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Stop calling Xiaomi the “Apple of China”. They’re anything but that…

Posted on May 18, 2016 admin

I cringe whenever I read an article that refers to Xiaomi as the “Apple of China”. I think it’s a poor comparison and it’s an insult to the Apple brand.

Why?

Before I go into it let me first tell you that I am a Huawei ambassador (one of Xiaomi’s main competitor in China) but these opinions are purely my own and my own only. I also first had a horrible experience with XiaoMi (Which I blogged about on Dayre) before I started using Huawei and became their ambassador.

Now here’s what Apple is known for:

Ground-breaking technology – There was a period of time where every new release of Apple products got everyone excited. Why? Because it pushed the boundaries of technology. Sometimes it wasn’t so much that they invented things but they took things that were already out there and made it really simple for everyone.
Great quality products that lasted – There was a reason why people were and are still willing to pay premium for an iPhone or a Macbook vs all the other brands. It’s because they make great products that last.

Now take a look at what Xiaomi has done:

They are yet to introduce to the market a ground breaking product – Everything they produce is a copy and cheaper alternative of something else. Their MIUI OS on the phone looks so much less stock Android and much more iOS. They don’t stop at the OS too, when fitness bands are in, they come out with the Mi Band, The copying goes as far as the Founder & CEO wearing the same black turtle neck Steve Jobs is famous for wearing and having “One more thing…” in their presentations.

This is not the Apple of China. This is a COPY of Apple FROM China. Now being a blatant copycat wouldn’t bother me so much if they made great affordable products for the masses… but this brings me to the second point.

2. They make TERRIBLE phones – When I first opened my Xiaomi Note, I noticed the camera had a black spot in every picture I took. No matter what I did it wouldn’t go away, so I decided to send it back for warranty. The service center for Xiaomi in KL is in Lowyat. I waited for a couple weeks before they finally gave me back my phone. Since then this Mi Note has gone in and out of service centers another twice more in the next few months. That makes it about 3 times in a 3 month plus period and each time having to wait at least a week before I got my phone back.

The phone and MIUI really looks nice when you first play around with it but if you use it long enough you realize it’s really a house of cards. The phone doesn’t last and breaks down all the time. The service centers are packed which makes you wonder if it’s because everyone elses’ phone is breaking down too.

Compare this to Huawei. I love my Huaweis and I think they make great phones. Even then I once had my older Huawei Mate S break down on me too. I brought it back to the service center and within 2 hours they had my phone back for me. 2 hours instead of a week. I can do without a phone for 2 hours… I can’t for a week let alone 2 or 3 weeks.

So here we have a company that copies Apple and makes bad products. Should this company be referred to then as the “Apple of China”? China… being the 2nd largest economy in the world and the home of truly innovative tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba?

I think not. So to the mainstream media, please stop referring to Xiaomi as the Apple of China. They’re a Chinese phone manufacturer no doubt, but they’re no Apple.

Why some influencers are influential and why some are NOT

Posted on May 16, 2016 admin

I just did my taxes and realized that last year I made a substantial amount of money from my social media platforms. Does that make me an influencer?

I cringe a little whenever I hear anyone refer to me as one. Why?

It all boils down to this one simple notion:

Nobody is influential for no reason.

If you look at the history of influential people around the world they all have one thing. They have a following that admire them and they earn that admiration not for being born beautiful or rich but for work that they do . For example:

Actors/Actresses/Talk Show hosts – Leonardo DiCaprio is influential because people love his work as an actor. From watching his movies they build a bond with him through the characters he play. He uses motion pictures or video to reach people and build bonds with them and that’s why he’s influential today. Even Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton who are famous for doing nothing are influential today because of their TV shows they’ve had now and in the past. The internet’s equivalent of that is YouTubers. Popular YouTubers like Casey Neistat or Pewdiepie are influential because they build bonds with their followers over video.
Musicians – People love music and we build an affinity for musicians that sing or write songs that speak to us. Songs that we sing along to. The online equivalent of this are independent musicians on YouTube that have built their very own following and their very own community.
Writers/authors – We follow JK Rowling and George R.R. Martin because we love what they write. The modern equivalent of this is bloggers or journalists with an online presence.
Athletes – We watch them in games. We admire them for their talent and skill and how they can play football or golf way better than we can.

If there’s one thing you can notice about these 4 areas above is that they all provide for a medium in which that one person can engage you uninterrupted for at least a few minutes at a time. That allows a bond to develop between you and Lorde when you listen to her music or you an JK Rowling when you read Harry Potter. None of them built a bond with you just because you saw their short Instagram update among a stream of other photos you see in your day.

So what does that mean? It comes back to the core that people are famous or influential for a reason and not because of how many followers they have on Instagram.

Coming back to why I cringe when some refer to me as an influencer… because it doesn’t say what I am purportedly famous or influential for. Call me a father, an entrepreneur, a husband to my wife, a blogger but not an influencer.

I’ve tested this too. At Netccentric we run so many social media campaigns and we found that people who are “influential” for no other reason other than looking good on Instagram tend to lead to very few conversions of a product they sell. In one case the campaign we ran was a mobile app.

We ran it on two different influencers. One a blogger who had 100K followers on Instagram. Another was a really pretty girl who had 300K.The results were this: The blogger drove almost 20K downloads, the pretty girl… 500.

We’ve seen similar results for celebrities/YouTubers vs pure Instagram stars.

Another important factor in getting effectiveness from influencers is the way it’s used.

Mothership.sg came out with a really good article last week calling the bullshit on how some brands use influencers. I like Mothership.sg for their wit and their sarcasm. There is truth is what they’re saying. Admittedly even within our own campaigns at Nuffnang (one of the bloggers in the article is a Nuffnang Singapore blogger… not the one who claimed to carry around a 1-litre milk carton but another).

The inside story of this is a little complicated. Brands know they want to use influencers and they know using the right ones help but what’s the safest way to use them? Easy… the way endorsements have been done since the beginning of celebrity endorsements. Holding a product and taking a picture. Like George Clooney with Omega or Beyonce with Pepsi. So influencers go along with what brands want and if I’m going to be honest, I personally have been guilty of this too in the past.

What Nuffnang is trying to do is champion this change. That if you’re using influencers who are influential because of their work (be it music, video, writing (blogging)) then we have to use them through their work. Incorporate your brand into the video that a YouTuber is doing if it goes well with the story or let a blogger incorporate your product as part of something he or she is going to write anyway. Be part of the conversation rather than trying to dictate the conversation.

Another article about influencers I really like is this one. What the article gets right is that many influencers are overpriced and really add limited value to a brand. Eventually brands are going to realize this and stop engaging them.

What the article neglects to say is that among all the noise, there are the real influencers. People like bloggers like Xiaxue and Vivy Yusof, or musicians like Joyce Chu or actors/actresses like Nora Danish with 2m followers on Instagram. These influencers will continue to thrive.

How about influencers who lie about really using a product?

The truth is this does happen. I strongly discourage it and personally for me before I write about a product I make sure I’ve tried it myself and believe in it. Lying about a product kills your credibility entirely and some influencers do kill the Golden Goose by doing that… but not everyone.

There are influencers out there who take their credibility to their followers very seriously. Ones that know that their influence is only present as long as they have credibility. Ones that know that it takes a long time to build trust… but just one posting to destroy it all.

These are the influencers that have real influence.

These are the ones that can influence a buying decision and drive sales.

These are the true influencers.

Two Fighter Stories. One of hide and seek

Posted on May 12, 2016 admin

I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with Fighter lately. It helps too that these past two weeks I haven’t been traveling for work so he’s back to loving Daddy. When he sees me in the morning he happily shouts “Good morning Daddy!!” and once in a while he will say “I love you Daddy!”.

Anyway there were a couple of instances that happened in the past few days that I thought was really cute and I want to document them here. Both happened yesterday.

We were both playing hide and seek. He hasn’t really understood the concept of hiding in the past so it’s mostly me doing the hiding and him finding me. He’s not very good at finding things so I normally have to call out to him every now and then while I’m sweating away at my hiding spot.

Yesterday though we decided to mix it up. I asked him if he wanted to do the hiding and he said “YES!”. Not just any yes… a resoundingly loud YES!

I closed my eyes and counted to 10 as I heard his footsteps trail away. When I finished my countdown I looked around and it didn’t take me long to find him. He was hiding quietly next to the window, head to toe fully visible and exposed. The one thing he was hiding behind though was his stuffed George from Peppa Pig. Something like this.

Note: This picture is a reenactment when I asked him to show me again how he did it.

In that short glance I had of him I sensed he looked really content with his hiding spot. So I played along.

I called out “Fighter! Fighter where are you?” and walked around the living room. All this while I could hear him snickering behind George. His snickers got louder and louder the longer I took to find him but I ignored it. Just carried on looking for him.

Finally he couldn’t take it, he put down his George and ran to hug me while laughing away. My heart melted to mush.

Okay so the second story of Fighter happened this morning. Here’s how our conversation went:

Fighter: Daddy!

Me: Yes?

Fighter: I want to marry Daddy and Mommy.

Me: Haha… Daddy and Mommy would love to marry you too. But one day you’ll grow up and find a beautiful girl who will take good care of you and you’ll marry her ok? *teary eyed*

Fighter: No don’t want.

Me: Why?

Fighter: I want to marry a boy.

Me:

Should we be thinking about how much money our startup can make, instead of how much money it can raise

Posted on May 7, 2016 admin

The past few years has seen a lot of hype when it comes to internet companies in South East Asia. More and more VCs are plowing more and more money into the ecosystem here and more startups are getting funded.

Here’s how it normally works:

1) You pick a startup in the US that has raised a lot of money and use that as a comparable.

2) In that comparable you pick a number of metrics that you use to measure growth in your startup. Sometimes it’s bookings, sometimes it’s orders and sometimes it’s revenue. That metric normally has to be something that can be bought with the money that you raise. So if it’s revenue, it had better be something you can “buy” by say offering a necessity (like groceries) at a discounted price to drive revenue.

3) Once you have spent the money you raised, chances are you would have delivered on some of your key metrics and that would allow you to raise even more money.

4) Once you raise even more money, you proudly announce the news, your friends in the startup community applaud you. You and your staff become paper millionaires.

5) You repeat the cycle again.

Of course the above is easier said that done and some people execute it better and/or luckier than others.

With the help of the media, people in South East Asia are plowing into tech. For the first time you’re seeing investment bankers and consultants quitting their high paying jobs and starting their own startups or joining a startup. You see young entrepreneurs starting businesses not in the traditional sense but with some form of technology. Some are even really traditional businesses that put some tech in their business and categorize themselves as tech companies. Why? Because tech companies are valued higher. Because tech companies are sexy right now.

Bill Gurley wrote this article about why the unicorn financing market is becoming dangerous for all and I think many of his points apply to the smaller non-unicorn companies in South East Asia.

Except for some additional factors that don’t work in our favour:

SEA is a huge market. But it’s also a very non-homogeneous and fragmented market. So it makes it much harder for the startups here to scale like the startups we model ourselves after in the US. So when it comes to the point when our startups need to stop chasing growth and start making money, we may realize that the market just isn’t big enough for an “Uber or marketplace of something”.
The huge startups we model ourselves after in the US aren’t exactly rushing to buy their SEA equivalents. There was a time when US based companies would buy their SEA equivalents…. think Groupon, Living Social and the likes. But US companies now tend to choose to compete rather than buy. Uber for example hasn’t bought any of its major competitors. Netflix either. AirBnB acquired a smaller German clone but chose not to buy its main European competitor. Instead they chose to compete. Lazada did sell to Alibaba recently but that was hardly the multi billion dollar cashout everyone expected.
The major media companies in SEA still aren’t doing much acquiring. In the US we have companies like Yahoo, Google and Facebook that buy up startups there. When was the last time Google or Facebook made an acquisition in SEA that wasn’t a talent acquisition. So we look at the traditional players here. Our SPH, our Media Prima, our Astro. What startups have they bought that has given a good payout to its founders and investors?

Given these problems, when the crash in Silicon Valley hits, it’ll hit us harder. There will be less VCs to fund, less opportunities for exit and more corpses.

VCs in SEA are wising up too. There is a stronger push for profitability or path to profitability. VCs now completely discount the use of metrics like GMV and instead opt for revenue or profits. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t a shortage of funding for the popular startups that are churning out great meaningful metrics. There’s just a shortage for everyone else who isn’t categorized as outstanding.

So the question I asked myself this morning was… what does growth really mean? What about pivoting not our startup but our entire mindset to a business that makes money, rather than a business that hopes to build something, raise money then exit.

I then reflected on my own experience. Netccentric was one such business. We never raised money and grew by reinvesting our profits over the years but since we raised money at our IPO, we too have to spend money to hit the growth targets our investors want us to hit. Just like all the other startups out there, we too start a “burn” although we still maintain healthy gross margins.

At what point do we stop thinking about how much money our business can raise and think very seriously about how much money the business can make?

Giant stopped me from taking photos of my son while shopping for groceries and I don’t understand why

Posted on May 3, 2016 admin

Just the other day I was following my wife shopping with Fighter in tow. Fighter was happily seated on the shopping cart as we pushed him aisle to aisle. I thought it was a really cute moment. Armed with my camera I decided to take some pictures of him.

I was having a good time taking photos of him as we pushed him around until suddenly a staff at Giant told me wife to ask me to stop taking pictures. He said we weren’t allowed to take pictures in Giant. I abided by that request but I was baffled on why.

Why would they stop someone taking pictures in their supermarket? First of all I was taking pictures of my son. Not their products… and even if I were a competitor (say Tesco) trying to take photos of their trade marketing initiatives or whatever, I would whip out my mobile phone, snap a photo and there’s nothing anyone could have done about it. Short of them having a big bouncer at every aisle.

We live in a world now where restaurants are trying to get you to take photos and post on social media. Going as far as to incentivize you with a free dessert or a discount. Yet I was surprised to see that we have supermarkets like Giant that are still stuck with this arcane thinking.

Can someone explain to me why Giant doesn’t allow you to take pictures inside their supermarket? Maybe there’s a really good reason that I’m totally missing here.

Here’s how my wife and I give our marriage purpose

Posted on April 29, 2016 admin

Over a steamboat dinner, I was talking to some of my married friends the other day on how things worked in our respective marriages. Every marriage it turns out has its own chemistry and way of finding its balance.

It made me reflect on my own marriage with Shorty and how we manage things.

Our marriage is based on this premise:

1) We believe that life is tough and full of challenges.

2) We believe that marriage is a partnership between the both of us to go through the ups and downs of life.

3) The goal of our partnership is to LIVE WELL. We don’t aim to be super rich, have super kids that score straight A’s in school or be known as super parents. We just want us and our family to live well.

With this in mind we broke down the 3 things that are important in life to live well. To achieve these things, Shorty and I as partners in life decided to specialize. I will take full responsibility of some things and she will of others. So below are the 3 things we want to achieve and whose responsibility it is.

1) Financial Security (Responsibility: Me)

My main responsibility and contribution to our partnership is to provide financial security. We don’t have to be rich. We just need to be financially secure. Shorty earns money on her own from her blogging and all that money is hers to keep. I always believed that a woman should have her own money because money gives her independence.

I’m not expected by Shorty to be rich or provide a very luxurious lifestyle, but I nevertheless try to afford some luxuries. Luxuries like having helpers at home to help Shorty with the house and kids or luxuries like being able to eat out without having to think twice.

2) Happy family and a Good Home (Responsibility: My wife)

When it comes to taking care of the kids and our home, it’s under Shorty. That means even when I’m not working and say Fighter needs to change his diaper, Shorty or our helper will do it. Once in a while I help out but when I do, Shorty will say “Thank you” to me for helping out even though I’m really carrying out my fatherly duties. She says thank you because it’s an acknowledgement that I’m helping her out with an area she’s responsible for.

Similarly every now and then Shorty helps to pay for a family expense and when she does so I say “thank you” as acknowledgement that she’s helping me with my responsibility.

I think this part is really important. My father once told me that a man can only be successful if he has the right woman beside him. He went on to elaborate on how the right woman plays a very important part. For example, if the wife is working then she helps by supporting the family with her income (in that case 1 and 2 will be shared responsibilities with both the working husband and wife).

Then I asked my Dad “What if my wife is a housewife?”.

He then told me that housewives contribute just as much but in a different way. A housewife’s main contribution is taking care of the family and the house. “A successful man can only be focused on career when he has a peaceful and stable house to get back to” he said. A good housewife provides that and more.

I feel that Shorty gives me that peace and stability. She handles everything in our home and kids (with the help of our helpers). If either of my kids are sick, I can travel for business having rest assured that my wife is giving them the best possible care. After work I come home to a peaceful home. We don’t fight often and when we do we end it there and then without the need for long cold wars.

This environment allows me to focus my mind on my work and bringing back the pay cheque to afford my family a good life.

3) A Great Husband-Wife Relationship (Responsibility: Shared)

This is something we both agreed is a shared responsibility. We both owe it to each other. I owe it to her to constantly show her love, appreciation, romance and she owes me the same. I sometimes surprise her with an act of love and she sometimes surprises me too.

We think it’s important that we both spend quality time together regularly. Now we used to spend weekday nights just watching Netflix together but we realised that doesn’t really help us properly catch up. So what we do now is every few week days nights we would go out together. We’ll drive out somewhere far away and have ice-cream.

The time in the car allows us both to catch up in conversation and because I’m driving I can’t be distracted by my phone. We find the conversations we have on these night drives help grow our relationship and help us understand each other better.

Shorty and I have been in a relationship for 8 years now and married for 4. By many measure we’re still a young married couple so I don’t know what the future holds for us and in no way am I saying that every marriage should function like this. I think every marriage strikes their own balance.

For us, splitting the responsibilities have given us purpose to our daily grind. Every day we wake up and get about our busy days we know exactly what we’re doing it for and how what we are doing leads to our goal of living well.

I test drove this car as part of a review and now my father in law wants to buy it

Posted on April 25, 2016 admin

The first VW that I ever drove was my dad’s VW Golf GTI. It had a bit of a cult following. My dad had a friend that just bought one and was raving to him about it, saying how he loved it more than all his other luxury cars. Naturally my dad followed suit and bought one and he too grew to love it. He loved that it was five doors, that it was fast but not too flashy and small enough to squeeze into the smallest parking lots.

With many European made cars of course, the one major concern is reliability and maintenance costs. My Dad has had the Golf GTI for some 8 years now and it’s proved to be one of the most reliable cars in the family.

My Dad loves his VW Golf GTI so much he now has two VW Golf GTIs. When I asked him why he wanted TWO of the same car when the second one was just a facelift, he answered that he loved the car and just wanted the newest of whatever model they had.

So when VW approached me to do a review on their VW Passat (which is the Audi A4 equivalent), I accepted the offer really positively. After all, I do have a very positive vibe about the brand.

IMG-20160405-WA0008

I’m not going to do a review on the specs of the car and all that. I think there is enough literature on that available online as it is. You can click here for one. I’ve driven the Passat for a few weeks now and I’m going to tell you what I think of the car in a very layman point of view.

It’s a perfect sized car.

It’s not too small such that the back seats are cramped which makes it tough to put a baby chair (which is a key point for young families) and yet it’s not too big so it’s very easy to park.

I also like that it has a lot of boot space to keep your strollers and luggage bags if any.

IMG-20160405-WA0004

It handles speed bumps or rough roads like skiing down a slope.

I was driving on our lovely Malaysian roads when I suddenly see the 8th Wonder in the World. A speed bump with NO marking whatsoever. Only in Malaysia.

I slammed the brakes but it was too late, I was approaching the bump at rocket speed. I hung on to my steering wheel for dear life and braced myself only to find that the car just went over it like I just rolled over a swiss roll.

What???

I later did some research online and learned that the VW Passat had a really good suspension. I was impressed. Very impressed at the way it handled that bump.

It drives like a luxury sedan

The VW Passat handles well around corners and accelerates fast enough to keep you excited.

Being honest about it there is one thing that I’m not a huge fan of though and that is the shape and look of the car. It’s a conservative design so it’s cool if you’re a mid-aged exec and a family man.

They say that sometimes the car you drive says a bit about you. Here’s what I think the Passat says about you:

“You appreciate good cars and you’re not fussed about having an expensive logo on its bonnet. Instead you value functionality and great value for the hard earned money you have”.

By the end of the few weeks of having this car as part of my family, I have accidentally converted two people into potential customers for the Passat. My father and my father-in-law. My father-in-law has seriously been making enquiries about the car now. My father is still in the midst of convincing my mother why he should buy one and why he doesn’t have “too many cars”.

Anyway if you want to arrange for a test drive, go on to the VW website here.

Songs I almost forgot about from the 90s…

Posted on April 22, 2016 admin

Today I started thinking about the music I used to listen to in the 90s. At first it was hard to remember but as I thought of one, another one came to mind, and then another and another and another.

So I decided to make a list of songs that I grew up with in the 90s and almost forgot about. Now the 90s was an era of lots of great music. Mariah Carey, Backstreet Boys, Everlast, Limp Bizkit… all sorts of great music.

These ones though are the ones I remember being played the most.

1) You get what you give – The New Radicals

I used to watch this music video all the time. I loved how vibrant it was… set in a shopping mall.

2. Miss you like crazy – The Moffats

There was Hanson and then there was the Moffats. I loved the Moffats for no other song other than this. They were huge when I was growing up in Penang. I remember they came to a mall in Penang called Bukit Jambul Complex and performed there.

There I was… standing many floors up above looking down at them and singing along. I knew every word by heart.

3. Mmmbop – Hanson

Yes how can I mention The Moffats without mentioning Hanson. I loved a number of songs from Hanson (“I will come to you” being one of my favourites) but MMMbop was the one that started it all.

I don’t hear much about them in the mainstream anymore but I hear they still have a huge following and still perform.

4. Viva Forever – Spice Girls

You can’t grow up in the 90s without having heard of the Spice Girls. I remember how they used to come out with hit after hit after hit. My favourite though was this song.

5.Breatheless – The Corrs

The Corrs was the first realization to me that life wasn’t fair. Here was a family who all looked good looking, could their various musical instruments and could sing too.

6) The Boy is Mine – Brandy & Monica

This was one of the songs that was constantly on MTV over and over and over again. It ended up winning the Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

7) Paint my love – Michael Learns to Rock

MLTR had lots of great songs but I don’t think any other song has been on repeat as this song. Ever. The one thing I remember about this song was that while the music video was played on national TV, the censorship board would mosaic out the girl’s butt crack in the last bit of the video. Anyone remember that?

8) The Earth, The Sun, The Rain – Color Me Badd

I can’t believe I nearly forgot about this song.

9) All my life – K-CI & Jojo

Loved this song too. I had fond memories singing it in school with my guy friends… all the while trying to impress the girls.

10) You’re not alone – Michael Jackson

Of all the songs in 90s, this one has got to be my favourite. I used to sleep at night with my CD on repeat. It’ll be the last thing I listen to every night and the first thing I hear in the morning.

I love Michael Jackson and when I think of him I can’t help but feel a little sad of how the media had portrayed him… and how misunderstood he was.

I hope you’re getting the love you deserve in Heaven now Michael.

Dayre’s About Me

Posted on April 20, 2016 admin

Last week Dayre came out with a new feature called “About Me”. It’s where Dayre users can put together a story about themselves to give new users who just discovered them some context on who they are.

My blog here has an old About Me page but boy looking back at it now it’s pretty outdated.

So I took an hour yesterday writing a whole new “About Me” on my Dayre page. By the end of it I could no longer feel my thumbs. So far everyone has been really kind giving me like 1,650 likes and 43 comments just about 14 hours after posting the article.

If you haven’t had a chance to read my About Me page yet please go check it out on Dayre. Go to my Dayre and click on the “Read More” at my profile. Note that it’s only available on the app.

This smartphone has one of the longest lasting batteries around…

Posted on April 15, 2016 admin

I’ve raved on and on about the Huawei Mate S ever since I got it. I genuinely love the phone. Aside from its great features that are comparable to many other flagship phones, it’s also a great conversation starter. When I put it on the table at meetings, I often get a response like “Wow what nice phone! What brand is it?“.

There was one thing about the Mate S that I wish could be better though. That because it’s a small phone (about the size of an iPhone 6), its battery also doesn’t last long enough for me.

All that changed in the past week when Huawei launched their new Mate 8. Now THIS is officially my favourite phone. It has everything the Mate S has with the addition of two things: A big battery and a big screen.

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Now lets talk about the battery. How big a battery am I talking about? Well let me give you some perspective.

An iPhone 6 has a 1,715 mAh battery.

The Huawei Mate S has a 2,700 mAh battery.

The Samsung Note 5 has a 3,020 mAh battery.

The Huawei Mate 8 on the other hand has a 4,000 mAh battery. THAT’S SO BIG IT COULD POWER MY CAR (Ok I exaggerate)…

It’s one of the biggest baddest batteries I’ve ever seen on a phone. Now of course the size of the battery isn’t the only thing that battery life depends on. The processor, the OS and lots of other things matter to. So I decided to take it for a spin.

My friend Emma at Huawei told me that the Mate 8’s battery lasts 2 full days.

On my first day of using it I tested it. I had a full day of calls, lots of data usage, watching some YouTube videos and even playing some Clash of Clans (something I just started doing on my Android phone). At the end of the day before I plugged in my phone to sleep I still had 55% battery left. That means I can likely go a second day without charge.

So the next few days I pushed it further. On one day I spent some 2 hours on a long phone call. I watched Netflix, did a lot of Dayre, Clash of Clans and whatever else I could do to drain as much battery as I could. By the end of the day I had 33% left.

I can’t begin to describe to you what an exponential difference this makes to my daily work life.

I no longer have to carry a power bank around which sticks out of my skinny jeans OR constantly be on the lookout for a power point. Traveling is even better. Being in a foreign country doesn’t bode well with battery life insecurity but now I feel secure. Now I know my phone battery will last all the way.

This alone is a big enough reason (no pun intended) to switch to the Mate 8 and that is now my primary phone. I did a poll on my Twitter a few days ago and asked this.

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Make no mistake about it, RM3,500 is an insane price to pay for a smart phone but still 36% said TAKE MY MONEY!

Well guess how much the Huawei Mate 8 is?

It starts from as low as RM2,099. Whaaaaa?

Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space

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