Do some reviews here see whether fast and zippy as claim by the benchmark. How was the camera? Izzit no lag at all? Any problem with the screen?

confirm will buy ah!!

CON the FIRM!!..

Hmm.. CK CK!!

Are you with me?? hahaha

allright guys,

just got a reply from the disti, they will launch it on 23/09/06.

i assume its 23/08/06. since in the email, they said LAST WEEK!

but wrote next month.........duh

Hello, fellow forumers. I'm back to share my experience on the P525 during the recent PIKOM PC Fair II 2006 in K.L. Con. Ctr., K.L. I know, I know. This might soud old to ya, but this's the only time I can truly dedicate my time to write this post. Anyway, here goes...

THE P525'S M'SIAN DEBUT IN PIKOM PC FAIR II 2006 IN K.L.!!!

Yes, ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls. After 3 months since the birth of this thread, the P525 was finally unveiled in M'sia at the recent PIKOM PC Fair II 2006 in K.L. Con. Ctr., K.L.

Fri., 11th Aug.
10:45am
I'd arrived at Suria KLCC. Every step of my way towards the con. ctr. was constantly preoccupied with the thought of the P525 in my hands. When I'd reached the entrance, there was a long queue waiting for the opening of the fair. My patience tolerance just went a rug lower...

11am
Finally, the entrance was cleared for the 1st few visitors. The crowd was orderly. I slowly inched my way into the Conference Hall. As I looked around the hall, I'd noticed there were some exhibitors who were still putting the finishing touches to their booths (note to self: Next time, don't come to fair early ). I didn't wanna rush to ASUSTeK's booth immediately as there was no turning back to prev. halls in the con. ctr. So, as usual during my prev. visits, I went window shopping, slowly strolling as my enthusiasm & excitement builds up for the "main course" (Man... It took a lot of patience just to get a paper bag from the Intel chics for me to keep my papers ).

11:30am
After exiting the Conference Hall, it was a U-turn & a long walk to the other sect. of the con. ctr. to the Ballroom, the hall where ASUSTeK's booth was located. It was actually near the exit of that hall. I walked slowly to their booth, wanting the P525 to dramatically appear within my sight. & there it was, ASUSTeK's booth. At 1st glance, there was only notebooks. Then, my eyes scouted for the P525. There it was, at a corner of their booth, inside a display cabinet as tall as an avg. person, with only a glass slider between the P525 & my glimmering eyes <insert holy voices here>.

As i got closer to the display, there was a gentleman explaining the P525 to a visitor. From their gestures, they seemed like they were close to securing some business deal. Then, they exchanged business cards. Hmm... Looked as if the P525 really attracted serious attention.

As the visitor walked away, I slowly stepped into the gentleman's sight. From the exhibitor tag he was wearing, I could tell that he was 1 of ASUSTeK's staff. Even though I'd known much bout' the P525 from the net, being a polite visitor & pretending that I'm not familiar with the P525, I asked him to generally explain bout' the P525. He responded by asking me what I wanted to know bout' it. Hmm... From that kind of response, i could tell that he didn't think that I was a serious customer. Well, I can't blame him anyway coz' the P525's target customers're the business-conscious group & I wasn't wearing a Hugo Boss business suit / something with a hundred dollar tie to match.

Anyway, I asked him bout' the spec.s of the P525 that stands out among other PDA phones in the market. Of course, y'all fellow forumers don't need another round of explanation on its spec.s. I then asked him if it's on sale yet, the retail price & the free Bluetooth headset & 1GB miniSD card bundled with it as claimed by The New Straits Times. To my surprise, he told me that he was the 1 interviewed by the daily! The gentleman was Mr. Jacky Lim Jiann Yee, ASUSTeK M'sia's channel manager.

Before I could ask any further questions, he told me he was in a hurry to go somewhere. He then passed me over to Mr. Michael Ku, ASUSTeK M'sia's sales specialist. I then directed my earlier question bout' the promotional offer for the headset & miniSD to Mr. Ku. (This's where the fun starts...) Knowing that I'm a potential customer, Mr. Ku reached for his pocket for something (heartbeat began to hasten...). He took out a P525 & hand it to me for a test run! <Insert holy voices here...>

He said the recommended retail price's RM 2588 which, IMHO, is in direct competition with the O2 Xda Atom & HP iPAQ rw6828. The Bluetooth headset being offered's the Jabra BT150 while the miniSD'll be the Sandisk 1GB miniSD. The offer's only limited to pre-orders during the fair & the headset's only for the 1st 100 pre-orders. Any other offers after that'll depend on the sellers carrying the P525. He added that the P525'll be available within 2 weeks, possibly around the 23rd-25th Aug. They'll have a soft launch on the 23rd where journalists & members of the media'll be invited (yours truly not included... ).

P.S.: It was later confirmed by our fellow forumers that it'll be available from the 23th Aug. onwards.

Under Mr. Ku's watch, I tested the P525. My mind was full of excitement at that moment that I'd forgotten exactly what I'd planned to test. I asked him if there were any brochures of the P525. He said that the brochures were still on their way to the fair & told me to come by later for it.

Unfortunately, all things must come to an end. As I parted with the P525, Mr. Ku gave me (supposedly) his business card which was actually Mr. Lim's. Mr. Ku told me to send my pre-order via e-mail to the person on the card. Without questioning any further, I left ASUSTeK's booth & continued my window shopping.

2pm
I went back to ASUSTeK's booth for the brochure, but Mr. Ku said that they'd yet to arrive. OK. I left the con. ctr. knowing that I'll return on Sun. anyway to get myself an MP3 player.

Sun, 13th Aug.
12pm
Once again, I went to ASUSTeK's booth to get the brochure. A girl was distributing them around. With a sigh of relief, I finally got mine. Mr. Ku was also there with a couple more P525s to be shown. I approached him & asked whether the pre-order should be sent to him / Mr. Lim, at the same time, reminded him that he gave me Mr. Lim's card. He apologised & gave me his business card & told me to send my pre-order to him instead. I then left to purchase my MP3 player.

As I left the fair, I didn't feel more impatient to own the P525 as I'd predicted before. Instead, I felt like the heavy burden of anxiousness & anxiety from waiting for the P525 for 3 long months, & even longer since I sold my Dallab DP900, had been lifted off my chest, for I know, in my mind, that the P525's here to stay. Although it was not available for sale yet, but it sure got potential PDA / mobile phone buyers seriously considerating their next purchase.

Here're the links to the scanned brochures (courtesy of DigitalKL):-
1) http://files.photojerk.com/DigitalKL/P525-1.jpg
2) http://files.photojerk.com/DigitalKL/p525-2.jpg

My verdict on the P525 during the brief test run:-
1) The overall feel of the P525 was nice & solid. Didn't feel like it was made out of cheap material. Fits snuggly in my hand unlike those tiny smartphones.
2) The stylus was solid & nice to hold. Has an ideal length. It felt as solid as an HP iPAQ's stylus (not the lousy rw6800s kind) (1 of the best). Non-telescopic kind.
3) The touch screen was quite unresponsive, but the processor & OS speed themselves were fast. Didn't get to check the ROM date & ver. It was later confirmed by DigitalKL that the test unit was the old ver., thus the coming batch'll be a diff. 1. No worries there.
4) The somewhat unconventional joystick placement wasn't a prob. at all as it was short enough not to hinder pressing the no. "2" button, but tactile enough for easy navigation. Keypads were nice to press as they give a solid "click" feeling. The keypads lighting up during use was also a cool addition.
5) The "Hold" switch on the side of the P525 disables the touch screen & its backlight without turning off whatever data being displayed on it. It also disables the keypads together with their lights.
6) The sound quality was awesome for a PDA phone. Even though there was only 1 speaker, the sound quality was akin to a stereo speaker. But don't expect the P525 to replace your hi-fi unit as its just a PDA phone. It was also loud enough to be heard even when there were noise around the fair, but not too loud to scare the bejezzles out of unsuspecting members of the public.
7) Camera was quite slow as it's feature-packed & 1's spoiled for choices on the photography options & effects. Could be improved by ROM updates. Once again, no worries there. I couldn't gauge the effectiveness of the Business Card Reader (BCR) software as Mr. Ku's hands were shaking during pic. taking, but the auto-focus feature really worked wonders! Even with his hands shaking, the BCR software could process the data well (although not perfectly, but still...).
8) It's in black! How cool's that?!

While We wait for the availability of the P525, do keep each other updated, OK? Til' the next post, fellow forumers.

This post has been edited by Terrasmark: Aug 19 2006, 07:29 PM

So it's confirmed available from 23rd August onwards or September?

this coming wednesday onwards launching..

cash ready and buying anytime.

After that, mind to do a small small review here eg camera, system, any issues and etc

just received a call from a dealer about this phone. did anybody else get a call?

lets get together to ask for a nice price. the phone will be here in a day or two...thats what she says

i will join if can get really nice price PM me, i log-in every 3 hours, each day

is it here now? ohhh so tempting.. T_T

OMG you are really impatient to get your hands on that toy. Hold your horse, soon or later it will be here.

Not really impatient in that sense, coz i wanna compare this with Dopod 838 pro, and P990i. I think this should be my choice coz it's much cheaper than the other two. If i like it, i might get it I'm not that loaded anyway... the only concern would be the size, coz spec shows it's bigger than the Dopod 838 pro and P990i. Will go to lowyat with my parrents next week and hopefully can get one of these by then

was actually looking around for it in lowyat and imbi during lunch time yesterday...no sign of the P525...

just called dealer - was told stock wont arrive till next month - maybe early next month....delayed already guys...

yalor ...838pro is tempting also but veli da thick la

This post has been edited by DigitalKL: Aug 24 2006, 01:26 PM

very nice device, but specs...kinda outdated.

Dude, lucky you.
I had to get my DOPOD 838 Pro and all my other gadgets myself . I wish I had such nice parents.

look out for this on 1st of September !!!

pushed back to 1st september.. sigh -.- delay has become a trend in gadgets..

i think the more they delay this product, the more people will jump into other products, esp when more and more 3g pda are offered in the market.

agree with Nevland. They are losing business and potential buyers to DOPOD and O2 even though on paper their performance has been rated the best of the lot. They should confirm a date and release it but unfortunatly the best time I feel which was PC-Fair a few weeks back has long passed.