{"id":15584,"date":"2011-12-28T06:56:49","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T22:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=15584"},"modified":"2020-01-17T08:27:21","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T00:27:21","slug":"year-in-review-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2011\/12\/28\/year-in-review-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Year in Review – 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another year almost zoomed right past us already! Time for my annual reflection on what went well and what didn\u2019t. Starting off with the toys first then the others:<\/p>\n

Olympus E-PL2<\/a> (Win)<\/span><\/strong>: This was a relatively minor upgrade from the old E-PL1 with gains largely in autofocusing speed for me. Still, I thought it was as a good time as any to trade-up before the resale price of the E-PL1 dropped any further. Olympus has released a whole range of new models in both the E-PL and PEN series that offers a bunch of new nifty features, including even faster AF and touch-screen focusing (tried it out on a small group friend\u2019s unit and loved it!). Then again, there\u2019s also the just released Sony NEX-7<\/a> which is really tempting. Should I jump ship?!<\/p>\n

\n
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\"sony-nex-7\"<\/dt>\n
Dpreview remarks: “…the NEX-7 offers the finest still image quality of any APS-C camera, bar none.” Dreadfully expensive though with limited range of lenses.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Panasonic Lumix 20mm f1.7<\/a>\u00a0(Win)<\/span><\/strong>: The new E-PL2 got quickly married to what many regarded as one of the best lenses around for the micro four-thirds standard \u2013 the Lumix 20mm f1.7. I paid a small sum of money for it, but since its purchase in July this year, I\u2019ve rarely touched the E-PL2 kit lens again. I\u2019ll say 99.5% of all my pictures taken since July on the E-PL2 was using this 20mm. It\u2019s really that good.<\/p>\n

Motorola Atrix 4G<\/a>\u00a0(Win)<\/span><\/strong>: This was my zero-dollar upgrade for 2011, and by virtue of that fact, surely a \u2018win\u2019 decision in itself already.=) The phone uses a mammoth battery, and I can get through a day at work with semi-heavy activity easily without recharging. Amazing performance for an Android smartphone. Unfortunately though, I just discovered that the phone might not be receiving an upgrade to Android 4.0 \u2013 a major bummer. When my mobile plan contract expires next April, I\u2019m going to look around for the next zero dollar upgrade and see what\u2019s available.<\/p>\n

Apple iPad 2<\/a>\u00a0(Win)<\/span><\/strong>: A reluctant \u2018win\u2019, and only because of my dislike for the fruit company. Drab-looking UI and zero customization short of jailbreaking the thing. But I got to hand it to the App Store. There\u2019s really a lot of apps, and when you\u2019ve got the AppZapp app loaded onto it, you get a lot of normally paid-software free too. Still, if iOS does not get a major facelift with the impending iPad 3 or iPhone 5, I\u2019ll be dumping the iPad the minute an Android 3G quadcore tablet loaded with 4.0 becomes available. Ling though did get me an Asus Transformer EEE pad for my 40th birthday earlier in the month, but it wasn\u2019t the 3G model \u2013 which pretty much crippled the device out of our door for me. I ended up selling the EEE pad away to fund Ling’s Xperia LOL.<\/p>\n

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V<\/a> (Win)<\/span><\/strong>: Ling looks like she loves the phone. Just got to make sure she charges it every night!<\/p>\n

Staycation @ Capella Sentosa<\/a>\u00a0(Win)<\/span><\/strong>: Simply put, the most luxurious property we\u2019ve yet stayed. Amazing room, view and hospitality \u2013 to the point that we were contended to just stay in the hotel room and not venture out during our three day staycation.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"blog-capella\"<\/dt>\n
Capella staycation: Hannah approves!<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Staycation @ Naumi Hotel<\/a> (Mixed)<\/span>: <\/strong>This was a somewhat disappointing stay. We paid nearly as much as our stay at Capella (the Sentosa hotel rates were supposed to be higher even) so was expecting quite a bit. What we got was great hospitality, a very comfortable bed, huge room, and lovely buffet breakfast \u2013 but also what we thought was a colorless room, non-existent view, noisy surroundings, and spotty housekeeping. So, unlike the Sentosa staycation, the room wasn\u2019t nearly as interesting. We ended up spending most of our time out of it.<\/p>\n

The Minton<\/a> (Mixed)<\/span>: <\/strong>This was our Purchase of the Year<\/strong><\/em>, and pretty expensive when it\u2019s more than SGD1.3 million. We were at a cousin\u2019s housewarming event on Christmas Eve. Their new place was a 28th floor unit at Clover by the Park. It was a larger unit than ours (with three balconies!), amazing view that we could even see The Flyer and Marina Bay Sands, and they paid less than we did. Sigh. Whether the decision was the best one we could make is still too early to call i.e. in the worst case scenario, Hannah fails to get into the very school we bought this apartment for.<\/p>\n

Next year, 2012 – and we expect Hannah to start getting real assertive! =(<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another year almost zoomed right past us already! Time for my annual reflection on what went well and what didn\u2019t. Starting off with the toys first then the others: Olympus E-PL2 (Win): This was a relatively minor upgrade from the<\/p>\n

Read More Year in Review – 2011<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[670],"class_list":["post-15584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toys-technology","tag-year-in-review","wpcat-16-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32101,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15584\/revisions\/32101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}