I managed to snap a shot of one of the cellphone markets from the 30th floor of the SEG tower (this distinctive octagonal building sits on top of the electronics part market, so from this perspective you get an idea of how close these two markets are to each other).
The actual market itself is highlighted in red — it spans this entire building and all the lower floors. There is actually another market just as big as this one down the main road to the the lower right of this image — it’s obscured by other buildings from the office I was standing in, and even if I could see it I couldn’t fit it all in the field of view of my camera.
I can’t help but notice the low-contrast of your photo – is that fog or smog?
Very in-depth post and really helpful – thank you.
It’s a combination of smog and a dirty window that I’m shooting through. The smog can get pretty bad in Shenzhen, although lately it’s been unusually clear due to all the factories scaling back output or just going out of business entirely.
what are the towers on top of the market? are those apartments or offices?
They look like apartments based on their shape and the clothes I saw hanging on the balconies.
Great pun :p
[...] silicon hacker behind the Chumby, [bunnie huang], was browsing through the Mobile Phone Megamarket in Shenzhen, China and stumbled upon an unusual repair book. It turns out the book had the [...]
[...] silicon hacker behind the Chumby, [bunnie huang], was browsing through the Mobile Phone Megamarket in Shenzhen, China and stumbled upon an unusual repair book. It turns out the book had the [...]
First of all, it’s nice for me to see that picture of SZH. I visited SZH twice, and it created a special place in my heart…
Anyway, having been in the GSM-hacking scene for over 15 years,
it’s funny to see that you were so surprised by this book with all those schematics. In the gsm-scene these schematics have been around all the time, mostly gathered from people who have access to the official stuff,
because they are for instance authorized repaircenters. The last 5 years or so the gsm-scene became quite ‘commercial’ and betterknown to the public. It was around that time that a lot of people started seeing other ways to make money out of the scene, for example by producing and selling those manuals. Nice eh :) When I first read your article about the PIC and it’s protection fuses I actually thought you already knew about this gsmscene, because those were the tricks for years to crack solutions others made.
It’s a small world, indeed…