Back in June, I was lucky enough to be invited to P1 and Intel’s launch of their embedded WiMAX devices at Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel. The event, officially dubbed the Launch of Malaysia’s First WiMAX-Inside 4G laptops, felt more like a disco than media event.

They dressed up the hotel’s ballroom and had 3 giant laptops in the front, and there were slick, dressed-up hostesses with face paint who were taking pictures with guests.

The two pics above from TianChad.com – see his post from the event.

Why the face paint? Coz that was the campaign creative:

P1 W1MAX-1NSiDE Review

I was also lucky enough to get a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 which had the new embedded WiMAX chip to test out for 2 weeks. I don’t have any pictures of the device itself because the review is more of the WiMAX service (and also because the Dell still had the cling wrap on it).

So how is the performance of P1 WiMAX on the go? Here’s a speedtest I did from The Curve in Mutiara Damansara:

I was impressed at the sustained download speed of nearly 2Mbps. It’s as good as my DSL Streamyx connection at home.

Here’s another one I did from Kota Kemuning (where I live):

Holy frickin’ crap!!! That’s a sustained download speed of more than 9Mbps. I’ve never seen that on any local broadband provider, so that really blew my socks off (No, I haven’t tested out Unifi yet) and live up to their claims that the service can achieve speeds of 10 Mbps.

Granted, the tests are to servers based in Malaysia but it’s still pretty impressive. Many of the popular sites that I visit with a decent CDN (Content Delivery Network) like Yahoo, YouTube and Facebook loaded really quickly.

Who Needs W1MAX-1NSiDE?

I’m not the target market for these embedded WiMAX devices. I work mainly from a single location (my home office) – plus, I’m a Mac

However, I think these WiMAX-inside netbooks and laptops are great if you

1. Spend lots of time in cafes and on the go. If you mainly use your laptop on the go you’ll find that you’re pretty much tethered to places with WiFi. With WiMAX you don’t need to squeeze into crowded cafes and share the WiFi with everyone else. And on the occasion that you are out of WiMAX coverage, you can always fall back to WiFi since the devices are both WiMAX & WiFi capable.

2. You are a minimalist who likes to travel light. I prefer my MacBook but maybe you like something that is half the weight. And you don’t want to carry extra USB dongles to connect to 3G or WiMAX. These additional dongles also drain your battery faster, so another plus point for embedded WiMAX.

3. You are sick of Streamyx. I have a pretty good Streamyx connection but it’s not very reliable. Just 2 days ago, I had problems connecting. Turns out, apparently someone stole TM’s cables.

Where To Get W1MAX-1NSiDE

If you want to find out more about these embedded WiMAX netbooks and laptops, head on over to www.wimaxinside.com.my.

On the site, you’ll find out details about the plans and the locations where you can buy the devices. They even have an introductory promotion where you get the first 3-6 months WiMAX subscription free and pay a discounted rate if you continue later.

Finally…

Happy birthday P1! Packet One Networks turns 2 today. They’ve done a great job to push innovation and competition in the broadband industry. Thanks for inviting me to the launch and providing me the review unit, and I wish you all the best.

Related posts:

1. Malaysia awards WiMAX licenses

I’m really excited and super proud to be a part of the inaugural WordCamp Malaysia! I’ll be presenting at least 1 session. The event will be held on Saturday, 22 May and other details are being finalised at the moment. You can check out http://wordcamp.my for updates.

Due to the delayed release of WP3.0 I won’t be giving my original topic. I’ll be talking about theme frameworks instead. What’s your favourite theme framework and why?

I would like to get your feedback for the topic that I’m presenting. Here’s the outline:

Theme Frameworks: a glimpse into the future of WordPress themes

• What are theme frameworks & what’s so great about them?
• How to create a better blog with theme frameworks
• WP as a CMS, even better with Headway
• How designers & developers can shortcut theming with theme frameworks

Introduction to Hacking WordPress 3.0 Themes

• Discover how the WordPress theme system works
• New features for theme designers in WordPress 3.0
• Learn bare minimum coding for theme designers
• Style comments to identify the blog author
• Add custom header images to your blog (the regular way and the WP3.0 way)
• Enable custom background for your blog
• Menus any way you want with WP3.0′s custom menus

Let me know what you like or don’t like, or even what I should include in my talk. Keep in mind I only have 30 minutes. Thanks, and see you at WordCamp!

Related posts:

1. Can you drastically change how WordPress looks in 10 minutes? The Headway theme can!
2. Randa Clay Design Blog Pimping Contest
3. BarCamp Malaysia

I contributed a blog post to the SMCkl blog – Class is in session

Picture by Azman Saini

Last weekend I attended Barcamp Malaysia, the inaugural Barcamp event in this part of the world. Unfortunately I missed the whole Day 1 because I actually managed to fall sick on the day.

However I did enjoy the sessions on Day 2 and met quite a few interesting people. It was really fun to meet everyone who shared the same Web 2.0 philosophy and ideas. I felt like a true geek.

Be sure to check out Cheryl Goh’s BarCamp Malaysia in 6 pictures post if you want a quick summary. Also, hi to skeevs, Chee Aun and James who I finally met in person.

Related posts:

1. BarCamp Malaysia
2. Malaysia awards WiMAX licenses

I forgot to mention, I’m attending BarCamp Malaysia this 26 July

Related posts:

1. Malaysia awards WiMAX licenses