treo650 in Japan! Mr.Taichi, whom I met last June meeting in Japan bought one.
He paid for Treo 650 around 680 US$ even if he cannot use Treo650 as phone in Japan.
He imported from U.S.A. by himself via website.
There are some Japanese palm users who bought Treo650 as same as Mr.Taichi did.

Can you believe it? No phone function is used in Japan, but paying for such a smart phone.
Is this means "Japanese has lots of money" ?
No!
I can say, Japanese users loves palm so much! And many Japanese are waiting for W-CDMA version of Treo is released in future. (NOKIA 7600/6630 are compatible for W-CDMA & GSM, but they are not palm smart phones.)

Here is iPod shuffle.
On this meeting day, just released. But the stock at store is not enough on the day.
But how neat, it's quite qute!

What a Cool Box ! - for VZ90 -

Clie belongs to SONY Brand. As you may know, Japanese products are so cool and cute.
Such a taste is not only product itself, but even its box design.

This surface, you can see same design as 4 hard buttons of VZ90 through the cutted circles.

Even surface of Box, SONY mentions this products uses Organic LED.

When you slide away the surface, you can see same design as VZ90 itself, as if it is there!

The Box which looks like display part, CD-ROM is included.

And VZ90 itself is covered with very soft cloth. You can understand how SONY respects VZ90..Actually, this is Japanese way of making boxes for products.
In a sense, it is over quality, but curtonbox is very important at store when customer chose products from stocks.

Even I myself, Japanese, was surprised the design of this box. And I was satisfied with having VZ90 .Because product itself is quite expensive, around 912US$ and I can understand I bought something special, SONY's latest their high-end Clie.

Of course, palmOne box is getting better for design, but totally different from made in Japan.