This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vinko: @browngeek was this experience with SMV before or after Nov. 4th? http://bit.ly/4xMVoZ...

Regarding your question: PCCW has a special with the Hero contract, where they throw in a 32GB memory card. Smartone-Vodafone gives you only a 2GB card with the phone.

I'm fairly certain I will go with SMV if I get the phone. I'm just trying to make sure I really will make use of a smartphone and might wait to see if SMV is getting the Droid (or whatever they decide to call it in Asia), which probably would lower the Hero's contract price, just like the Hero made Magic's price go down.

BTW: what are you referring to when you say “… 32GB versus 2 from SMV”?

Thanks so much for your extensive reply. I think Sunday was before my time, so did not know about them or their bad network. Thank you for informing me on this.

I was leaning toward SMV anyway, and your e-mail helps with that decision. As you said, they both have identical price plans. I was only considering PCCW because they offer a little bit better deal – 32GB card versus 2 from SMV, and they add phone tethering and their “wifi everywhere” plan at no extra charge.

Your blog is great, and I will definitely be reading regularly. It's nice to find some decent tech coverage for HK.

Take care.

Thanks for checking out my blog.

I do not know of a PCCW comparison online somewhere.

The mobile carrier business in Hong Kong is very competitive as you may already know. In my experience I see that PCCW always leads the pack in introducing new technologies to the HK mobile offerings. Although, being the first does not necessary mean they are the best.

You have to remember that PCCW sold off their mobile business (CSL) to Telstra several years ago, then to regain its previous dominance of the mobile business they bought Sunday. So the PCCW Mobile business is actually the Sunday network with PCCW enhancements and investments since the purchase.

I presume you are only focused on the 3G network offered, given that you're looking at the HTC Hero. If you have lived in HK long enough you will remember that Sunday's network coverage is one of the worst in HK. As you may know 3G networks require a dense coverage of cellular antennas, so to deliver a good coverage the carrier must have saturated the entire HK area with 3G cellular antennas. I don't believe PCCW Mobile has done that yet.

Also you may hear that PCCW has the fastest 3G mobile network in HK, but you cannot believe all the marketing hype. Although, I had not done any test of PCCW's network I see what the carriers are saying about their networks. You can read my thoughts on this subject in my blog.

At the moment I do not believe any one mobile carrier is leading, but due to the competitive nature of HK mobile business I do not believe any one of the 6 mobile carriers will. There will always be a carrier that is going to be better than the current number one.

Having said that I also do not believe there are that much difference between carrier tariff plans. Majority of them offer the same services and price; especially if you read the small prints and upgrade each of the respective plans with the same features.

Therefore, I believe a consumer choosing a mobile carrier in HK should be focused more on the customer service; both before and after service, and whether the mobile carrier in question shows an attempt to do better. Based on these two points I believe Smartone-Vodafone and PCCW Mobile show good attempts to do both.

In the case of Smartone-Vodafone, they are very concern with quality of service both with their network and staff service. Their CEO and CIO is particularly focused on delivering best of both.

I hope you will continue your visits. I will try to keep the topics interesting for you.

It will always going to take manufactures of Android phones time to catch up to the latest Android release; especially for ones who add their own layer above, like HTC, Motorola, and Nokia.

Thanks for clearing up the PCCW thing. Yes, they definitely made it seem like you got the full wifi plan, for use on your laptop, for free if you signed the Hero contract. And they said you could tether the phone to a laptop, too, which SMV charges extra for. PCCW has a very high-pressure environment in the stores when I go to ask about phones.

I think if I decide to get the phone I will mention to SMV that PCCW is offering the bigger card and see if they will bargain. I agree that 2GB seems too small – especially since the phones come with so little memory built into the handset! The salespeople say 512 MB should be enough for all the apps, but I figure there probably is a way through rooting the phone to make the card also be able to store apps.

I agree with you – even though it seems to be a hot seller in the States, I don’t have any interest in the Droid/Milestone. I just mentioned it because I figure that when it comes, the price plan of the Hero will probably go down. The Hero and Magic are very close on specs, but the Magic’s plan with SMV is over HK100 less a month because it’s not the new phone anymore. I was happy to read that HTC is going to go straight to 2.0 for the Hero.

It is best not to test servers outside of HK as there are too many variables that are out of the control of the carrier and yourself.

I use SpeedTest.net's iPhone app, SpeedTest. It is more reliable because I am testing the network speed using a server in HKG and SpeedTest is only testing the latency, downlink and uplink between the server and the iPhone 3GS.