MUFY Trials and Dopod 838Pro

I'm at it again, only blogging when there's a major test/exam around the corner...

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In about approximately 9 hours and 24 minutes, I'll be seeing this same words right infront of me, on a table, seperated and alone...at least seperated far enough for wandering eyes trying to get some answers from their friends seating around them.



Yep, my MUFY trial finals examination is starting in 9 hours plus time, and for the first time in my life, this is probably the first exam I totally didn't prepare for, and what's worst, I'm not even really worried like I would usually be..yes yes...this is bad!! I'm really aware of it and that's the problem, I'm still not afraid!!
And if you think.."This is only trials, what's the big deal?", the big deal is MUFY love to torture their beloved students, so up to 40% of the marks from our trials will be added into our finals...wonderful!

Dear God..please, please, PLEASE press the "Panic" button within me and wake me up...even though it is abit too late..




TRYING to "study"

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On a brighter note, finally bought my new phone on Friday, in the end, I chose Dopod 838Pro over the rest, even though O2 Atom Exec might be half the size and sexier, or Dopod 900 might have a really beautiful high resolution VGA screen, but personally, Dopod 838Pro is the best among all PDA phones currently in the market. (I say this not because I have it, even reviews also give it 4 to 5 stars, and HWM award it 9 out of 10)





For those who are shopping for a new PDA phone, and finding one with 3G function, or a full keyboard you can type on and chat with your girlfriend and boyfriend, look no further, this is it! This PDA by Dopod is actually the successor of the Dopod 900, some of you may think the Samsung 400 Mhz processor in the Dopod 838Pro is slower then the Intel 520Mhz in the Atom Exec and Dopod 900, but DO NOT be conned over the clock speed, the Samsung 400Mhz chip is actually equivelant to a Intel 600Mhz plus processor! So this is one hell of a zippy PDA.

So how do I find it? It is a vast improvement over the O2 Mini, finally the memory on the phone is not dependent on power supply, so I don't have to worry of my backup battery running out everytime I remove the main battery and having a chance of losing ALL my data stored in the phone. Processor and program response is also much faster then before, for those who uses it, Garmin maps run unbelievably smoothly on the Dopod, compared to O2 mini, you can bump the map details all the way up to "Most" and is still fast enough to draw the map without making you feel frustrated.

SMSing on this phone is a totally different experience, thanks to the full QWERTY slide out keyboard. Before you know it, your supposedly short sms will become 2 or 3 pages long, you'll tend to type all the words in full because the keyboard is just so darn fun to type on. For people who love or always wanted to recieve email on the move, then check this out, the phone actually supports POP3 and IMAP4 email!! So now you can recieve and download all your Hotmail, Gmail, TM-net/Streamyx, Jaring mail straight into it's "Messaging" software, and read it while you're stuck in a traffic jam or whatsorever. If you want to reply your mail, no worries, the slide out QWERTY keyboard will make life so much easier!

But it will be abit too fake if I say this phone doesn't have any flaws. One of the biggest flaws I find with this phone is the allocated RAM memory is too little. Only a total of 50Mb is allocated for program usage, so when the time Windows Mobile OS5 boot up everything, you only left about 30Mb of RAM memory left, which is not really enough. When you start opening up too many programs and when the RAM start running low, you can feel everything starts slowing down, so even though you have a zippy Samsung 400Mhz processor, unfortunately, the RAM is just isn't enough to cope with it.

Another flaw is actually the new Windows Mobile OS5 itself! Because the OS is so new, alot of older programs can't really work properly with the new OS. Programs like SPB Plus will tend to cause the Dopod to crash once in awhile, and a soft-reset is needed to set things right. This is also evident in the Dopod 818Pro PDA phone. Probably give it a few more months, and hopefully more new Windows Mobile programs will be built to support OS5 properly.


Overall the Dopod 838Pro is a good phone. You get almost everything you need for a phone in a package 3 quarter of an inch thick. 3.5G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A2DP to support bluetooth wireless stereo, POP3 and IMAP4 email supports, full QWERTY keyboard and many many more. Oh and did I mention the built in 2.0 Megapixel camera is actually QUITE good(for a handphone camera)!?! All the pictures above were taken with the phone's camera (except for the picture of the Dopod 838Pro la!).



Macro mode with it's LED flash on