It’s an incredibly beautiful TV.
It’s HD, ultra slim, big but not obnoxious, and it’s LED, meaning its bright and doesn’t use much electricity. As far as TVs go, it’s about as eco-friendly as you can get.
I’ve wanted it since the moment I first saw it. But when I left Argentina a few months ago to spend time with my family in Colorado, these TVs didn’t even exist in Argentina. Nobody sold them here. And even if they did, I knew it would cost a lot more than it would in Colorado. As is the case with almost all electronic items here, things are way overpriced.
So while in Colorado, I went to Best Buy and bought myself one. It was On Sale for US $989, taxes included – an incredible deal. But how on earth would I get this thing back to Argentina?
Intellectually, I had always known that it was possible to bring such things on the plane as shipped baggage. But I had never tried something so bold – or perhaps so stupid – as to bring down a gigantic HDTV. So, what the heck, I figured. I called American Airlines and asked if I could bring the TV with me to Argentina. “As long as it weighs less than 70lbs and isn’t more than 115 inches (height x width x length),” they said. The box fit!
But it was fragile, very fragile, with practically no protective padding or reinforced styrofoam. So I got another box, grabbed the TV, still inside its original box, and stuffed it into the other box, lining it wall-to-wall with styrofoam. It was still under 50lbs and it totaled just 93 inches. Bingo! I was ready to go.
I got to the check-in counter at American, where they charged me an extra US $150 to ship the box as “an oversized bag.” I feared it would be destroyed during the flight or by the baggage handlers. But it arrived perfectly, without a scratch. The box didn’t even look like it had been shipped at all. Plus, the TV works perfectly here in Argentina with the local digital cable service.
At EZE airport, I got pulled aside by customs officials, who charged me the typical 50% import fee. The policy is simple. They charge 50% of the value of your item after US $300. Since the TV cost US $989, they charged me 50% of US $689, or US $345. I paid the tax with my Visa card. There was no haggling, no request for a bribe. Just a simple, quick transaction. The whole thing took less than five minutes.
All told, then, it cost me US $1,484 to bring the TV down to Buenos Aires. The TV now sells here for 9,999 Argentine pesos, or US $2,603. So even after all the hassle of shipping it, I still saved US $1,119.
That’s a decent chunk of cash, enough to buy another R/T ticket up to the States.
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Amazon.com said Wednesday it has started selling its famous Kindle e-reader to customers in Argentina.
Amazon will offer 3G wireless download options for Argentine users. On average, Kindle books will cost Argentine customers around US $11.99 per book, Amazon said in a statement. That’s more than the US $9.99 that books typically cost for users in the U.S.
The Kindle Store will offer more than 300,000 books to customers in Argentina. Customers will also be able to access Merriam Webster’s English-Spanish Translation Dictionary to translate words from English into Spanish.
“Customers in Argentina have been asking for the Kindle, and now we’re happy to be able to offer it along with more than 300,000 books, as well as magazines and the best-known newspapers,” Ian Free, Amazon’s Kindle VP, said in a statement. “The Kindle allows customers in Argentina and around the world to think about a book, and start to read it, in less than 60 seconds.”
Among other newspapers, Kindle offers customers the opportunity to download El País (from Spain), O Globo (from Brazil) and, of course, The New York Times, etc.
I’ve been testing the Kindle for over a month now in the U.S. and have found it to be somewhat disappointing. Its user interface seems too basic and limited compared with computers and other devices like the iPhone. But its screen is remarkably clear and much easier on the eyes than are typical computer screens or LCD monitors. Meanwhile, given that it is so hard, and so expensive, to acquire English books, magazines and newspapers in Argentina, the Kindle may be just the right option for serious, serial readers.
However, there is one important caveat. Later this month, Apple will announce its new tablet multimedia device, which will likely go on sale in March. It is almost certain to be far more impressive than the Kindle and will offer video and other features which the comparatively troglodytic Kindle does not. Additionally, other companies are coming out with other e-readers that could make the Kindle look even more rudimentary. Check out the Skiff Reader, for example, here.
To get the Kindle or the Kindle DX (which has a larger, 9.7 inch display), you’ll have to pay around $20 for shipping, as well as Argentine customs taxes and fees (I don’t know how much these will add up to). You can order the Kindle by clicking here and here. Amazon will start shipping to Argentina on Jan. 19.
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If you’re in Argentina (or anywhere else, really) and you need to unlock your iPhone, the super tech champ George Hotz will be releasing a new software to help you do this on Wednesday. (UPDATE: The unlock has been released and you can find it here.)
In technospeak, Hotz will be allowing iPhone’s with the 05.11.07 “baseband” to unlock their phones. This solution will help people who’ve tried to unlock their phones but who failed to do so and ending up with so-called “bricks” – that is, phones that cannot be unlocked. The new baseband unlock is called “blacksn0w.”
In its battle with unlockers, Apple recently updated the iPhone’s firmware to “permanently” lock the phone to its initial carrier. If you’re in Argentina, that would be Claro or Movistar. If you’re in the US, that would be AT&T.
Apple’s move left a lot of people around the world – including many in Argentina – with locked iPhones. If you happen to be one of these people, or know someone who has a locked phone, you’ll be able to find out more about the new unlock solution by clicking on Hotz’s website here.
I’ll update this post with new details once they’re available.
Note: There is no need to pay to have your iPhone unlocked. Two developers, Hotz (known as Geo Hotz) and the iPhone Dev Team, provide so-called “jail-breaking” and unlock software for free. Anyone who charges for this service online is likely a scam artist trying to profit off of someone else’s work.
Of course, since the iPhone has become more widely available around the world, this has made unlocking it unnecessary. But since many people travel and cross borders, unlocking the phone can be useful.
If you have questions about all of this, submit a comment and I’ll try to answer it.
Link: Geo Hotz
Link: iPhone Dev Team Blog
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As Argentina debates a proposal by President Cristina Fernández to raise taxes on technological products, Uruguay is moving forward with a revolutionary plan to ensure that every child, and every teacher, in the country has a computer.
This video provides a surprisingly interesting – if not picturesque and bucolic – look at the program and its accomplishments.
Kudos to my buddy Julian Gallo for the link.
Wikipedia Link: The Ceibal Project
Link: World Politics Review on Uruguay’s Project
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Two of Argentina’s top cellular phone companies – Movistar and Claro – last week said they will start selling the new iPhone 3Gs in Argentina.
I’ve been testing the new 32GB version of the phone for the past two months and can highly recommend it.
As someone who’s used numerous Blackberries, as well as all previous versions of the iPhone, I can say this is hands down the best phone I’ve ever had.
The iPhone 3Gs works splendidly on Movistar’s 3G network. It is noticeably faster than previous versions. Almost all applications work faster.
E-mails works faster, Apple’s Safari browsers loads quicker and all of the audio and video streaming features work very nicely.
Most importantly, perhaps, the phone’s GPS unit works smoothly, though it worked well on the 3G too. You can easily type in street addresses in Argentina and have the GPS application tell you how to get to your destination. (more…)
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For better or worse, Argentina has never been a good place to buy electronic items.
Shoppers, bargain hunters and antique collectors always find much to love about Argentina’s quality leather items, arts and crafts, jewelry, and outstanding services such as tango lessons and music classes, among other things.
But if you happen to want something, say, like a big HDTV, you’re out of luck.
For decades successive Argentine governments have stymied imports and heavily taxed novel or hi-end consumer goods like cutting-edge TVs based on the supposition that doing so will a) raise revenue and b) induce manufacturers to produce such items here instead of in Brazil, China or South Korea.
Such policies have had limited success, inspiring some companies to assemble similar items here. But for the most part, the effort to keep hi-end products out has done just that. It has kept Argentina’s lower and middle-class families from easily accessing the kind of hi-tech products that have become common in the U.S., Europe and Asia. (more…)
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Google Maps now provides its “Get Directions” feature for the City of Buenos Aires and, apparently, Bariloche and Mendoza.
The feature doesn’t appear to cover anything outside the cities and it’s not clear yet if it covers everything in each city. But in my limited tests the feature seems to work very well, at least for well known streets in well known neighborhoods in the City of Buenos Aires. Even more limited tests seemed to show it working in Bariloche and Mendoza.
For now, the feature provides mapping data and advice only in “Car” mode, meaning it doesn’t seem to prioritize distance when suggesting routes. In the above photo, for example, I mapped out a route going from the French cafe Oui Oui (Nicaragua 2161) in Palermo to the Palermo Starbucks (Malabia 1738).
Google’s first suggested route was for me to take Nicaragua and go out of my way over to Niceto Vega, then turn back on Armenia and move toward Malabia. Google says this route is 3.2 kilometers. It’s possible (but doubtful) that this route would be faster in a car than by taking a shorter, 2.6 kilometer route through Gorriti, but Google doesn’t suggest this shorter route first.
Regardless, Google does suggest two shorter, alternative routes, giving people a range of options on how to best get to the destination point. The program, in my testing of it for BA streets, works brilliantly. It may have flaws for lesser known areas but it’s still an excellent choice for both drivers and pedestrians who want to figure out how to get around this amazingly endless city.
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Apple released its long-awaited Slingplayer Mobile App for the iPhone Tuesday, bringing live television to iPhone users around the world.
The App, which is available now in the iTunes Apps store, costs $29.99, making it one of the most expensive Apps available.
I’ve been testing the App on my iPhone here in Buenos Aires and, with some kinks, it seems to work pretty well. The video quality isn’t nearly as good as it is with downloaded iTunes videos but it’s decent enough.
To access live TV, you have to have a Sling Box simultaneously connected to 1) a TV signal and 2) the Internet. In my case, I have a Slingbox installed in my folks’ house in Colorado. There, the Sling Box takes the incoming cable signal and whips it across the Internet all the way down to my laptop or iPhone here in BA. From my iPhone, I can control the cable signal there in Colorado as if I were actually there, changing the channels, adjusting the volume, etc.
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There was great news Monday for tech savvy Argentines and expats living here. Skype, the user-friendly free (or heavily discounted) international phone and chat application, is now available for free for the iPhone.
I’ve been testing the application on my iPhone and it seems to work brilliantly. With Skype you can make free calls to other online contacts and super cheap calls to non-Skype landlines and cellphones.
I used PayPal to add $10 to my account so I could try calling regular cellphones of friends and family living in the U.S. So far it has worked perfectly. The calls worked just as as they do when using the regular, PC-based version of Skype, only now, on the iPhone, the calls feel like real phone calls instead of a slightly inconvenient, computer-based experiment.
The audio quality so far has been very good. It’s still not as good as regular VOIP or Vonage-based calls. Still, given how decent the quality is, and the fact that you can make these calls without being tied down to a computer, this new version of Skype deserves stellar accolades. Early user reviews on iTunes complain about the application crashing, but I have had any trouble yet in my limited tests.
I’ve been testing Skype on my home WiFi network, which is an important caveat. I haven’t yet used it on my Movistar cellular network, where a much narrower bandwidth could negatively affect the quality of calls. But I’ll be testing this aspect of the service during the week and will report back with more details later.
You can download the Skype App through the iTunes store here.
Argentina’s two main iPhone providers are Movistar and Claro, though hacked iPhones can be used wtih any GSM provider. Skype can also be used on Windows Mobile Phones, Play Station Portables (or PSPs), the Nokia Internet Tablet.
UPDATE: As some readers already have mentioned, Skype doesn’t work on the iPhone’s 3G network. Truly this is a shame. Apple seems to have deliberately blocked this possibility, perhaps in a concession to its cellular service providers who want their clients paying (through the teeth) for long distance calls. This is a major setback for Skype,although Skype’s WiFi-based calling options still work great.
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For those of you who love both your iPhone (or iPod Touch) and Argentina, Odasoft has released a video game version of the Argentine classic “Truco” for the iPhone. You can download it here for just 99 cents.
Link: iTunes App Store Truco
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It’s been a long wait, but HDTV has finally come to Argentina. CableVisión announced this weekend that it has started offering offering two channels, HBO HD and Movie City HD, in high definition. According to this La Nacion article, DirecTV this weekend also launched HDTV signals.
So far, no Argentine programming is available. Moreover, the Argentine government hasn’t even decided on which HDTV broadcast standard it wants to implement, meaning it could be years before locally produced shows start showing up in HD on Argentine airwaves.
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