The Siamerican

Last Tuesday, the Siamerican, ventured to Bangkok’s main IT hub, Panthip Plaza. The Siamerican was accompanied by his American friend Jesse, also a Communication Arts student at BUIC, who offered company and graphics card advice for the a full day of computer shopping.

The Siamerican had been planning for months to get a new computer as his 3 year old Compaq Presario notebook has long outlasted its one year warranty. While still fully function able, there is no telling when the CPU (Celeron M 1.3 Ghz) will finally give out–and when it does, the Siamerican has far too much work on his plate that requires computer and internet access. Instead of getting another laptop, the Siamerican sought a desktop PC as the money goes a lot further as far as performance, maintenance, and reliability.

After hours of walking up and down the floors of Panthip plaza, comparing the latest computer models, prices, and specs, the Siamerican finally found the best deal for his 20,000 baht budget limit via Aeon Finance Credit System. It was IT city on the top floor that had a great selection of HP and Acer computers with the most competitive prices.

He was sold on the Acer Aspire M1100, which is loaded with an AMD Athlon 4400 64 x 2 dual core 2.3 gigahertz processor, a gigabyte of Ram (maximum 4 gigabytes), 250 gigabytes harddrive (maximum 500 gb) separate ATI Radeon graphics card, integrated audio, speakers, mouse, keyboard, and 19 inch LCD flat screen for a grand total of 20,500 baht. The Siamerican downed 500 baht–the rest to be paid in 12 x 2000 baht installments to Aeon (Interest making the cost to about 24000 baht)

The icing on the cake for choosing IT city over other shops–who differed in price by only a few hundred baht for the same set up–was the incentive of IT city throwing in a free one gigabyte USB flash drive on top of an additional gigabyte of RAM, bringing the virtual memory to 2 gigabytes. Not to mention the fact that all of IT City’s Acer models were firewire ready, compared to Data IT, with none of their computers having fire wire integrated. After doing the procedure check on all the hardware fresh out of the box, and obtaining some new software, the Siamerican and Jesse finally set for home as the day waned into sunset.

Being that his apartment was pretty bare, the Siamerican needed to get a computer desk among other things on the way home, of which his friend generously helped haul the new computer and monitor on the crowded rush hour skytrain to Tesco Lotus at Onut station. There the Siamerican spent 700 baht for a cheap desk and electric fan, throwing everything into the taxi, as the Siamerican followed on his bike (which was parked nearbye)

Back at the pad, the Siamerican and Jesse knocked back a few beers, struggling to assemble the desk without a real phillips screwdriver–instead using a handyman type tool of which the bottle opener proved to be the most effective substitute. After an hour or so, the desk was finally set up and it was time to hook up the computer.

Over the next few days, the Siamerican made use of the new purchase, mainly doing some mapping/ Database work of Southern California region–one of his prime business obligations/tasks. As school reports and projects start to pile up, he will have to pace himself and neglect his blogging and writing over the next few weeks.

Hooking up his notebook and PC directly via Firewire cable, the Siamerican eventually got a small home-office network going, enabling easy and quick file transfer and internet sharing. As his apartment lacks even a phone line, the Siamerican continues to use his Nokia mobile phone as a GPRS modem. Faster and more stable than a dial up connection, GPRS internet has been perfect internet solution over the last few years in Thailand. Though not as fast as broadband, the Siamerican has no necessity to download movies and tv series, of which he can get from his friend if he needs. Internet, blogging, website, map streaming, instant messaging are all efficiently fast and reliable with GPRS modem and the Siamerican will continue to use until something else becomes more convenient /reliable.

Speaking of reliability, the Siamerican’s Thai couzins were supposed to meet up with him since last week but have delayed and scheduled to finally come this evening. The Siamerican plans to outsource some mapping/database work and so opted to recruit his cousins first, but has yet to find out if they will prove to be reliable.

Stay tuned….