I learned something today - premium gadgets are becoming the new playthings for the geek-phobic tai tais.
At a Blackberry product launch today, I met a product manager who told me about how Blackberry devices have become very popular among the "money-is-no-object" Indonesian tai-tais.
They may be more often associated with spas, manicures and sky-high Louboutins rather than gadgets. And, frankly, they don't care about whether their Blackberry comes with 3G or a high-resolution screen, because all they want is use it to instant message their friends. Apparently, sharing gossip this way is more discreet and more efficient with group chats.
Later at the launch of the HP Mini 1000 designed by fashion designer Vivienne Tam, I discovered that quite a few sets of the $1,099 machine ($300 more than the normal mini-note) have already been snapped out by Singapore's tai-tais. Hard to imagine why the tais-tais would want to with a laptop but I guess with Vivienne Tam on the laptop skin, it would go well with their Louis Vuitton bags and Ferragamo shoes.
But the most interesting thing is that it's probably easier to sell to the tais-tais since they really couldn't care less about the hard specs, focussing on the "lifestyle" elements instead... Which is probably why Nokia and Tag Heuer will never send their high-class phones to Digital Life to test - we'll just rip the specs to pieces!