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Chapter 1284: Chapter 1140 Worth the Price (Please Subscribe!)
So many people gathered.
Besides the mall security guards.
The nearby police station also deployed some officers, who had been contacted in advance and arrived at dawn, looking at the long queue which somewhat resembled the aunties waiting to collect eggs.
How long had it been.
There hadn’t been such a frantic buying scene for products worth thousands of yuan, but they understood all too well, as the "Era" had inundated the country with advertisements lately, almost everyone knew about it.
Airport.
Mall.
CCTV prime time.
This month, it had captured all the attention.
Among the crowd.
Mostly young people.
Pairs of eyes stared at the "Era" exclusive store, waiting for it to open, including some actual customers and some mobile phone shop owners, because "Era" only supplied through operators and exclusive stores.
Those mobile phone stores couldn’t get the new models in large quantities.
To take care of the interests of the pre-sale customers.
Pre-sale customers could get the mobile phone two hundred yuan cheaper than the original price, thus, there was room to maneuver, and Tang Qing hadn’t completely blocked these shops from trying to make some money.
Before the sale started.
Outside the door.
A shop assistant was constantly speaking through a loudspeaker.
"Attention everyone, every mobile phone in the store now corresponds to the pickup codes listed on the official website, if you filled in a pickup code for another service hall, you will have to go there to collect."
"Or you can collect it from any service hall in this city after the rush hour tomorrow, so please note, today we are not selling non-pre-sale phones, nor can we use pickup codes from other service halls."
No choice.
To avoid those with wishful thinking.
"Hello, what’s your account name and pickup code?" one male shop assistant was asking everyone in line, to prevent unreasonable people from barging in to buy; in this vast world, all sorts of people existed.
The woman quickly gave her account name and a string of pickup codes.
Then she looked eagerly at the "Era" phones in the shop assistant’s hands, who checked and then told her, "No problem, thank you for your cooperation." Hearing there was no problem, the woman smiled happily.
At least she hadn’t come in vain today.
Next.
A man gave his pickup code.
The shop assistant apologized, "Sorry, sir, your pickup code is for the Xidan service hall, you can’t collect a phone here, to save you time queuing, please go to Xidan to collect."
"You want me to queue in Xidan?" the man grimaced.
"Today’s phones are one per person according to the pickup codes, just as my colleague made clear, each phone here today has its owner."
"Sir, if you’re not in a rush, you might want to go to Xidan later since we’re not selling today, and Xidan has only fifty percent of the phones compared to here; you might get through faster if you queue there," the shop assistant explained patiently.
Today is Saturday.
Everyone finds Xidan crowded.
Many chose other service halls.
"Can’t you make an exception?" the man asked helplessly, he lived near Xidan, but after a quarrel last night, his wife had stormed back to her parents’, and he had followed, just managing to appease her, probably not returning home until tomorrow.
"There’s no way around it, if you don’t want to go to Xidan, you can come here to pick up the phone tomorrow, there are too many people today, we need to manage the crowd and also protect the interests of our pre-sale customers, please understand," the shop assistant said.
"Alright."
The man was reasonable. 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝘣.𝘤𝘰𝑚
They had already informed everyone.
It was an unexpected situation for him, and he wasn’t desperate to get the phone today.
Watching the man leave.
Some who had been hopeful also had to leave the queue.
Those who could book online.
Most were young people with relatively good manners, there were no instances of people forcefully jumping the queue or insisting on buying phones, especially with police standing by, no one wanted to spend their weekend in a police station.
...
When the time came.
"Era" went on sale.
The first person excitedly walked in.
Three at a time; the first was a man in his twenties, who had come over at midnight; he was initially third in line, but the first two had gotten diarrhea from sitting on the cold ground, so he became the first.
"Hello, please present your ID card and enter your pickup code here," a female shop assistant smiled.
The man quickly handed over his ID card.
Then entered his pickup code on the computer in front of him.
Next.
The female shop assistant verified everything was correct, the man took out his bank card, paid the remaining balance, and then received a white box, tearing off the transparent thin film, feeling like leather, it felt extraordinary just holding it.
The man hurriedly opened it.
A gray "Era" lay quietly inside.
"Do I need to charge it for twelve hours?" the man asked.
"No need, this is a lithium battery without memory functionality, just charge it normally, the instructions are inside." At the entrance, a pretty female shop assistant patiently explained.
"Okay, thank you."
The man finished speaking and walked out.
Watching the mobile phone in the man’s hand, people in the queue also got excited, and during that time, someone even offered to pay an extra hundred to buy it, but he directly refused. He didn’t lack that little bit of money, and the man soon reached the door.
First, try it out.
Turn it on, battery at ninety-five percent, insert the card, restart.
It showed there was a 4G signal.
But it indicated that the SIM card didn’t match.
He didn’t dare turn on data.
A 4G card is different from the old 2G cards. If he carelessly clicked something, the data charges could be painful. Seeing the Telecom service hall nearby, he hurried over where people were looking at phones.
"Hello, can I get a 4G card?"
"Can do, did you get an ’Era’?" The shop assistant’s eyes lit up.
"Yeah, just bought it." The man shook his mobile phone.
"Let me see."
She took it and carefully looked it over, fiddled with the screen a bit, and immediately fell in love with it, only too bad, the ’Era’ contract phones in the service hall would be in stock a week later than the specialized stores.
They had none in stock right now.
This caught the attention of a colleague nearby.
Who walked over.
"Wow, it looks great."
"That’s right, I want a white one when it’s my turn."
"..."
The man watched his phone being passed around and felt a bit at a loss.
"Can you help me with a 4G card?"
"Certainly, we have different data plans. Please have a look." Upon hearing this, the shop assistant quickly handed him a piece of paper. After looking for a while, he chose a medium plan, which seemed much cheaper than the 2G one.
Exceeding the data limit wouldn’t be too painful.
In a little while.
He got his 4G card.
However.
He remembered something else.
"Do you have WIFI here?"
4G had just been launched.
The data plans offered by Telecom were realistically not sustainable for long; at this time, there was no such thing as unlimited data, and 4G infrastructures were still not widespread—data was a scarce resource.
"Yes, the name is the same as the store’s, password eight eights." The shop assistant said, to allow customers to try it out and also promote FTTH broadband; all their service halls had WIFI.
Otherwise, selling a phone and relying on someone else’s card clearly wouldn’t work.
"Is your home nearby?" the shop assistant asked.
"Yes, why?" the man inquired.
"Then I suggest you get a broadband upgrade, so that at home, no matter how much data you use, it won’t be too expensive." The shop assistant quickly made a suggestion, starting to promote the service.
"Alright then, set it up for me."
The man took out his ID card.
He reported his home address and waited for the technician to come and set it up, since even though his family was wealthy, saving money where possible was still preferable. If it worked well, he planned to get one for each family member.
Later.
He connected to the wireless network.
Opened the mall.
There were now many more apps available, including those of Tang Qing’s company, as well as Taobao, Penguin, Sohu News, Baidu, Weibo, among other apps; he didn’t look in detail and downloaded more than a dozen of them.
Logged into QQ.
He noticed his name was displayed with a special icon; ordinary mobile phones show a yellow color, but below his avatar, there was a small ’Era’ icon, which looked really impressive.
Tried various functionalities.
Found them to be just as Tang Qing had introduced.
Very useful.
Opened a video, and it was smooth. At that moment, he completely fell for the ’Era’; true to its name, it indeed opened up a New World and was worth the price. Soon, more and more people filled the store.
All coming to use the WIFI and get their cards.
Later.
Many people realized their videos started to lag.
Everyone hurried to get their cards and consider upgrading their own broadband, as the shop assistants became incredibly busy. In Beijing, the 4G was mainly covering the central urban areas, and construction was still ongoing a bit farther out.
Many of them watched videos for a while.
Then noticed their phones were getting heated.
But no one really minded, old feature phones couldn’t do much and, of course, stayed cool; now, being able to perform so many computations and functionalities, it would be odd if it didn’t heat up. They didn’t see it as a problem at all.
The heat.
Was rather a sign of good quality.
