trimesh

You can try the Bank of China - although I wouldn't describe their rates as good, just not as bad as the rest. You might be better changing the money in HK, although you then run into the situation where a lot of people will accept HKD at par to MOP so you wind up losing another 3%

from 1949 until 1971 I lived in Brentford (suburb of London) on the flight path into Heathrow. Yes the noise was hoorrendous but very soon you became inured to it. TV/Radio & conversation slightly louder but became normal life.

I used to live in Longford - that was especially fun when they were still flying Concorde and taking off on 09L

Well, just in case anyone is interested, I have had a chance to play around with one of these tablets - and they aren't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting.

The overall appearance is a bit like a smaller version of the V1 iPad - the case is machined out of Aluminum with an etched surface and a little plastic insert at the top edge (which I suspect is for the GPS antenna).

The display is WSVGA (1024x600), and seems to a regular (non IPS) LCD. 1GB internal RAM, 8GB flash. CPU is a Rockchip RK2918 - there are 4 physical buttons - power, back and vol +/-. The only external connectors are the charging socket, 3.5mm headphones, micro-USB (OTG, with the host cable supplied) and the SD card slot.

Its running Android 4.0.3, but no indication of which build - the build string just says "eng.azg.20120612.155921" - so it looks like it was compiled about a month ago. The platform is pretty locked down - there is no market installed and attempts to install APKs from a browser prompt for a password. The "USB debugging" option is checked, but although the ADB interface appears there doesn't appear to be any ADB daemon listening on it. There are also only 3 languages installed (Thai, English and Chinese (simplified, PRC)). Most of the Google apps are missing - just Gmail, Maps and Google talk are installed.

The software installed seems a little odd - there are some programs for kids (including 2 origami programs), a Thai handwriting training program, "vLife" (all in Thia) and a program called "Learning System" (which is the only program on the initial launcher screen) - the last is very colourful, but also 100% Thai, so I can't make much comment on it. It also has Kingsoft Office installed.

Oh, and the touch screen is actually pretty good (at least on the sample I've got).

Trimesh. Is this one of the units delivered to your school?

Any news from the MOE about how to use in the curriculum?

Any info on further apps?

What are your school doing reference charging and storage ( do the kids take them home)

Does your school have wifi ( I know not extremely important. Just wondering)

Please keep us updated. Thanks

sent from my Wellcom A90+

Unfortunately, I'm not involved with these things in a teaching capacity - I just got this sample to do some tests on how well various apps and web sites display on them. Having played with it for a bit, I at least now have a certain degree of confidence that they won't all break instantly once the kids get their hands on them.

Here are a couple of photos

Rear panel

http://bayimg.com/mAAnDaAEC

One of the screens of the preloaded software

http://bayimg.com/MAAngaAeC

Well, just in case anyone is interested, I have had a chance to play around with one of these tablets - and they aren't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting.

The overall appearance is a bit like a smaller version of the V1 iPad - the case is machined out of Aluminum with an etched surface and a little plastic insert at the top edge (which I suspect is for the GPS antenna).

The display is WSVGA (1024x600), and seems to a regular (non IPS) LCD. 1GB internal RAM, 8GB flash. CPU is a Rockchip RK2918 - there are 4 physical buttons - power, back and vol +/-. The only external connectors are the charging socket, 3.5mm headphones, micro-USB (OTG, with the host cable supplied) and the SD card slot.

Its running Android 4.0.3, but no indication of which build - the build string just says "eng.azg.20120612.155921" - so it looks like it was compiled about a month ago. The platform is pretty locked down - there is no market installed and attempts to install APKs from a browser prompt for a password. The "USB debugging" option is checked, but although the ADB interface appears there doesn't appear to be any ADB daemon listening on it. There are also only 3 languages installed (Thai, English and Chinese (simplified, PRC)). Most of the Google apps are missing - just Gmail, Maps and Google talk are installed.

The software installed seems a little odd - there are some programs for kids (including 2 origami programs), a Thai handwriting training program, "vLife" (all in Thia) and a program called "Learning System" (which is the only program on the initial launcher screen) - the last is very colourful, but also 100% Thai, so I can't make much comment on it. It also has Kingsoft Office installed.

Oh, and the touch screen is actually pretty good (at least on the sample I've got).

bugger, i have a 9000 baht novatel mifi 2200 at my house on koh phangan and i have just confirmed i will have to buy a new device.

Apparently 3g is up and running though.

Been using CDMA for the last 2 years here in Krabi without many problems. Called CAT Krabi and they didn't know anything about the service being cancelled. What will happen to us monthly subscribers ? I pay 845 baht/month for CAT CDMA so if their dongle doesn't work anymore in the nearby future they have to give us something else..... we are paying monthly for a internet connection, aren't we ?

they wanted to sell them to TOT

milk out the cdma connection as long as possible. i guess a landline connection is the only flexible option for unlimited internet combined with the new 3g+.

i can also vouch for cdma being great most of the time. the maintenance must really outweigh the revenue brought in. i cannot imagine cat letting a cash cow go so willingly.

"The second best time to plant a tree is today" sent from TV android app (Galaxy Cooper).

I think they are just looking to the future - since the development of EV-DV and UMB have been canned, EV-DO is increasingly looking like a dead-end technology, to the extent where even though the EV-DO Rev. C spec has been released there is only one carrier (KDDI in Japan) who have plans to implement it. This basically means that they are going to have to embark on a disruptive transition at some point, and have apparently decided that sooner is better than later.

If they want to put a 900MHz UMTS network up, then they really have to turn off the EV-DO one since otherwise they would interfere with each other very badly - but once you have the UMTS network running (along with it's 3GPP backend) then it's quite easy to move up to LTE.

Just for clarification, does this mean that if I had a 2-entry tourist visa in my passport and got a replacement passport during the first entry that I could still use the visa despite the fact that it was now in a theoretically cancelled passport? Or would I just lose the unused entries on it?

I'd definitely put any cable, copper or fiber, in that wonderful blue tubing. UTP wire, which is cheap, will push 5 Mbps or more at the distance you need, for a reasonable price, including the adapters.

Fiber would be good for just about any speed (gig included) but the transceivers get pricey for Gig. 10/100 are very cheap, but the FO cable is about ~51 baht/meter or so, but, you wouldn't have to worry about lightning.

Be careful with this - since it looks like the OP is worried about cost, he will likely end up with 850nm xcvrs and multimode fiber - and 1km @1gbit/s is pushing it with that setup since you get to the point where the dispersion in the fiber starts giving you significant amounts of intersymbol interference. 100mbit/s is fine at that range, though.

SMF will handle 1gbit @1km easily, but the cables need more careful termination and the parts tend to cost more.

I guess it would help if you could tell us which provider you plan to use, and if high-speed data is a requirement?

I think your only options would be the N7000 or SGH i717, and I'm not sure you can find the latter here?

High-speed data not required. Just simple web browsing and email. I assume the N7000A and N7000B variants (AIS and Dtac) don't make any difference in terms of Canadian usage, and that all N7000's are "international versions. My first choice as a service provider would be Bell Mobility, but Rogers fine too.

The variant of the Galaxy Note sold in Thailand is the one with with quad band GSM and quad band UMTS/HSPA+ - it will work at HSPA+ speeds in Canada on both Bell and Rogers - the only caveat being that Bell don't have a GSM network (since they started as a CDMA carrier) and so if you are out of their UMTS coverage area you won't get service at all. Since Rogers started out as a GSM network, they have a 2.5G network you can fall back to if you are out of 3G coverage - this is only really an issue if you are likely to be spending a lot of time in unpopulated areas, though - Bell have pretty solid 3G coverage in all of the major population centers.

Incidentally the only "LTE" Notes I've seen here have been Korean and Japanese grey imports - and these won't work on north American LTE networks since they operate on the wrong bands. The only LTE version that has support for US and Canadian bands is the SGH-i717.

With that specific phone, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" - it's a dual mode CDMA/LTE handset and the only providers I know of offering CDMA service in Thailand are CAT and Hutch - and they use an R-UIM (like a CDMA SIM card) which I don't think that phone supports.

The other issue is that US cellular providers tend to supply you with a locked phone even if you get it off-contract - so although they will unlock it, you have to ask them to do so.

A one-year battery?

It's not as unreasonable as it sounds - the operating life of LiPo batteries (which I assume these tablets are using) is heavily dependent on how they are treated. If you constantly run the battery completely flat and leave it that way - especially in high temperature conditions - you could easily kill a perfectly good battery in less than a year.

On the other hand, a good quality battery that is generally only subjected to shallow discharges and is promptly recharged when it is deeply discharged should still retain 85-90% of it's initial capacity after 3-5 years.

The older battery technologies (like NiMH) had substantially better operating and storage lives, but also had much lower energy density.

I just transferred $145,000 USD from USAA bank to Siam CB. Wife went in on Tuesday and opened an account, she has changed her name to mine. Wire took less than 48 hours. Amazing. I transferred USD and it was converted here in Thailand.

She got a call within 24 hours from SCB asking what the money was being used for, and if it was her own money being brought in. She said it was her money that she earned in the USA and was using it to buy a house. I guess there is a report that has to be filled out...maybe for the AMLO?

Next day we went to the branch and it was transferred into her account. I did not go with her, thought it would be better that way. They asked her the same questions at the branch. And she had to sign a form that she was using the money for a house purchase. Very painless...and very fast! Cost me $35 from USAA...no costs were charged by SCB...at least that we know of!

I have found that anything over 50,000 USD requires a letter/note to be signed. My wife took care of that and I will not exceed 49,000 just to dodge the BS. The sad part is, I just transferred 32,000 in hopes of 1 million Thai Baht, it came out after whatever fees that were attached at 98?,000 baht. Rather expensive in my mind!!!!

Be careful doing this - if the bank are following the FATF "best practices" and detect a pattern of activity that they suspect represents an attempt to structure your transactions to evade the reporting requirements then they are obliged to file a "suspicious activity report" on you. This can end up causing you far more hassle than just filing the reports in the first place. Guess how I know about this...