VietNamNet Bridge – Hundreds of models of tablet PCs of different manufacturers and with different brand have been available on the Vietnamese market. Meanwhile, the 3G service charges have become more reasonable. These can explain why tablet PCs now can be seen on the hands of many people, from rice farmers to bakery shop owners.
 

Tablet PC familiar to farmers as well
 
Four months ago, when leading experts of the Vietnam Association for Information Processing VAIP to the Mo Cay district in the southern province of Ben Tre, Tran Thien Nghe, the association’s secretary general, unexpected saw an old farmer, about 60, surfing on Internet with the iPad 2 in his hands. At first, Nghe thought that the old farmer was playing games. However, he realized that the man was chatting.
 
“Some of my children are studying in the US. They bought the tablet PC to me and showed me how to use it,” he explained.
 
“The machine is very useful. I can chat with them with the machine, free of charge. If I make calls, I will have to pay a lot of money. It’s wonderful,” he added.
 
In fact, he said, a lot of families in the locality have children studying in HCM City, and parents also use table PC to communicate with their children, like him.
 
Tan Thanh, the owner of a small hotdog shop, located in the front of the Notre Dame Cathedral on Nguyen Du Street in district 1 of HCM City, also bought a tablet PC two weeks ago. Thanh takes pride of the tablet PC he bought, because this is an Apple’s product – iPad 2.32 GB.
 
He said that since the day he has the iPad, a new days begins at 11 am. After having lunch, Thanh surfs on Internet with the iPad, accesses to Facebook to read information about friends until ` pm. Only after “playing with the tablet PC for a while”, can he begin his main work: making cakes, selling cakes and delivering cakes.
 
Thanh closes his shops at midnight, but he does not go to bed immediately, because he spends one hour more with the iPad: surfing on Internet, accessing to Facebook and reading entries, and then playing games.
 
He fees satisfactory with the tablet PC, because he can entertain himself with it, while the total fee is not too high. According to Thanh, the monthly fee is not more than 200,000 dong a month, and if he cuts down some items of expenditure, such as the spending on café, he would have more than 200,000 dong to spend on tablet PC.
 
Being a crane operator, Cong Chien has the opportunities to travel a lot. However, he feels boring when he has to sit in the control cavity of the machine all the day long. Two months ago, Chien bought a used Samsung Galaxy Tab 16GB from at less than 5 million dong which has accompanied him since then.
 
“Since I now have the tablet PC, I do not want to go out in break time. I simply sit here and watch films, play games and read information about football matches,” he said.
 
Meanwhile, Nguyen Tuan Anh, a karaoke shop manager and fashion clothes trader, said he uses tablet PC for business, not for entertainment. The business seems to go more smoothly since he has the tablet PC. He now can check product samples anywhere. Since Anh keeps a close watch over the pricing policies, Anh regularly can purchase products at good prices.

Tablet PCs more popular in Vietnamese daily life
 
While Anh said the tablet PC allows him to earn more money, Tan Thanh said the tablet PC is very necessary for him to entertain himself. Meanwhile, as for the old farmers in Mo Cay district, tablet PCs act as the “bridge” that connect them and the children who study in big cities and foreign countries.
 
Nguyen Van Dao, Deputy General Director of Samsung Vietnam, said that more and more Vietnamese people would have the opportunities to access modern technologies, because the more advanced the technologies are, the more easily people can use the machines.
 
Dao has affirmed that the number of tablet PC users has been increasing, especially when mobile network operators have reduced 3G service fees.
 
Source: SGTT