Kampung Gal in the City: Memory for sale

Man, people are crazy about computers. The Pikom PC Fair was moved to the Convention Centre for quite some time now and if I'm not mistaken it's been there for 3 times now but I've only went there this time.

I went to the PC fair today with the strong mind to ONLY buy a PC and a 1G thumb drive to backup my data since I'm buying a new PC. Budget for PC = RM2,500 and thumb drive = RM100.

I got my heart set on a Dell PC but I still want to look around and see if other people have a better offer. Dell got some pretty good offers. They have this system with Pentium D805 with 1G RAM and DVD/CD-RW for RM2,399. Coming into the exhibition, a few brochures came across my path. There were more good offers but I don't like the brands. There are some I've never even heard before. I wanted to look for HP and Compaq. I found HP and grabbed a brochure but then it's actually a brochure for LG. What the hell!? Too late to turn back I just walked on.

I finally reached Dell's booth with a lot of struggling and hassling. My God, there's a lot of people. I deserve a medal for my feat. And then I found out the system that I was interested in has been marked down to RM2,299. Sweet...

But fancying myself as being a good consumer, I know that everything has a catch. You must read the fine print and inspect the thing you're buying really carefully. I asked the rep a few questions and I was so ready to buy it even though I don't like the look of the keyboard. I even asked for a form. After taking a second look at the CPU, I saw that it didn't come with a floppy drive (which is a common practice nowadays). I can still ask for one to be installed (with additional charges of RM44) but then I won't have the card readers which I think is pretty cool. It doesn't come with a speaker but I can still have one with an additional charges of RM24. And if I want to upgrade to 3 year warranty, I need to pay another RM100. Total for the ideal system = RM2,467 and I have to wait 2 weeks.

I stood there for another 5 minutes, looking at the form, calculating, while people come and go behind me. At last I gave the form back. I went back to the HP booth and saw their offer on a big banner. RM2,288 for something similar with Dell plus a 3-year warranty, the speaker is at the monitor, I like the keyboard and there's space for a floppy disk, memory card reader and 2 optical drive but it comes with 512 RAM only. The card reader floppy disk and whatever holes that can be found at the front has a sliding lid which makes it look tidy. Overall, I like the look and I like HP. My first PC was a HP and it never gave me any trouble. It still has a catch though, they don't deliver. You buy now, you take it home now. Yeah, right.

"We'll give you a free trolley."
The 'trolley' is something like those travelling bag on wheels without the bag.
"My car is like at the other side of the world!"
It was parked at Jln Yap Kwan Seng but still can you imagine me pulling 2 huge boxes from the convention centre, go through KLCC, crossed Jalan Ampang and then, hoist those 2 huge boxes into my car?

"Or you can pay now and pick it up from our store at Mid Valley."
Okay, that's better. I'm not working tomorrow anyway. But come on... Do I really have to bring it home myself?

Oh hell, why not? So I bought the HP system with a 1G upgrade for RM180 and a floppy disk drive for RM30. Total = RM2,489. RM11 below my budget.

And they throw in a free headset and a CD case, which might've cost about RM15. I'll take anything.

I'll figure out how I'll cart those 2 huge boxes tomorrow. Ala... I'm sure one of the staff will help a little lady with her new purchase.

That's done, I'm off to my second errand, the thumb drive. I've never bought a thumb drive before so I'm not sure how much it will cost. First shop that I saw sold 1G Pendrive for RM72. Oh, okay. That's below my budget but I still want to survey the area and I found out I can get a 1G drive for RM65. But then I came across PenDrive's booth.

They're throwing this offer, buy a 1G Pendrive for RM80 and they will give you a 'Penskin' for free. I checked them out, the skins are quite cool and I was sooooo tempted but I walked on, convincing myself that a RM65 thumb drive is good enough. But the 'good consumer' part of me failed me. I turned back and bought a Pendrive and I got my free Penskin. You have to admit, it does look cool, right?

"Tigger loves it. It's all stripy like me. Grrrr...."

Impulse Buying #1 = The most expensive 1G thumb drive sold at the fair.
Buy hey, it's still RM20 below my budget.

While searching for the thumb drive I saw a booth selling memory cards.

Impulse Buying #2 = 512MB mini SD memory card for my phone.
But then it's adaptable so I can still use it for my camera. Oops, scrap that. My camera uses a memory stick. Well, I can use it for any future gadgets that I might own. Total damage = RM55.

And I also saw MP3 players. I wanted to reserve my funds for an iPod, preferably limited edition iPod U2 if it's still available. I'm guessing by next year I will be able to get one but in the meantime...
Impluse Buying #3 = MP3 player with 256MB memory.
It's only RM63 and it's so pretty and cute. Look at it...