While all banks denied my credit card application, China Merchants Bank (CMB, hereafter) accepted me and granted me a large line of credit, much larger than I ever expected. Wow! It’s much appreciated and hence I make the CMB my first and only choice in credit card (so far).

Almost everything with the CMB and its credit card is perfect, but the CMB internet banking. The CMB internet banking follows Microsoft’s ActiveX instead of W3C international standard, and consequently I can only use M$ Internet Explorer to login my online banking. As a Macer, I have to experience inconvenience in switching between different OS. The CMB doesn’t want to change for me. What a shame!

Okay, let’s leave the background there and go to the story. I intended to buy a mobile storage, or portable hard-disk in other words, and targeted several brands and products, like UNIS, Maxtor, BenQ and Aigo. The a product of UNIS drew the most attention of me, which has a 80G storage charging only RMB 5xx. It looks like a bargain, doesn’t it?

I think there are two most important criteria when choosing a mobile storage — Safety and Post-sales service. A portable hard-disk MUST be safe. When you put your everything in it you do NOT want all your fave music and moves, private collections, love letters, unfinished business proposals and contracts, or other invaluable things vanish in a twinkling due to a mechanical breakdown or a falling accident, do you? According to the post-sales service, you know, people die, it’s the fact of life, so does a hard disk. When you have problems using your device or your equipment goes broke, you’ll know how important the good service would be. If you don’t know which one is safe and provides better service, a product of a reputable brand may be more reliable than a DIY one, at least in the mobile storage case.

Of course, reasonable price shall be taken into account too. That’s a reason why I chose BenQ DP303 at last.

Before that I searched in Zhong-Guan-Cun market, and found some qualified products, but they all require one-off RMB 600 or more payment. Hard to afford… Then I turned to the CMB online shopping to try my luck and fortunately found one. BenQ DP303 with a 120G storage, shock proof and other safety guarantee charges RMB 999. (Expensive, uh? Yes, I’m sure I can get the same thing at around RMB 900 in Zhong-Guan-Cun market, with one-off payment and without invoice.) As a CMB credit card user, I can get it at once via progressive payment — RMB 83 per month for one year. That’s exactly what I need and what I’m able to afford. Bravo!

With little hesitation I choose it and submitted my order at once. Remember, it was April 23. Two days later, April 25, the CMB finally contacted me to confirm my order. Oh, my God! What was taking that long to proceed my order. Inefficient! As it was my first time using CMB online shopping long anxious made a terrible impression.

Then BenQ took another day to proceed my order and confirmed with me on 26. Since I submitted my order in the evening 23 April it has been three days. And on the phone with BenQ on 26 I was told that BenQ would hand the product to the express company on 27. Oh, My! I didn’t know how much longer it would take. The lady on the phone told me explicitly they could NOT guarantee my receiving the portable hard disk before the May Day.

Luckily the deliverer in this case was the most efficient! The ZJS express took only less than 36 hours to put the product in my hands. Thank God and ZJS express!

Now, I got my BenQ DP303 at last. The whole thing took five days and with three calls. I hate inefficiency!

The BenQ DP303 looks more beautiful than the pic on the web, and works good (… so far), which comforted me after all.

www.flickr.com

In summary, I gained some experiences according to this purchase:

• if you want to buy some article, esp. electronic ones, but don’t want to or are not able to pay in full, credit card online shopping with progressive payment support would be a good choice;
• when you do that, you need to understand the products on bank shopping site may be more expensive;
• and usually you have to be patient to wait for 5-7 days before your receipt.