LTO Cambodia: iPhone 5

Friday, August 26, 2011

iPhone 5

Our guard brought this to the house today, proudly claiming that he had just purchased the new iPhone 5 at the market here in Phnom Penh - the "Chinese version," as he said. "You can't get these in America yet. China is ahead of America now." Well, in a sense, I guess it is.

Admonishing me for having paid hundreds for my 3Gs a couple of years back, he tells me he only paid $31 for his iPhone5, new and in the box. And, after playing with it a bit, it feels and works as well as one would expect of a $31 telephone, maybe even a $35 phone.

He let me toy with it a bit, 'toy' being the operative word here. In hand, it feels almost like an empty box, weighing less half of my 3Gs. Perhaps that's a good thing. It does seem to function. The telephone works, and if you bang on the touch pad hard enough, so does everything else - the camera, notepad, calendar, etc. - albeit extremely slowly.

Bpple iPhone 5 - Front

Bpple iPhone 5 - Back

Bpple iPhone 5 - Serial. Note the nod to international trademark law, the makers changing 'Apple' to 'Bpple.' I'm sure that makes it all alright. It's not a knock-off, it's a Bpple. I can't quite figure out how to pronounce it though.

Bpple iPhone 5 - Camera mode

1 comment:

AnonymousAugust 27, 2011 at 8:55 AM
I recently bought some iPoone earbuds for $3 at Orussei Market. It doesn't say so on the box, but I think they're compatible with the Bpple iPhone. You know, if your guard wants to listen to some tunes and is having a hard time finding Bpple earphones.
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Cambodia

Cambodia is Srok Khmer, the 'Land of the Khmer,' the primary ethnic group in the area since at least the Neolithic and an Indian influenced civilization with origins near 2000 years old. Centered on the lower Mekong and tributaries the Khmer people have dominated the region for millennia. From 2nd century AD Khmer kingdoms rose and fell, culminating in unification and the 500 year reign of the Angkorian Empire, the builders of the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap. The Empire stretched from Burma to the ocean. But by the 1400s Cambodia fell to centuries of change and decline squeezed between the expanding Siam and Vietnam. Colonized and by the French in the 1860s, independence 90 years later in 1954, a brief post-colonial 'golden period' under Sihanouk, coup in 70, civil war, fall to the communist Khmer Rouge in 75, 3 years 8 months 20 days of madness, Vietnamese rescue in 1979, occupation, low level war and international sanctions in the 80s, the UN, ostensive democracy and an adventure party destination in the 90s and now mainstreaming, tourism, rapid development, rapacious capitalism and NGOs, missionaries and other international busybodies aplenty.

Southeast Asia

As the term implies, Southeast Asia encompasses the southeastern corner of the Asian continent, loosely speaking, the area between India, China and Australia. It is made up of two distinct regions: the mainland zone, a bulbous peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, bounded by China to the north and India to the west; and the insular (island) zone in the Pacific Ocean. The name 'Southeast Asia' is a comparatively recent invention, first coming into use into the 20th century and still a bit indefinite in definition. Mainland Southeast Asia is generally considered to include Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and peninsular Malaysia. The mainland is sometimes referred to as Indo-China though Indochina (Indochine) also designates the 19th/20th century French colonial conglomerate of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sitting south of the Tropic of Cancer, most of mainland Southeast Asia lies in the hot, humid tropics and sub-tropics with a climate dominated by a monsoon cycle which divides the year into two distinct seasons: a dry season and an extremely wet monsoon season. Much of the mainland is mountainous and thickly jungled, with large river systems and wide, low-lying, flood-prone plains, much of which is, in modern times, deforested and blanketed with geometrical rice paddies. Several major river valleys including the Mekong River, the Red, Ma and Ka rivers and the group of rivers draining to the Chao Praya Delta played host to the rise of early civilization in the area. The Mekong River is one of the world's greatest rivers, the seventh largest on the planet, and since pre-history has been closely associated with the land of the Khmer.