While waiting for my car to ready, we went phone shopping at Mines shopping center. I was looking for a phone to replace the bulky Nokia 9330, and also a dual sim phone capable for my dearest. Coincidentally Marc and WK were there at Serdang to COD some gundam kits.
Three things that I liked about Mines shopping center mobile phone outlets. Firstly its situated in a large, open air environment, brightly lit, with a high celling, a very comfortable experience compared to the cluster phobic feel of sungi wang and some corners in lowyat plaza.
The other thing I liked is the sellers there are willing to let the user try the phones, unlike snobbish snobs in sungai wang and lowyat where the customer have to look interested in a purchase to convince the phone shop/counter owner or the ah beng who runs the shop/counter to let the you try the phone.
Lastly, the variety of phones available there is astonishing. Other then major brands, there are also least famous brands like the year old malaysian AP distributor CSL which also sells phone in their own branding. (refer picture above)
My first experience with China phones was by brother's D600 knockoff. It looked like the real deal, except for the primitive user interface, lousy camera sensor, lack of upgradeable software and exceptionally loud speakers. The phone was still good when he upgraded to a W810i the following year.
The phones sold under the CSL branding can only be described as a mobile phone Frankenstein. Bits and pieces of sell able features were included in the phone feature. Most mid range CSL phones comes with 262k color 2"-3" touch screen TFT screen. Almost all of them comes with dual sim support, either single sim standby or for both sims to activate simultaneously. And they even package a TV tuner modulator with it and it also comes with a retractable foot long antenna. Camera, radio, MP3 and video playback is a standard feature for the entire CSL line. All these for less then RM700 (midrange). In fact, some of the low end phones also have most of these features, it's hard to differentiate high end phone from the mid to the low end, unlike big players who have clearly drawn the lines between models, except for K750i the first phone to blur the lines in the SE series.
My only gripe about the CSL phones is the limitations of the software and poor camera sensor. Funny why I complain about software when I hardly install new application in my 9300. probably because "having and not needing" is better then "needing and not have it". The sellers claimed that there are many downloadable software for the phones in the
official website, but after checking, I only found one. The camera sensors used varies from 1.3mp (low end phones) to 8mp autofocus + 3X optical zoom (high end phone). Even with the high end 8mp autofocus + 3X optical zoom, it failed to capture bright, sharp images.
CSL K800 even comes with xenon flash, and yet images captured 6 feet away is dark. Using the zoom will only make darker images with allot of noise. That's one feature China phones did not get right, dubious quality control.
