The Raving Monkey’s Den

HP comes up with the most unique and ingenious marketing concepts for all their new business units release. I mean, I’m pretty used to receiving odd stuff from the vendors such as messages in bottles (ala, pirate map style) from Microsoft and even golf balls from CSA. This is what HP has come up with — for their new dc7800 business desktop.

Here’s the cute package that came to me in the actual size of the new dc7800 model.

Inside you will find items that represent what the new dc7800 is capable of (which is really cool). Of course, the items are no longer in the slots that they originally came in. There’s also a mini cooper model car that is missing (which represents speed and agility) — got hijacked by my fiancée.

We have a can of Coke which represents Stay Cool Always.

Then we have a energy-saver light bulb which is (obviously) - Save Energy. I love the mini screwdriver pen (which has multiple screwdriver head implant) which is for Superior Support and Service.

There is also a tape measure which is for - Be Scalable and Productive. The padlock is for Security and the amazing thing is they even provided a Touch n Go card (with RM 30 preloaded mind you) for Invented With You In Mind.

Finally we have a bag (those recycle type) for Friendly To The Environment (I suppose to represent HP’s RoHS certification).

Well folks, here it is… the latest toy from Maxis. This is the ultimately portable Broadband Modem from Maxis. That box you see is actually a standard size DVD box. I would say this is really nice packaging that you get from Maxis (the other would be the PCMCIA card which is getting pretty old).

Open it up and hey PRESTO!, you get the standard modem set (Huawei brand), two separate USB cables — one with dual USB for power from the PC and the other shorter USB to mini USB, and a tiny little guide book.

Using it is as simple as plugging the device into your PC’s USB port. It acts as a thumb-drive thus automatically installing all the necessary drivers and software required to connect you to the internet.

Once connected, you will be told the speed that you can achieve (depends on the location you are in). It will always attempt to connect to the fastest possible network (as shown in the screenshot above) which is HSDPA (3.6 Mbps). It will then drop to UMTS, EDGE and finally GPRS if necessary.

Now I’ve been using this for quite some time and I must say … a 512 kbps Streamyx connection … is way faster then the 3.6 Mbps that I’m getting from Maxis. I couldn’t even get connected to MSN Messenger for crying out loud.

Browsing speed was bearable (which certain sites taking ages to load). Upload speed is horrendous.

My final say, stick to land based internet … it’s was faster and cheaper.