Posts Tagged ‘digi’

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DiGi iPhone Pre-Order

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

DiGi has put up a page where one can pre-order the iPhone 3GS.  Pre-orderers will be given priority over others when the time comes to collect the iPhone.  Click here to register your interest – there is no obligation to buy the phone if you pre-order; simply don’t turn up or do anything if you don’t want to!

And ah, please read point 9 of the FAQ around 50 times so that you understand what it means:

9. Do I have to signup for a DiGi mobile service plan in order to buy an iPhone?
Yes. You will have to signup for the selected DiGi mobile service plan in order to buy an iPhone.

I have deliberately increased the font size so that you can read it better.  Have you read it at least 50 times yet?  No?  Go read it again!

Pre-orders are accepted until 18th of March, so better make up your mind quickly!

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Posted in h/w, mobile phone | 8 Comments »

Get A Blackberry 9700 Bold 2 At RM 1,299!

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

A “crazy deal!” says DiGi, only I’m not too sure.  RM 700 off, they say.  Alas, you have to sign away 2 years of your life to DiGi, committing a minimum of RM 58 monthly (although you can get a small discount monthly for auto-debiting your credit card), for 24 months.  It seems that packages with long contract periods are slowly being pushed on to us by celcos in this country.  I’ve always been against this, unless it’s a darned good deal for the consumer (I’ve yet to come across one, by the way).

In this case, I don’t think the RM 700 discount warrants a 24 month contract – I foresee Blackberry Internet Services (BIS) fees, like all other telecommunication services fees, to fall over time, and if it does, your contract fees do not get revised as a result.  RM 700 rebate is not a lot; especially if you sign up and encounter poor service (not that I’m saying that DiGi’s BIS services are not up to par).  Coupled with the fact that we don’t keep our phones for very long, based on my anecdotal evidence, this may not be such a good deal if you think long and hard about it.

Click here for details.  The roadshow is ongoing in MidValley Megamall from today until this weekend.  There are shorter contracts as well, but obviously for a smaller rebate on the cost of the handset, whose recommended retail price is RM 1,999.

And can someone tell DiGi’s web team to update the main consumer Blackberry section to say that the 9700 aka Bold 2 is already available, since it’s on sale at the roadshow?  It still says “coming”…duh…

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Posted in h/w, mobile phone, promotion, telecomunications, wireless broadband | 9 Comments »

Don’t Let Facts Get In The Way Of Reporting

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

So the “big” news yesterday was the announcement by DiGi that they have reached an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone 3G S in Malaysia, by the first half of this year.  The Star reports that the agreement is for three years, which is a very long time, if you ask me, judging by Apple’s rumoured past practices regarding the iPhone – could this mean that the iPhone 4G will be exclusive to DiGi when it appears?

In that same report, the Star says that (emphasis mine):

“The iPhone is sold in 85 countries and has about 25,000 applications that can be downloaded.“

Considering the report was written yesterday, the least the Star could do was to check its facts and figures – the Apple AppStore surpassed the 25,000 applications number a long, long time ago.  As of January 2010, it had 133,979 apps available for download, and the number is closer to 150,000 now.

And don’t let the title mislead you – the “price war” being referred to is “price war with contractual commitment“.  I doubt Apple would be so silly as to give two levels of pricing to two celcos in the same country.  So, everyone is waiting for DiGi to come out with some attractive packages where it will subsidise the price of the iPhone in return for a long term contract – but as I’ve mentioned repeatedly – if you already know what your competition is doing, it’s easy to undercut them, like what DiGi did with their Blackberry BIS package.  It’s altogether another matter to be “innovative” and “market leading”.

And as I’ve told people who are willing to listen repeatedly, you do not have to wait for DiGi to offer the iPhone if you want to use the iPhone on DiGi’s network – just get a prepaid Maxis iPhone (it’s not branded Maxis in any way, externally or internally), throw away that RM 8.80 Maxis prepaid SIM pack, insert a DiGi SIM card and you’re good to go – I’ve been doing this since I got my “Maxis” iPhone3GS since last July!  Unfortunately there are still a lot of ignorant people out there who think that they have to be tied into Maxis when buying the iPhone.  Sigh…I guess companies love to rely on ignorance and stupidity to make money.

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Posted in h/w, mobile phone | 13 Comments »

DiGi To Offer iPhone 3G S…Yawn…Zzzzzzzzz…

Monday, March 1st, 2010

In what (for me anyway) is a case of too little too late, DiGi has come out with all guns blazing saying that it will soon offer the iPhone 3G S.  Why is this a non-event?  First – the phone’s been out for more than 6 feckin’ months already.  Second – the iPhone 4G will arrive in less than 4 months.  Third – what makes us think that the retail, contract-free price from DiGi will be any cheaper than Maxis?  Last time I checked, Apple wasn’t a stupid company that gave variable pricing to two celcos in the same country for the iPhone, so the only area to differentiate oneself is by the plans offered.  And since Maxis’ plans are well known, it’s easy for DiGi to undercut them.  You have to remember though – once DiGi does this, Maxis can just as easily strike back by re-pricing their plans if they wanted to.

So, this means that Maxis exclusivity with the iPhone 3G S is coming to an end.  One wonders whether Maxis will still get the exclusivity for the iPhone 4G due to its longer business relationship with Apple.  And what about the iPad?  This one interests me more than an old phone offered by DiGi – will DiGi offer this too?  Will DiGi offer the iPhone 4G?  So many questions, so little answers.  And if you check DiGi’s iPhone FAQ page, it’s full of baloney like “stay tuned”, “we can’t tell you yet” and “coming soon”.  I mean, if you’re not going to share useful information, why the feck have an FAQ page in the first place?

Click here to read the press release to help you fall asleep.  Thanks to tcmean and RMvalues for alerting me!

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Posted in h/w, mobile phone | 10 Comments »

DiGi Launches Turbo3G™ In Kuching And Ipoh

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Yesterday, DiGi lit up parts of Kuching and Ipoh with its 3G service, dubbed Turbo3G™.  Turbo3G = 3G service meant to be consumed on mobile phones.  DiGi Broadband = 3G service meant to be consumed mainly on data devices such as USB wireless broadband dongles.  68% if Ipoh and 45% of Kuching is covered at launch, which is not too bad, considering that these two cities have traditionally not been at the forefront of early launchings of anything.

Click here for the official press release.  If you’re in Kuching or Ipoh, how’s the service working out for you so far?  Blazing fast speeds?

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Posted in broadband, telecomunications, wireless broadband | 16 Comments »

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