Notebook craze continues
Qubee fair ends today
Photo: Shawkat Jamil
It's been three years since the inception of laptop fair, yet its appeal still remains unchanged among the city dwellers. Like Sharmili, a seventh grader who had come to visit the three-day laptop exhibit styled 'Qubee laptop fair 2011' that kicked off Wednesday, with her father, wanted to buy a netbook with all her savings, approximately Tk25,000! "All my friends in the school have one, so I should also have one for myself"!, said Sharmili. Though her dad did not seem to be much happy about buying a netbook as she already got a desktop computer in her possession, but he had to admit to this reporter that trend is the last word for the kids of her daughter's age and generation as well!! The on-going exhibit is the 4th edition of this kind in Dhaka. The port city Chittagong experienced three fairs as well in the last three years. Total 21 stalls and 18 pavilions housed in the fair and it would remain open from 10:00am to 8:00pm. All the known brands like Samsung, Asus, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Haier, Dell, Fujitsu, Prolink, Apple, Acer, MSI, Sony, Compaq, Flora PC, Gigabyte were there but visitors seemed taking more interest on the top of the linesHP, Dell, Apple, Sony and Toshiba. When asked, business manager of distribution sales (Apple) Shamsul Abedin said: "It's not about money anymore. People seek quality as well. We also bring trendy products and that attracts the youngsters too". However, Md Azharul Islam, executive of corporate sales (HP) of Smart Technologies Ltd disagrees with Sahmsul's comment and he rather emphasized on price competitiveness of the laptop manufacturers and price sensitiveness of the potential customers as well. "We know fashion is important, but our sales rate did not go up only concentrating on this lone factor. Carefully surveyed market demand, consumers' buying ability and on the top of all, quality assurance helped us to set the standard that we have", said Azharul. Every year, the issue of price ceiling differentiation of the last day from the first day raised a lot of question in customers' minds. It was seen that those who bought a laptop on the first two days had to pay a bit more than the one who bought a products at the last moment. Allegations roll like the participating companies in the exhibit want to raise their sales figure with the discounts at the last moment. Denying the allegation, Rakibuzzaman Talukder, assistant manager, corporate sales (Acer) of Executive Technologies Ltd said the stunt pulled off as the organisers do not want any laptop-seekers go back empty handed at the last moment. Today is the last day of this year's laptop extravaganza. The entry fee is Tk 20 and the venue is Hotel Sheraton. Don't miss it, guys!!
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