[SWLUG] Re: USA laptops

[Rhys Sage]

> I'll be popping to the US in a few weeks, and people
> have said that apple
> laptops are worth looking at for comparative UK
> cheapness and linux
> usability... can anyone point me in a very rough
> direction of where to get
> them from and roughly how much they'd cost?

I'm way ahead of you there - literally. I've been in
the US for a few weeks already. I've scanned all the
sites and compared all the prices. It seems that
there's less difference in price than you'd imagine.
The big problem is that our beloved Customs and
Extortion department will look at a laptop that looks
a bit new and at the @ above the 2 and will figure out
that it's an import, will immediately look for the
MRRP and will whack on import duty plus VAT on top of
import duty to make your laptop cost twice as much as
you'd have paid in Britain. Even without that, it just
doesn;t seem worthwhile to get one from America. Lack
of guarantee, wrong charger etc all come to mind. At
the moment technology seems to be pretty much the same
price worldwide. 

I've looked into getting a new laptop myself since
that old piece of junk from the dodgy computer shop in
swansea market became bin-fodder after hardly any use
at all. It seems to me that the 5 year lifespan of a
laptop versus its price excludes purchasing a brand
new laptop. The high cost of secondhand laptops
combined with atrocious reliability definitely
excludes a secondhand laptop. 

Better - if you want a portable computer - to build
something on a mATX board and pop it into something
like an old laptop case, IMHO. 

Rhys



	
	
		
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