Today's archetypical Chinese packs a fully stocked arsenal of technological gadgets.

It has become commonplace for Chinese, but especially youth, to use laptops to surf the Internet while bobbing their heads to music blaring from MP3 players and tapping text messages into mobile phones.

Once students have finished their homework and had their fill of online chat rooms, they might toss in a DVD and spend the next few hours gawking at a plasma screen television.

In China, the intersection point of rapid economic development and full-speed-ahead technological innovation, people are becoming increasingly dependent on high-tech gizmos in their daily lives. When it comes to making tech purchases, practicality of gadgets is a major factor for Chinese shoppers, according to a recent survey by global market research firm Synovate.

Faced with an emerging gamut of fresh high-tech products, 38 percent from the Chinese mainland and 35 percent from Taiwan rank ease of use as the decisive factor when choosing their high-tech toys, compared to the global average of 28 percent.

"The Chinese are often seen as a very practical race and while they may aspire to status, it is also important that they get the most out of what they buy and use," said Arthur Tam, director of Synovate China.

"Ease of use is very much a basic factor for them to be attracted to certain products since, while it is important to appear at the cutting edge of technology, it is equally important for them to be reassured that what they have purchased is something they can use practically on the daily basis."

Beijing fruit vendor Chen Guoqing, 35, says he doesn't care about brand names or appearances, but boasts a keen eye for user-friendliness and quality. "If it isn't easy to use, it's not worth buying," Chen said.

The information published in the Synovate survey, which asked respondents about what they seek when shopping for DVD players, laptops, MP3 players, plasma screen TVs and mobile phones, is based on information gathered from a Global Omnibus telephone survey.

Such surveys are regularly conducted in 55 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

According to the findings, 24 percent of Chinese on the mainland care most about price, 14 percent consider mobility, 12 percent pay attention to brand names, 3 percent want to know that many friends or family members own the same product and 2 percent base choices on appearance.

"It doesn't matter if my friend has one or not because I'll be the one using it," said 20-year-old Yang Yanhui of Beijing. "And appearance is just appearance it doesn't tell you what the quality is."

The survey, which included 500 respondents from the mainland and 500 from Taiwan, found that 34 percent of Chinese "love new technology and can't live without it," while 49 percent of participants worldwide say they are fascinated by, but cautious of, new-fangled gadgets.

One-quarter of the worldwide respondents claimed they could live without high-tech gizmos altogether. "The recent development in China has meant that there is now a huge variety of products and services available much more soon when compared to what people had in the past," Tam said.

"These new products and services will have had a longer history in some more developed markets and so curiosity will certainly be more marked here in China it's almost like 'I have not seen this before and so I very much welcome it, versus I have seen this before and I don't think it's really anything special'."

According to Synovate, one of the primary catalysts for China's infatuation with new technology is the way communication devices such as mobile phones and the Internet help Chinese expand and maintain social networks.

"The Internet and mobile technologies have revolutionized the way people communicate," Tam said. "Inevitably, the younger generations will be those who take these on earlier and more whole-heartedly. These enable (them) to make friends remotely, perhaps filling a void that has been created by traditional family and education structures."

Ma Pingchao, 24, often uses the Internet to meet new people, some who live far from his home in Beijing. "If there's an online discussion I will join it to make friends," Ma said.

Yang said she also uses the Internet to meet new and often long-distance friends, but fruit vendor Chen said he has little use for the Internet. Instead, he depends on his mobile phone to keep in touch with friends and order fruit for his business.

Yang said it is too expensive to call her family with her mobile, but she uses it daily to keep in contact with friends.

The survey also found that, befitting the trend of Chinese pragmatism, people from both the mainland and Taiwan place less value on brand names than the rest of the world at large.

"It does not necessarily mean brand names are not important," Synovate director Tam said. "It's just that relatively speaking, the ease of use appears to be more of a driver for consumers when they choose high tech gadgets."

Another trend shows people from the Chinese mainland are more concerned about products' mobility than any other country surveyed, with 14 percent of mainlanders ranking it as their top concern compared with the global average of 9 percent.

"It appears that the ever growing trend of travel domestic and foreign has made consumers conscious of the fact that when considering high-tech gadgets it is important that they can be carried around anywhere anytime," Tam said.

Overall, the survey sends a clear message to companies hoping to market high-tech goods to Chinese more than anywhere else, function over form is a winning equation in China.

(China Daily July 6, 2006)