Saw a 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe on the expressway yesterday. It looks great except the pricing sucks. It’s priced at P1,768,000 for the 2WD version and P2,228,000. for the 4WD version. That’s way higher than the quite capable pickup-based SUVs (Mitsubishi Montero Sport, Toyota Fortuner, Ford Everest, and the new Chervrolet Trailblazer) and already heading towards the Mazda CX-9, Ford Explorer, and Honda Pilot territory. Sure there is a void in that price range and there will still be buyers at those prices but I don’t think it will be the same as the levels that propelled Hyundai to great success the past few years. Yeah, I’m bitter.
Leslie flashed a CyanogenMod 10 (CM10) nightly build on my LG Optimus Black (Thanks, Les!). HUGE improvement! I previously said “it’s a little bit laggy due to the low-end specs as well as all those virtual machinery and hardware abstraction layers”. Scrap that! The lagginess, it seems, was due to the Android version (Android 2.2 Frozen Yogurt and later Android 2.3 Gingerbread) and the LG Touch UI. With CM10, which was based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, everything was snappier. There’s a fair bit of instability (hangs mainly, this is a nightly build after all) but it’s quite usable. Looks like this phone can go on as test phone for another year. Maybe I could even use it as secondary/backup phone.
Grabbed a pair of EarPods yesterday. They were out of stock in quite a few stores but I finally got lucky.
The EarPods come in a case that acts as a cable wrap and is really pretty and, more importantly, functional. The earphones themselves are just as beautiful. It’s got a curvy organic look. Supposedly it was designed for the human ear. They’re not in-ear headphones but they are shaped in such a way as to deliver the sound directly into the ear canal.
The sound is definitely better compared to the old Apple earphones. The sound is not as tinny as before. Definitely there was an improvement in the mid and low range. The bass is definitely not the thumping, at least in the ear, kind of way but I guess they also had to consider voice.
I’m quite pleased with them. Too bad, because now that I have them, there’s one less reason for getting an iPhone 5 :P
“It’s a great day!” Jeanne declared as we were leaving the mall. And I indeed it was.
The day started off as most Sunday mornings, i.e. lazy. But after a small brunch, we headed off to our favorite picnic grounds: UP. On the way, we stopped by the roadside for some corn. Then we stopped by Petron for barbecue from Ineng’s Special BBQ (barbecue cooked just right), halo-halo from Chow King, as well as drinks.
It was sunny when we got to UP. But not hot and there’s a cool breeze blowing. We set up our picnic mat under the shade of a tree and had late lunch, dessert, and snacks in quick succession. After resting a bit, we then went to the chapel for mass.
After mass, we headed over to the mall. While Michelle went shopping, Jeanne and I went to look at some electronica then to the bookstore to read a few books. We ended up also getting a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. After the bookstore, we went to the grocery and bought some essentials. James caught up with us as we were paying. We then went to Yoshinoya for dinner, where Michelle rejoined us, before heading home.
Yes, Jeanne. It was a great day!
After the riots in China, both the FoxConn factory and the anti-Japanese riots, US and Japanese companies are finding out about the true costs of being in China. Maybe it’s time they focus more on the Philippines. There may be separatists down south and corruption everywhere but at least workers, and people in general, don’t have the tendency riot the way they do in China. Yes, not even with all that corruption.
For the US, the Philippines has been one of the destinations for business process outsourcing, why not manufacturing, too? For Japan, it has been one of the destinations for outsourcing manufacturing. And has something in common with: disputes with China over sovereign territory :P