New interactive help-store gives you more assistance than ever.

If you are having difficulty differentating between 2G and 3G, smartphones and wi-fi, then Smartone-Vodafone are looking to help you out with their new Experience Store just opened on Des Voeux Road Central, Hong Kong.

We already give props to Smartone-Vodafone for having the friendliest and knowledgeable staff amongst the big operators (not to mention patient), that beyond price and product choice, if you aren’t sure which mobile phone to get, we suggest at least visiting one of their shops before making a final choice.

This new Experience Store looks to really set Smartone-Vodafone apart from their competitors with 2-levels of showroom space, lots of interactive panels, sample phones, and a comfortable environment to ask a million questions to their staff about whatever you want about mobile phones. Just don’t ask them about the Apple iPhone, well, at least not just yet.

Learn more about it here.

Polo allows you to buy clothing through your mobile phone.

Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation today announced the launch of a mobile commerce service that will enable consumers to purchase products through their phones. Quick point your phone’s web browser to this: m.ralphlauren.com. Polo Ralph Lauren is the first luxury retailer in the U.S. to directly launch m-commerce while incorporating Quick Response (QR) codes in ads. Those are the black white barcode looking things you see in magazine ads and have been popular in Japan for years.

A true sign of the times when more and more clothing companies move to new technology. Ok let’s see how this spreads in Hong Kong. We know our readers are buying clothes online but will they start buying clothes through their mobile phones?

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These aren’t just mobile phones, they are a frame of mind.

Vertu has launched their newest Constellation Rococo Collection mobile phones especially designed to relay the elegance and charm of womanhood in Hong Kong today at a special event in Central.

The Vertu Constellation Rococo handsets are inspired by the highly ornate Rococo style that was widely popular during the 18th century in France. Embracing the Rococo ideal of grace and playfulness, these stylish mobile phones are embellished with hand-embroidered floral designs with colored metallic threads. This new collection comes in four, new, stunning colours such as noir, scarlet, ivory and the exclusive Rococo Sapphire which is adorned with natural blue Cabochon sapphires and polished bezel engraved with the intricate floral pattern.

These phones are available now and customers can find the phones at Vertu’s counters at Sogo, Seibu and the Vertu shop at Harbor City.

How to get Haute Couture on your new iPhone.

Looks like Chanel was the first fashion brand to get into the new iPhone App Store. So for all of your who grabbed an iPhone (and iPod Touch owners who upgraded their firmware) in Hong Kong can have some cool haute couture to view on it.

Not only can you view photos and videos of the upcoming Chanel collection, but it also works as a store locator and a news feed for all that’s happening in the world of Chanel. How’s that for having not only the coolest mobile phone out there, but also having the latest and greatest Chanel info right at your fingertips.

Look forward to more brands doing this and look out for a Butterboom iPhone Hong Kong Shopping application in the near future.

If you have iTunes, then all you need to do is click here to install.

PCCW Mobile offers new plan to combat iPhone mutiny.

PCCW Mobile has returned fire against Hutchison’s initial 3G iPhone launch in Hong Kong.  As anyone with eyes in Hong Kong knows, 3 was the first to launch the new 3G iPhone in Hong Kong with data/talk plans ranging from HK$189-HK$498 per month last Friday.

To stop the exodus of users, PCCW is offering a crazy non-contract “Web & Talk” plan of only HK$98 a month. This is probably the best offer yet in Hong Kong, and a great reason for you to think twice about that Hutchison 24-month contract, since its also been confirmed that the iPhone will in fact be sold via Apple Hong Kong’s online store (but with no definite date set, but we hear next month).

Apple, maker of the iPod, intends to make the iPhone 3G handset available at its online store in Hong Kong, a United States-based Apple spokesman said, though he could not say when that would happen.

The company would try to keep prices close to those the company has been touting since it introduced the device last month - US$199 for the 8-gigabyte-capacity model and US$299 for the 16GB version.

And even if you are linked to Smartone-Vodafone, you might even get a shot at it as well as they are still negotiating with Apple:

“This will give local consumers more choice of which network and which data plans best suits their needs,” said Stephen Chau Kam-kun, chief technology officer at 3G network operator SmarTone- Vodafone. Mr Chau said SmarTone-Vodafone was still in talks with Apple about a partnership with the company in Hong Kong. “I hope we can move forward and get to an  acceptable arrangement,” he said.

Although this new PCCW plan has already been out in the Chinese press, we’ve waited to confirm this with PCCW direct and they have just sent us the link to their website with the English details. Get more information of this plan by visiting the PCCW Mobile site.

Not only show off your new iPhone, but what’s ON it too!

Today is the big day: Hutchison 3 rolls out the iPhone across Hong Kong, and once you transfer all your contacts to the iPhone, and play around with some of the 3G features, all you fashionitas will want to see how this new technology can make your even more stylish.

Apple has a series of free videos - about everything from Gucci to Vogue to bikinis - available on their website you can easily download to your new iPhone by 3G, Wi-Fi or by just syncing with your computer with iTunes. We’ve rounded up the Top 5 choices of “vidcasts” we think every Hong Kong fashionista should have on their iPhone:

STYLE.COM

One of our favorite magazines has a great vidcast available for download here. The Style vidcast features 3-minute videos on runways, fashion parties and more. Right now you can download a bunch of videos featuring Fall 2008 runways from all the big fashion brands like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Givenchy, Dior, Versace and so much more from Paris and Milan. These may have been released earlier this year but this a good start to add to your vidcast collection. You can subscribe to this feed and it will automatically update you with the newest episodes when you sync your iPhone with iTunes.

Click here to see Style directly in your iTunes.

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3 chooses 500 registrants to get the Apple 3G iPhone first.

With the big launch of the 3G iPhone coming to Hong Kong this Friday , Hutchinson’s 3 has decided to fuel the bombastic hype flames by letting only 500 early-bird people who registered at their website, get not only the 3G iPhone first in Hong Kong, but also some collectible pouch and of course, an most importantly, chief bragging rights.

The winners have been announced here . So if you are one those 500, we hate you already. And from the rumoured 60,000 Hong Kong people who registered at the 3 site, those 500 plus 1000 "premium subscribers" will be the only ones to get it. The exact number of iPhone’s that 3 has in stock for Friday is unknown, but The Standard is reporting that Hong Kong has an allocation of 10,000 iPhone’s from Apple.

For the rest of us, here is a 13-image photo gallery of an unboxing and comparison to the first iPhone.

UPDATE JULY 10: Here are photos of an unboxing of the Chinese-language version.

Guess how many diamonds are on this headset and win a free one.

If you can’t beat the iPhone in terms of features, Motorola is going to beat them in sheer number of diamonds on a mobile phone.

1010 is having an SMS contest right now to guess how many diamonds are on this Full Diamond Motopure H12 headset. Send your answers in and every 100th customer with the correct answer gets a standard, non-diamond H12 headset for free (Worth HK$888) with a total of 10 going out.

This luxury phone accessory has 3.47 carat diamonds all inset on it and is worth HK$96,888 and is on exhibit at the 1010 Centre store in Central until the end of July. You can read a review of the H12 here and here.

Contest details and a better look at it here.