If you are… 1. Planning to go IT Show next few days and 2. Planning to get a new camera, than this is the one you should MUST read! (Cos I spent 4 hours preparing and blogging about it! Wahahaha!) No, really! I’m serious!

Claudia’s Unofficial Survival Guide for IT Show 2008

PLUS Review of the Canon Ixus 950IS

Part 1 – Before Going to IT Show 2008

Check out the prices and promotions from the IT Show newspaper guide, or from hardware zone. Do your homework before heading down. Read reviews, compare prices and packages with those at Sim Lim Square. Know what you want to buy before leaving your home or office. This is very important as it’ll save you lots of time and agony too! You’ll see why later… read on…

Part 2 – Getting to Suntec City…

The not-too-bad jam towards Suntec at around 7.15pm

Every year before we head down to IT Show at Suntec, we’ll strategies a plan. We know the kind of traffic, both vehicles and human, will be horrible during this crazy period of time. So today, we head on down to Suntec City after a trip to the Army Market at the Beach Rd.

Approximately 7.03pm, after ERP hours, we entered the crazy jam going towards Suntec City. Same as previous years, we parked our car at Shaw Towers. (Parking is $2/entry after 5pm on weekday, after 1pm on Saturday and whole of Sunday)

This time round, getting into Shaw Towers was pretty easy. Be prepared to get stuck in a mini-jam over the next 3 days cos everyone will be parking at Shaw Towers since parking charges is one of the lowest around Suntec.

Part 3 – Travel light! Get ready to squeeze and push!

Study the map displayed almost everywhere around Suntec Convention Hall. Mark down the locations where you should be going to get your things. Most of the big brands are on Level 4, and Starhub and Sony are on Level 3. Level 6 are mostly consumable stuff and some gaming stuff.

Part of the loooong Sony Booth along concourse at Level 3

Look at the crowd! I got giddy riding on the escalator!

Entering Hall 404

At the entrance into the main hall on Level 4, you’ll be surrounded by rows of flyers distributors. Since you’ve already done your homework earlier, please don’t take them. Save the trees! Just smile to the pretty ladies and handsome guys and move on.

When you enter the hall, be prepared to squeeze through the jammed packed hall. Be alert at all times. Look after your personal belongings and stay close to your friends! These are what you’ll be encountering upon entering the exhibition and sales area…

“People Mountain People Sea”…

I caught some people looking at me!

Tell me how to shop like that???

That’s why we should prepare before we go! Like what we did today… Know what we want to get, locate the booth, go straight to the booth, get the stuff, and out we go! You really don’t want to stay in there and compare prices, ask questions, check out the gadget and what not in there! The hall was overly packed and with all the lightings and all, the hall was very hot and sometimes you’ll even get stinky smell from people around you.

Thanks to my research and my BF’s credit card, I consider myself one of the happy and satisfied shopper today! So you know what you should do already ya? All the best to those of you who’re planning a trip down to IT Show 2008! (If you’ve totally nothing to buy, please don’t go add yourself to the crowd. Spare some thoughts for the serious buyers. I’m sure you also wouldn’t want to go squeeze with the crowd right?)

Phew… that’s the end of my IT Show 2008 Survival Guide. Now… my damage for today…

3 bags of Canon products!

These are the stuff inside…

Canon IXUS 950IS ($599), Canon Selphy CP740 (FREE!), Canon Ink Refills (for office), and whole lot of other freebies that came with the camera purchase.

This can be considered a very good deal from Canon this year! Before the promotions were released, I was hoping that they’ll throw in a free printer with camera purchase cos I need a new photo printer. And when I saw the flyer online, I was thrilled! Canon heard my wish! Haha! So of course, I got to get it right? The total worth of the bundle is about… $998 (cam:599 + printer:199 + SDcards:70 + etc:30 + swensen voucher:100).

I did a simple comparison between my new toy and my current ones…

Shot taken with Nikon D40 (DSLR)

Taken with the new IXUS 950IS

Taken with my old Fuji Z3

All the shots were taken in similar mode without flash. Using the white text “DIGITAL IXUS 950IS”, we can see that the D40 gives a sharpest and cleanest shot. If we were to compare just between the IXUS and Z3, there’s more noticeable noise by the Z3. The color by IXUS is also brighter and the focus (the picture of the camera) is sharper too.

Here’s the videos I took with both the IXUS 950IS and Z3…

The quality is compromised due to the web movie settings. I can see much more difference between the 2 videos in their original state. IXUS 95IS takes a better quality video as compared to the Z3. Both are able to continue recording up till the capacity of the memory card used.