Hong Hong - buying a PDA

[yonitabonita]

Hello,

I want to buy a Palm Tungsten E2 in Hong Kong.

Anyone have any recent experience of where to get a decent price? I've found one for about HK$1600 but in a chain store. I thought I could do better in Mong Kok but haven't had much luck.

I've settled on that model based on the recommendation on the Pleco site. I am only going to use it for that, so I don't need any other bells or whistles.

Grateful for any advice!

thanks

Y

[skylee]

I am a Hong Kong local. I am just curious about what is wrong with chain stores. Is HKD 1600 an unreasonable price? I think chain stores are reliable and convenient and I buy all my electrical appliances/gadgets at Fortress, Broadway and Gome.

I bought my HP pocket pc at Gome and it works well.

[Jonny Wang]

yonitabonita,

I bought my Palm Treo 650 while visiting Hong Kong from the mainland last year. I found that the stores Skylee mentioned were overpriced: Fortress, Broadway, Gome, etc.

I found the best price at the Wan Chai computer market (on HK Island). It's very easy to get to: Just take the Island Line of the MTR to the Wan Chai stop. Signs in the subway station will direct you to the market, which is right outside of one of the station exits. Of course, there are other markets like this in HK, but this is the one that I remember well enough to recommend.

Just as an example of pricing, at least at the time I bought it, a Palm Treo 650 GSM unlocked cost about $600 in the U.S. It cost 4200rmb in China (Tianjin). It cost about $4800HKD at the name-brand shops mentioned above in Hong Kong and only $3700HKD at the Wan Chai market. That was pretty much the price they gave me up front, too. Not much room for bargaining on the PDA's apparently, although I think you should still try.

Now, at the time, I seem to remember them saying that one reason the price was cheaper was because they only offered a local warranty, or something like that, although I can't remember the details now. But it did come with a warranty - maybe just a Hong Kong one? Not sure.

One nice thing about getting your Palm in China/HK vs. U.S./West is that is should already have the CJKOS installed by default, so you don't have to pay extra to buy this if you need it for reading/entering Chinese.

Good luck!

[badr]

I second that motion for wan chai.

I got my lifedrive there for a pretty reasonable price back in the day.

[Roee]

yonitabonita,

That hong kong PDA might not have Mainland warranty. You can get the E2 on the mainland for about the same price and with local warranty (plus some freebies). No reason to buy in Hong Kong really.

[yonitabonita]

Badr and Johnny Wang - Thanks for the Wan Chai tips, I'll go and check it out.

Roee - Do you know where I can get the E2 in Beijing? (I know you're in Tianjin but thought I'd ask anyway) And do you mean I can get one on the mainland for about the same price as a discount HK price, or a non-discount chain store price?

Thanks again,

Y

[roddy]

1550Y is the lowest price showing on zol.com.cn, that's before any bargaining.

I know it's horrible when you say 'I want to buy an XX' and people start saying 'oh, have you thought about a YY, because . . .' but here goes anyway.

You say you're buying it just for Plecodict, but there's a pretty good chance that once you've got it, you're going to want to do other stuff. You'll be fine for Chinese document reading with Plecodicts instant look up, but a large screen would be nicer. Oh and actually, there you are sitting in the cafe studying with your PDA, and you'd like to check your email . . . if only your PDA had wi-fi . . .

For my money, if you're going to have that PDA with you all the time anyway, spend an extra 500Y, more or less, and get the TX - large screen, and wi-fi. I'm willing to bet that over the course of the year you'll get the extra use out of it.

Having said that, I like my gadgets, so it might not be for everyone. And obviously, you need to have an extra 500Y . . .

[Roee]

E2 - no idea where to find it in Beijing but for sure you can, and in more than one place. Even if it's somewhat cheaper in HK, IMHO it's not worth it to purchase in HK if it does not include a warranty (and a real one at that) Also, dont forget you'd probably purchase some memory as well...

FYI I have the E2 myself (which, *cough cough* I got in hong kong) and find it to be somewhat slow. Perhaps the TX is faster.

[billybot]

I have seen the E2 available at many stalls throughout Zhongguancun.

However, taking the opposite direction of Roddy, if all you plan on using it for is Pleco, why not get an even cheaper Palm. I bought a TX and used it for all of 2 weeks before losing it. The entire time I was worried about damaging it or misplacing it. When I finally did lose it, I ended up buying an M150 used in America (not sure if you could be as successful finding quality used Palms here in China though) for ten bucks. It runs Pleco just fine. It is a dedicated dictionary, so I am not spending the time and battery life checking my email like with the TX, and I am not as worried about losing or breaking it.

My two cents.

There is a Palm store in Beijing, if you search the forums you should be able to get a rough location.

good luck!

[yonitabonita]

Gosh thanks for all the input.

We ended up buying the TX in Hong Kong (thanks for the successful upgrade, Roddy!). I decided in the end that I use quite a few websites and it saves dragging the laptop around.

Roee, we took your point about the warranty. But as we are pretty regular visitors to HK and also have family there, we decided to chance it and buy there so we didn't need to spend more time hunting round when we got home. If we have warranty problems, we are likely to be in HK reasonably soon after they happen. In different circumstances we may have decided differently. But yours is a good point.

The service hotline is accessible from all over Asia though.

We bought it at the Wan Chai computer world. The price was HK1780. Others there were selling it at 1900.

This compares very favourably with buying at chain stores. Their best price for the lower model (E2) was 1650. Their best price for the TX was 2,250, though the normal price on their sticker was around 2,600. (That was at Fortress). That's why we never like to buy from chain stores. Basically, we got the model up for closer to the chain store price of the model down.

In fact, the chain store prices were generally similar to the US RRP - which kind of defeats the point of buying in Hong Kong.

The service was good - the item was brand new in the box, with everything in it that should have been, and the guy gave us the weblink to get the Mac OS X software (the disc is only Windows). I double checked this with the Palm support line and it was right. I'm downloading it right now.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for their suggestions and input.