HTC Brings The Magic (literally!) to Bangkok and Chiang Mai

Being a proud card-carrying member of the HTC e-Club, I get the occasional HTC promo announcement in my inbox. Okay, I lied about the card, I only signed up to the e-club thing to get updated ROMs for my Touch Diamond. I've been pretty closely following all the latest high-end smartphones, especially the Palm PRE (seen in GSM form in Vietnam!), the iPhone 3GS, and the slew of Android phones like the HTC 'Magic' and 'Hero', the Samsung i7500, and assorted rumors of a Motorola Android budget slider.

While I wish that HTC was popping the cork on the 'Hero' here in the land of smiles, at least we're getting some love: they're having a couple of shindigs here to get Thailand's techies interested in Android in general, and the HTC Magic in particular. AIS, a cellular carrier here, is co-sponsoring the event. You can register for either event at the HTC Thailand website (note - it's in Thai, but you can view a Google-translated version here).

Okay, details! According to the email (also in Thai, natch):

"HTC is pleased to invite you to experience the world-class Android mobile OS with the HTC Magic on August 1 - 2 from 1:00 pm until 6:00 pm at the Digital Arena (4th floor), in the "Digital Gateway @ Siam" center [Kirk's note: this is the building that looks like a giant coke-bottle when seen from the Siam BTS upper-platform], and on August 9th from 1:00 pm until 6:00 pm at the Century Tara Hotel ballroom in Chiang Mai."
*note - yes, that's a Vodafone Magic pictured.

Notorious gadget-lover 'Ice' on the cover of Maxim (Thai edition).

They're not being shy about their target demographic here - the email says that "beautiful, young, sexy star 'Ice' Apitsada Kruakongkah will be there to chat about her experiences with Android". Here's the Google Image search for her... For the Thai-literate, her name is อภิษฎา เครือคงคา (Thai people all have nicknames, her's is "Ice"). So it's a safe bet that the place will be crawling with young, male techies...

Moving on! The event will have workshops on Android, the Android Marketplace, and using the HTC Magic. Attendees will have a chance to win their very own Magic, or (for the rest of us) to buy one for the promo price of 21,900 Baht (about $644, unlocked, no contract required). To soften the blow, it comes with an AIS SIM card (from their pre-paid "One-2-Call" brand) with 30 hours of talk-time preloaded. To even further soften the blow, you can pay in interest-free (for 6 months) installments using your KTC, CitiBank, or Krung Sri GE card, if you're packing one. And yes - GE is that GE.... long-tentacled beast.

So if you're in Thailand, or needed a good reason to come (as if), come check out HTC's not-quite-latest Android smartphone. Or just come ogle Miss Apitsada. Either way!