Just got a call the other night from my father in-law and he's looking at buying a laptop for himself. I think all he'll need is a basic laptop with wi-fi and XP. So about how much and which shops have the best price and service?

A few weeks back Powerbuy in the complex had an Acer Aspire 4320 on special offer at 21,290 Baht. 512 MB Ram, 120GB HD, Bluetooth, Wireless Lan. Seems like a good price for the spec.

http://global.acer.com/PRODUCTS/notebook/as4320.htm

After that there was an Acer for just over 18,000 Baht. (Can't remember the spec.) What kind of price you looking at?

if In was in the market for a notebook I would buy a Imac but since your father in law want windows xp I would look at a dell with min of 1 gig of ram or a sony viao now do expect to pay over 1000 usd for a decent notebook

Irish Alan wrote:A few weeks back Powerbuy in the complex had an Acer Aspire 4320 on special offer at 21,290 Baht. 512 MB Ram, 120GB HD, Bluetooth, Wireless Lan. Seems like a good price for the spec.

http://global.acer.com/PRODUCTS/notebook/as4320.htm

After that there was an Acer for just over 18,000 Baht. (Can't remember the spec.) What kind of price you looking at?

I think your better off shopping around at some local computer shops, me thinks Powerbuy is over priced. Here's the same notebook advertised at a non-sale price:

http://www.shop4thai.com/en/product/?pid=20650

let me ad this in the complex on the 2nd floor there a few shops that sell note books check out the hardware house they take credit cards and they seem to me to be the best place to buy computer products and they have a large selection of items

if you are still in the USA, best buy should have sales on stuff and the year end sales should be rock bottom closeout prices.

I would not want to buy electronics in thailand unless I absolutely have to, its so overpriced.

My 20,000 bt laptop in the US is worth 25,000 bt here

Agree with Mr Wilson. If you can, buy it in the states and bring it with you. Buy here and you will probably get a pirate copy of XP along with a lot of other garbage. Been there, done that.

You need to take into consideration whether a laptop bought in the US will be covered by warranty in Thailand. Laptops are notoriously fickle.

I bought an ASUS in Oz, which has a worldwide warrantly. However I don't imagine that would be the case with all brands.

just a bit of caution USA use 110 volts and thailand uses 220 make sure you can plug it in here otherwise you just blew your notebook some electronics come with a dual transformer you can plug it in both 110/220 my canon video recorder which I bought in the USA works here as well

So, the age old question..
Should I bring my desk top with me??

just pull out your hard drive and put it into an external box

Maligator wrote:So, the age old question..
Should I bring my desk top with me??

Yes. I did, and am happy to have done so. But it was quite new, and I had the original packing so was able to ensure it was packed properly.

Suffered very little damage in transit (by sea from Perth to Ban Dung), and only minimal customs duty paid.

But on reflection, if doing it again I would remove the hard drive and bring it with me, and send the rest (computer, monitor, printer, speakers etc) by freight.

Maligator wrote:So, the age old question..
Should I bring my desk top with me??

Probably a good idea if you're relocating here. One less thing to buy. I brought mine. But I sent my monitor (flat panel) by USPS. Both are capable of switching to 220 from 110.

saw some nice machines around locally, 40,000 baht range for good specs, dual processor, 160 gig, 1 gig mem. name brand, maybe 12-14 in. screen.

for those in states, definitely buy there and bring with you. i did and very glad. had laptop sent over. 27,000 baht HP, caught a real good sale, and had it simply posted over, crossed my fingers and was sweating bullets on the last day of time window, then arrived no problem. at the time they were 50,000 here, and none were 17 in. largest 15, but a bit larger hard drive. if i would of did the proper thing and UPS'd it, that would of been 6000 plus customs tax of about 10-15,000, this defeating my purpose.

has an international warranty, and HP service shop in udon. which is good, because the monitor failed, the hinge attachment. since new one replaced, the whole monitor, one unit piece, OUCH, huge outlay by hp to fix, it was replaced, now i know it wasn't right from the beginning. either a major design flaw, or one got by QC. still have plenty of time on warranty if design flaw, but extremely happy with laptop and service dept here. still useable when taken there, told keep and use, will call when part arrives, next day or so returned, drop off before lunch, pick up few hours later. something to consider, service dept here and Compaq/hp has intern'l warranties. usually a year. hp get mixed reviews, but I really like them, my 3rd one.

W/S I like that idea just pull the HD and stick in the external HD very good now I will go out and buy a box LOL