Buying a mobile

I have seen many people buying mobile so carelessly. I saw a family spending close to Rs 16K on a new HTC mobile with just few words from the seller. He had come for iPhone and the retailer convinced him in less than 5 minutes that HTC is better. Let me put down things you should look in mobile if you are buying in 16K-30K range.

1. WiFi capability : This is mandatory. Now most places support WiFi and would be handy for all data related applications like browsing, chatting, SkypeCalls. Dont even buy a mobile which does not support WiFi

2. Bluetooth: This is mandatory if you have to sync your outlook calender w.r.t. the mobile calender. This would handy in case of transfer of data from one mobile to another or to a computer.

3. 3G support: 3G is going to be there in India very soon. if you are goign to use it or not. it is better to invest on it. In India 3G spectrum has not been decided. Ensure yor mobile support as many band as it could. Most likely in India it would be in 1800 (GSM) spectrum and may be TDD mode.

4. GPS: Good add-on in a city like bangalore where a road gets blocked with no notice and you are asked to take a diversion. If you are lost get out of the vehicle and search. This needs support of GPRS or 3G.

5. J2ME: Mandatory software feature which allows you to install Fring (allows you to chat in skype, gtalk, yahoo and MSN). there is a whole suite of application based on J2ME for oft used google applications.

6. Good calender with synchronisation capability.

7. Decent camera: 3.1 MP is the best you need for the standard photograph size.

8. Usability: Important but at what cost/feature tradeoff is a user choice.

9. Misc: Audio player (MP3, WMV), Video player (MP4), FM radio (At least i think it is useless with the cumbersome headset connection to be used)

Hope who ever spend such high sum in mobile at least spend it for features which may be useful for him in future.

Carrot at 80!!

This is something unbelievable. A kg of carrot in Bangalore now costs Rs 80/-. I used to buy it for Rs 20/- around 6 months back. Our inflation is falling but price of vegetable has quadrupled. Is there a "Vegetable bubble" building up in Bangalore like the housing bubble!!

I thought let me start tracking the price. Let me put down the list of prices of vegetable and some behind the mind intuitions and myths one have on where to buy vegetable? (The prices mentioned below are for the month of Oct 2008 and are for a Kg)

Big Onion - Rs 28/-
Carrot - Rs 37/- (Smart), Rs 80/- (Small time vendor one week later)
Yam - Rs 14/-
Beans - Rs 35/-
Tomato - Rs 28/-
lady's Finger - Rs 23/-
Potato - Rs 10-12/-
Cauliflower - Rs 15/-
Beetroot - Rs 20/-

I found the small shop owner consistently costly than organized retailers like spencers and Smart. I found the road side vegetable hawkers slightly costlier than small shop vegetable owners. At least i had always believed that supply chain efficiency etc is a myth and the road side vendors are always cheaper. Sometimes some intuitions are completely wrong which i accept with humility coming from some background of mathematics where much more intuitions turn wrong!!

April 2009: A fast forward and now carrot is at Rs 10/-, Cabbage at Rs 10/-, Beans at Rs 25/-. How can you avoid such huge variances?