[Bon]

Ok, I guess my previous post was too specific. I assume that notebooks for brands such as Asus (ie not Chinese brands) would be cheaper in HK than the mainland? Could anyone please confirm this or advise?
Thnks,

[KennedyCrew]

Go for Dell. I have had 6 in the last 5 years and HK is the cheapest in the world for Dell products

[Skyhook]

Bon, imported goods like laptops that are not made in China will attract a 100% duty if you buy them on the mainland.

A large percentage of branded laptops are actually made in China by Foxconn, ie Dell, Sony Vaio etc. Lenova ( IBM ) is another manuactured in China brand, so, due to mass supply and demand retailing, Hong Kong is usually the most competitive in the region regarding price. Not to mention a little easier to deal with when you do need product support, not that I am convinced that after sales service is anything wonderful in Hong Kong, but its dramatically worse on the mainland.

Rule of thumb, like anything else, you get what you pay for. Sometimes paying a little more in the begining, ends up saving you a lot more later.

From what I understood from your last post, you want a light weight, high speed laptop that has enough built in technology to be useful over the next 2 or 3 years.

Most people are forced to update their pc every 2 years, as the rapid obselesence and the evolution of software that demands more and more processor speed.

Sony, Fujitsu, Samsung, Toshiba and Panasonic all offer very very light weight, compact and fully featured powerful duel core laptops.

You wont get much for $5000 though, if thats what you are trying to achieve, you'll only get the very bottom end IMHO, and for the sake of $2000 more, divided over 2 or 3 years of enjoyable fuss free useage, a small price to pay for the removal of frustration.

[Bon]

Thanks for the advice on this. Assumed it to be case that HK was cheaper, just wanted to be totally sure as don't plan to come back up here on this particular trip.
Skyhook: checked into inf you posted re Asus too - was very helpful. Am willing to pay over 5K but want to keep it under 10 for sure.
Another Q: when you request a notebook with particular specs, do they then order one accordingly (unless it is standard/off the rack/one they have in stock so to say)? Does this take a certain amount of time - ie 1 wk/?

[NY in heart]

Originally Posted by KennedyCrew

Go for Dell. I have had 6 in the last 5 years and HK is the cheapest in the world for Dell products

Kennedy...I think you might be the first person I've ever heard of keeping their PC laptop for that long. Average PC turnaround is 12-18 months. I'm very impressed!

It is too bad that Apple has not been mentioned on this thread. If you head over to amazon, I believe the number one selling electronic item has been the mac book. It's a very sweet computer, and before you say, "look at the price" go to dell and compare Apple's to Apple's, and you might be very surprised what you find. You'll get a machine that will last a minimum of 2.5-3yrs, which is more than the avg PC gets, plus you'll get award winning service, and just a machine that works!

Plus, if that doesn't sell you, since the Apple's are all intel machines, you can either go ahead and install Apple's BootCamp software, which allows you to startup to windows, or install an emulator software, which will run Windows real time side by side with the mac os; such as Parallells.

Just my 2 cents, but you can't go wrong with the Apple.

Happy Holidays

[timklip]

'6 in the last 5 years' is 1 every 10 months...below your 'average turnaround' duration...

[Skyhook]

Originally Posted by Bon

Thanks for the advice on this. Assumed it to be case that HK was cheaper, just wanted to be totally sure as don't plan to come back up here on this particular trip.
Skyhook: checked into inf you posted re Asus too - was very helpful. Am willing to pay over 5K but want to keep it under 10 for sure.
Another Q: when you request a notebook with particular specs, do they then order one accordingly (unless it is standard/off the rack/one they have in stock so to say)? Does this take a certain amount of time - ie 1 wk/?

When we got our Samsung NP-Q35, which came standard with a 80GB hard drive and 512mb of ram onboard, they had a special offer at the time that gave us a 100GB hardrive and another 1GB of Ram for $500hkd extra. We purchased our notbook from Fortress which is a popular electronics retailer in HK.

The shop will provide you everything that you need on the day so you can be on your way, but we did have to wait an hour for them to install an English version of Windows XP.

These days Samsung will offer Vista as standard, but it would be a good idea for you to get the store to setup Vista in your language of choice before you leave the store. Also Samsung warranties are valid throughout China, not just Hong Kong.



I would advise that adding extra RAM is a very good idea, and in doing so, the NP-Q45 can be optioned up in the store by installing another IGB RAM card. You also score a built in webcam in the Q45, a few improvements over our Q35.

More infomation and specs about the Q45 here > http://www.samsung.com/he/products/n...Specifications and here
http://www.samsung.com/he/products/n...Specifications

At 1.86kg total weight battery attached, its why we primarlilly purchased it, if you are on the move a lot, the Samsung is amazingly light.

Samsung actually have 2 stores in Hong Kong, addresses listed on their website, if you want to take a more indepth look, it might be a good idea to give them a visit.

[KennedyCrew]

Thanks for that TimKlip, you right. I tend to go back to UK once a year. My last one was a XPS1210. Bought it over here for just under 10HKD ( just over 600GBP), same laptop in the UK cost 1000GBP. So I keep for around 10 months, go back to the UK, sell it for at least or more than paid. Never had a Dell break down on me, customer service is good and for the spec of mine, closest other brand was 13,500HKD

[jayinhongkong]

I just had my US-purchased Dell E1705 die on me after two years of service. Dell want $750+ to look at it. :| Personally, I think I'm going to go with an Asus or Fujitsu next. We've been through 4-5 Dells in the last few years, and recently, we've noticed the quality has definitely declined. My Dell got insanely hot and my sister's laptop's keys keep falling off.

When I bought my Dell in '05, it was substantially cheaper to have one purchased and shipped over from the US than to buy locally. There were no 2005 Media Center laptops even available through Dell HK at that time. I think it's still possible to get laptops for less in the US than in HK.

Skyhook: Interesting that you have 1.5 GB of RAM. Normally, people use two modules of identical RAM for the dual channel effect when using dual core processors.

[Skyhook]

Skyhook: Interesting that you have 1.5 GB of RAM. Normally, people use two modules of identical RAM for the dual channel effect when using dual core processors.


Don't know about that situation Jay, but the Q35 can only use upto 1.5GB of RAM, it uses an internal 512, plus a 1MG add on fitted under a small panel underneath. The Q45 can run dual 1GB RAM on the top spec'ed versions ( 2 models), as there are 5 configurations of it available.