Challenger at the Funan Digitalife Mall

It’s heaven for the gadget freak. The Challenger retail store at Funan Digitallife Mall in Singapore is the place to be when shopping for the latest tech toys and gadgets. All six floors are dedicated to top of the line stuff at rock bottom prices. I must have wiped out my entire credit line at HSBC in less than an hour.

On our first night at Singapore, I saw this feature of a gadget shop on cable TV. The unique this about this Challenger is that it has two pricing schemes — a regular price for the one-time shopper and a discounted price for members (I spared no time in subscribing as a member. Just SG$30 for 2 years.). To give you an idea of how much some of the stuff there, here’s an estimated list I got from memory:

Compaq Presario V3000 (Code Duo 1.73GHz, 14.1″ WXGA, 120GB HDD, 512DDR2 RAM) – Php31k
Dell 22″ Widescreen Flat LCD Monitor – Php15k
Nokia N95 – Php33k

That Presario laptop is about Php49k here in Manila, a 22″ Samsung LCD is Php25k last time I checked and the Nokia N95 is around Php44k. Yay, I almost bought that N95. On top of that, you get a rebate from GST of around 8% if I’m not mistaken. You just show it in the customs at the airport and they’ll give you back some cash for all your receipts. Some gadgets like the iPod Nano, the Nintendo DS Lite and the Sony PSP are somewhat the same price as we have here. Will do a rundown of gadget reviews in the next posts.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

6 Comments

AJ says:

18 years ago

abe!
haha. ako rin, the first time i was there, i bought a gadget agad.

last saturday, i bought 320gb maxtor external hdd. S$159 for members, usual price is S$179. Members’ price is roughly 4.9k pesos. buti na lang member ang pinsan ko, naki-ride ako sa membership nya.
- Reply
Abe Olandres says:

18 years ago

AJ, dude I got the 500GB WD External Drive! *hehe* Sorry, di ko nabasa agad previous comment mo. Only had a day to go around and wasn’t able to log online.
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wilson ng says:

18 years ago

Hi Abe,

It looks like you are doing a lot of travelling.

With regards to buying outside, there are differences when you are buying foryourself, or for the company.

pls. note that for companies, it makes sense to buy local because of what you pay, you are able to put 12% of tha tamount as VAT input.
- Reply
Abe Olandres says:

18 years ago

Hi Wilson. When you buy for the company, its usually in bulk and whatever savings you get outside may be offset by customs tax and other tariffs.
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ABhishek says:

16 years ago

Hi , can anybody tell me where i can get the best price for this system in SIngapore
I cant find the email address of IT shops in Funan
…Thanks

E-mail : ab****@****.***

1. COoler master haf 932 full atx tower

2. HDD Coolers

3. ASUS Rampage II Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

4. Intel core i7 965 extreme edition ( 3.2 ghz) Quad core with Hypertreading

5. Corsair Dominator 12gb Ram ( 6 * 2gb) ddr3 sdram 240-pin (1866mhz)

6. Duel nvidia ( evga or xfx ) geforce gtx 295 in quad sli ( with backplate)

7. 3 Tb western digital Hard disk (3* 1 Tb) + backplates

8. BS TAGAN bZ 1300W

9. BLUE RAY / HD-DVD COMBO Writer

9.1 DVD dual layer lightscribe burner

10. Evga xeno Killer network card

11. Wireless keyboard & mouse

12. Cooler master v8 (heatsink & fan )

13. Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium

15. Ocz Vertex SSD 120 gb
- Reply
Angila Reser says:

14 years ago

Would you mind if I reference a paragraph or two from your post? I’m preparing to write a paper for highschool. Thanks very much!
- Reply