Amazon Prime Day

Amazon is running a special 20th Anniversary event just for Prime members. Starting on the 15th July and lasting only one day. I'll let Amazon speak for themselves on what this event is about :)

Amazon Prime Day

For folks in Singapore, this will be July 15th 3:00PM till July 16th 2:59PM (assuming the usual Pacific Time that Amazon uses).

TL;DR? More lightning deals and better offers than Black Friday, or so Amazon claims. It's still 1 week away but you can start to prepare. If you haven't been shopping at Amazon, you can just follow through the earlier articles to get you started. Look at the side bar for them :)

If you have shopped at Amazon but do not have Prime, then it's time to Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial. Not eligible? No worries, just sign up a new account and you'll be eligible for the free trial again.

Have fun and take care of your wallets!

Amazon Changed Their Free Shipping Policy?

Dear Readers,

It has come to my attention that Amazon seems to have changed their free shipping policy. You are no longer able to buy a single item that cost >USD125 and get free shipping for the rest of your items. The items that cost >USD125 will be given free shipping and will be shipped separately, the rest of your items will incur shipping fees. I know this is confusing, let me use an example to illustrate this.

I will use these 4 items as example

• Seagate 4TB NAS HDD SATA 6Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive (ST4000VN000)
• Crucial MX200 500GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive - CT500MX200SSD1
• Crucial MX200 250GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive - CT250MX200SSD1
• Samsung 64GB PRO Class 10 Micro SDXC up to 90MB/s with Adapter (MB-MG64DA/AM)

The first 2 items cost more than USD125 while the last 2 items are less than USD125 (at time of writing). Add all 4 to your cart and try to check out. You'll realise the first 2 has got free shipping (and shipped separately) while the last 2 items do not qualify, even though the cost of the last 2 items add up to above USD125 and may be shipped together. This should be the scenario you're hitting.

Dial up the quantity of item 3 (250GB Crucial) and try to check out again. This time, the first 3 items get free shipping!

Now, remove the first 2 items from your cart so you're left with item #3 and #4. Leave the quantity of item #3 as 2 and leave the quantity of item #4 as 1. Now, try to check out. Horror of horrors! Now item #3 gets free shipping (and shipped separately) while item #4 is now left behind with a shipping charge!

Conclusion of this 'experiment' -

IF ANY SINGLE SKU EXCEEDS USD125, IT WILL BE SHIPPED SEPARATELY AND WILL NOT COUNT TOWARDS YOUR USD125 FREE SHIPPING CRITERIA.

Please forgive the Bold and Caps but this is the message I wanted to drive across. Oh well...

What to buy on Amazon : Kindle Reader

Good news for book lovers. Amazon is currently running 2 offers for the Kinder.

• Purchase the Kindle Paperwhite, 6" High-Resolution Display (212 ppi) with Built-in Light, Wi-Fi - Includes Special Offers or Kindle Voyage, 6" High-Resolution Display (300 ppi) with Adaptive Built-in Light, PagePress Sensors, Wi-Fi - Includes Special Offers and save $40 on Amazon Prime subscription
• Purchase the Kindle, 6" Glare-Free Touchscreen Display, Wi-Fi - Includes Special Offers and save $39 on 6 months of Kindle Unlimited subscription

However, do note that Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited are primarily US only services. This is not a bad deal actually, especially if you are already looking to buy one.

Update : It's even better today (27th Nov). Kindle is $49 while the Paperwhite is $99. And still comes with the above mentioned offers! Amazing!

Amazon Prime : Updates

A quick update to the previous Amazon Prime article I wrote. Since then a few things have happened. The first and foremost is of course the price is now $99/yr.

Amazon added Prime Photos where you have unlimited storage for your photos. This is stored on Amazon's Cloud Drive and you can access them from any of your devices, be it your phone, tablets or PCs.

The other new addition is Unlimited Music Streaming. It works the same way as Prime Instant Video and Premium Spotify. You have access to a huge library and is able to download tracks offline (although you can only do this on the Amazon Music App). If you know Prime Instant Video, Netflix and Spotify, yeah, that's how it works.

Lastly, Amazon also includes Prime Early Access to Lightning Deals. Now, this is a killer feature. For the first time, if you're a Prime Member, you can get a 30-minute early access advantage to selected lightning deals! This will usually decide if you actually get that popular deal or not, especially for the perennial popular items like external disk and SSDs.

Besides these, you still get the usual 2-day shipping with no minimum, Prime instant Video and Kindle Owners' Lending Library. This is starting to look even more attractive. If you're not too sure about forking out $99/yr yet, you can actually try it for free here - Join Amazon Prime - Listen to Over a Million Songs - Start Free Trial Now. Just remember to cancel it after your 30 days is up.

Or if you already have it and love it so much you might want to consider gifting it to your family members or a good friend - Shop Amazon - Give the Gift of Amazon Prime

Happy shopping and enjoy all the current Black Friday deals going on.

What to Buy on Amazon : HP Stream 7

Not too long ago, HP introduces this nifty little 7" tablet, HP Stream 7 32GB Windows 8.1 Tablet (Free Office 365 Personal for One Year), at an amazing price point : $99. Now you might wonder, there are a couple of Chinese made tablets that also can be had for $99 so what's the big deal here.

First, this tablet runs Windows 8.1. The full version, not the still-born RT in the Surface RT. Second, it has a decent and nice IPS touch screen running at 1280x800 resolution. Most importantly, it came bundled with Office 365 Personal 1yr Subscription. This subscription is valued at $69.99. That alone makes this bundle an excellent value proposition.

That aside, there are a few things you should take note and while the price tag is attractive, we need to keep things in perspective. It is unlikely to run graphics intensive games or do any kind of heavy lifting smoothly, you know, like Lightroom or Photoshop. I exaggerate but you get the idea. Most of these limitations come from the fact that it only has 1GB of memory and a quad core Atom based CPU. We know the Atom is not the fastest and you probably couldn't multi-task very well. However, it should serve you well with the occasional emails, small and straight forward Word and Excel documents, web surfing and Skype.

One other thing to consider is that it's a small 7" screen and without a physical keyboard, you might not find this a very productive tool. You might also have an issue with the small on-screen control elements where you might not be able to say select the menu items easily.

You are unlikely to be able to install a lot of programs due to the small on-board 32GB eMMC. You can, however, expand up till another 32GB via the onboard micro-SD card slot (hidden underneath the back shell). I've seen reports saying that the micro-USB charging port is USB-OTG compatible so there's a chance that you might be able to stick another thumb drive to it.

Read the reviews posted on the Amazon's website to get some more details. I might pick one up and play with it at the end of the day. :)

Parting ways with my Mid-2011 13" MacBook Air

I am selling my mid-2011 13" MacBook Air, simply because I have upgraded to a Pro instead. The Air is purchased on Dec '11, together with AppleCare since day 1. Warranty ends 20th Dec 2014.

The complete specs of this lovely machine can be found directly on Apple's Support website - Mid-2011 13" MacBook Air. Mine is the 128GB SSD with 1.7Ghz core i5 Intel Processor.

Working condition is 10/10. Physical outlook is probably 7.5/10. There are unfortunately some blemishes (likely caused by the palm guard which I have peeled off) on the corners of the palm rest. Pictures at end of post.

I have done a factory reset and it has OS X 10.9.5 on it. It comes with its original packaging as well as all accessories. The power adaptor shows sign of use while the extension is mostly new. I have only used it maybe a couple of times.

Battery condition is good with less than 70 cycles on it and approximately 85% health. The battery has been replaced once under AppleCare sometime last year.

Along with it, I have the Transcend JetDrive 500 480GB SATA III SSD Upgrade Kit for Macbook Air SSD (Late 2010 - Mid 2011) TS480GJDM500. I have since taken this out from the Air and restored it back to its original configuration.

Pictures follows -

The MacBook Air itself.

The blemishes :(

Full accessories included.

The box itself.

Thank you. I hope it finds a new home soon.

What to Buy on Amazon : Newer Panasonic Eneloops and AmazonBasics NiMH LSD

In a previous article, I have penned down my thoughts on NiMH LSD batteries and specifically recommended Sanyo Eneloops. Today, Panasonic should have completed the take-over of, at least the battery division of Sanyo. As a result, you won't be able to find Sanyo branded Eneloops offered by Amazon anymore. There are still Sanyo Eneloops offered by 3rd parties but they may be old stocks.

The latest generation of these great batteries are now Panasonic branded. The 8-pack, Panasonic BK-3MCCA8BA eneloop AA New 2100 Cycle Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries, 8 Pack, now cost slightly more. On the bright side, they are now rated for 2100 cycles. The previous generation is rated for 1500 cycles.

The Eneloop XX are now known as Eneloop Pro - Panasonic BK-3HCCA4BA eneloop pro AA High Capacity New Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries, 4 Pack. Again, there seems to be a slight price hike over the older version.

With the launch of these newer batteries, Panasonic also introduces a new bundled charger. From the reviews on Amazon, this charger is now capable of charging individual batteries. This means you do not have to charge in pairs anymore! The charger is available for purchase as a standalone - Panasonic BQ-CC17KSBA eneloop Advanced Individual Battery Charger with 4 LED Charge Indicator Lights, Black, or you can buy the bundle pack - Panasonic K-KJ17KHCA4A Eneloop Pro Individual Cell Battery Charger with 4 AA Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries, 4 pack.

There is a white colour non-pro version of the charger. But as far as I can tell, the only difference is just the colour. The white version is a few cents cheaper but I think the black one has a cool factor to it.

If you find the prices of these batteries too high, Amazon offers you a low cost equivalent, which is probably just as good. The AmazonBasics range come in 2 flavours as well, the standard white coloured cells and the higher capacity black coloured ones. These don't ship to Singapore in the past but now they do.

• AmazonBasics AA High-Capacity Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries (8-Pack) - 500 cycles (Typical 2500mAh, Min. 2400mAh)
• AmazonBasics AA Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries (4-Pack) - 1000 Cycle (Typical 2000mAh, Minimum 1900mAh)

I'll buy the high cap cells just for the cool look factor alone :)