Charging around town in the cybercafe circuit

By PETER SINCLAIR

From Albany to Howick, they are springing up like mushrooms after rain.

If you need a caffeine hit - not to mention a computer fix - you won't have to go very far to satisfy the craving. Cappuccino has met the computer, and they get along just fine in Auckland's thriving cybercafe scene.

I know. I visited nearly all of them in a two-day cyber-safari which left me completely surfed out.

Logging on? Take your pick ...

Colosseum: housed in the Albany MegaCentre, this huge space is totally cool - 465 sq m of Buckminster Fullerish decor and 30 terminals powered by an ihug DDS (translation: fast - very fast). Top game? No contest - Counter-Strike (a Counter-Terrorism, Half-Life Modification). In fact, Colosseum is staging a Counter-Strike contest next month with a Gold Coast prize for the winners.

Prices are $8 per hour, 3 hours for $20 and $40 unlimited time.

Cyber City: location, location, location - you can't ask for more than to be on the main trunk to Auckland University through Albert Park, with a backpackers next door. Twenty-one machines and benchmark prices - $1 for the first 10 minutes climbing to $5 an hour - resulting from the lethal competition in central Auckland. Price of the century if you're travelling on the US dollar.

Cyber Gates: is there a play on words here? I think not - the Asian staff appeared real and earnest to a fault. Sixty terminals crammed into quite small premises hum non-stop 24 hours a day. Your basic web-farm with basic big-city pricing: $5 per hour tops.

Cyber Max: an up-market mid-towner housed in the flash foodhall which hosts the Imax cinema. Amid sushi, kebabs and the Cafe Franais, Max doesn't bother with much but cold drinks and a fast line. Going optical when the men fill in the trenches. Upmarket pricing - $2 for 10 minutes, $7 an hour. Gamers get a 20 per cent discount from 8 to 11 pm.

CyberVillage: hard on the hospital end of Grafton Bridge, this small cafe (10 terminals) was one of the most attractive I found. Green inside and out, its glass frontage is filled with a vista of oaks and pohutukawa. Heavily patronised by medical students and no wonder - great student rates. Otherwise the usual $5 per hour.

Discount Dialing: fifteen terminals, bedrock prices and English barely spoken. Fighting a mighty battle for backpackers with Net Zone across the street.

e-Cafe: more cafe than cyber, with great food, it has only three terminals - but what terminals! Cool jet-black IBM's to die for, but you pay for them: $2 for 5 minutes which rises to $12 per hour. A pleasant, if expensive, surprise in Manukau.

e_Xile Lounge: on the Queen St corner of Mayoral Drive with a backpackers opposite, this is definitely for the hard-class traveller ($5 the full hour). Voices echo off the concrete floor and there is a faint but lingering suggestion of drains.

Hot Shotz: 20 internet terminals, untold game-machines and wait for it - pool tables. Very Customs St East.

Joy Internet Lounge: I found this name subtly suggestive of massage, but that's probably just me. You will find it, with some difficulty, in Howick's Sommerville Shopping Court where all the world is Chinese, for this is very much an Asian enclave. Excellent pricing - cyber-charges seem to decrease exponentially the further you get from the CBD - but I got the slightly fated feeling among all its beautiful equipment, throbbing quietly with ADSL, that most people in the area probably have their own computers.

Login 1: a star of Newmarket's Rialto Arcade, open seven days from 9 am to 10 pm with city-central pricing it no doubt learned from a sibling at 33 High St (closed Sunday).

MailCity: functional and compact, this is basic email country with a basic email price on a 7-day schedule (8.30 am to 6 pm). Shop 34, Queen's Arcade.

Net World: at 482 Queen St, with 35 terminals on dedicated ISDN lines, this is an Asian-owned monitor-farm with basic prices and a 24-hour, 7-day schedule. Deservedly popular with the young and transient.

Net Zone: next to a backpackers in Fort St, with 30 terminals and a spartan, vaguely Orwellian look, this is the way cybercafes are heading. A smaller Net Zone lurks in a tiny, depressing arcade at 44 Queen St.

Shed.com: this minuscule South Auckland outfit is housed in an institutional sort of room which resembles the neighbouring Adult Education Centre. A true cafe, though, plus expensive executive chairs and a touch of tapa from the Pacific Art Gallery next door. Only 50c for 5 minutes and $5 per hour. Located at 731 Great South Rd, it deserves some kind of Most Elusive Award.

Viking Internet: inscrutably named, since this sad little Queen St basement is Asian-owned and run. Angelo, residing over 18 ISDN terminals, said they only get tourists. "Fast Connection: Air-Conditioning: Luxurious Chairs: Cheapest Price!" says the sign. Fails to mention copious leak on stairs and very odd smell.

Warp 9: the web for Westies - at $8 an hour, or $15 for two. But the 12 terminals rip along on either DSL or wireless connections, so you're getting V8 performance. Hours are 9 am to 10 pm, 7 days.

It was a mission, but I made it. And at the end of two days I staggered home and crawled into bed with, yes, a good book.


Links


The Colosseum

Counter Strike