The mercury has dropped in Beijing and winter is on the way. To mark the changing of the weather, Danwei did a spot survey of seven young women and eight young men in the shopping districts of Xidan and Wangfujing, asking them about their clothing and brand preferences.

The first finding is that for women tall boots are still really popular this winter; four of the seven women surveyed were wearing them. They come in leather, pleather, plastic, suede and just about any material you care to name. Complex embroidered designs on the boots, like last year, are very common.

When it comes to brands, the results are below. Respondents were asked to leave out any item for which they did not have a genuine preference.

Home computer
Six of those surveyed said IBM was their favorite brand, five said Lenovo, with the remainder split between Dell, Apple and HP.

Mobile phone
Nokia was the most popular brand - seven out of fifteen. Four of them said Samsung was their preferred brand, with the remainder split between Motorola, Siemens and Dopod.

Clothes
Aside from the question of women's boots, four of the men said Jack & Jones, three said Nike, one said Sept Wolves, a Chinese brand. The women were a mixed bunch: Chanel 2, Dunhill 1 (?!), Yichun 1, Li Ning 1, Only and Vero Moda 1, Shunu 1.

Food
The chocolate brand Leconte was mentioned by two people. Everyone else had a different preferred brand: Nescafé, Xufuji, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and Dove were among the answers, but some respondents refused to give a brand, naming only a type of Chinese food.

Web browser
Of the six people who answered this question, there were two each who said IE, Firefox and Maxthon respectively.

Beverage
Of the respondents who answered this question, these are the totals: Coca Cola 3, Kang Shifu (iced tea, juices etc.) 3, Snow Beer 2, Carlsburg 1, Nescafé 1.