Palm TX-buy here in Beijing or US?

[chicago]

This forum is remarkable in scope but I can't seem to find a clear answer to whether I should buy a Palm TX (largely for language learning/wifi) here in Beijing or ask visiting friends to pick one up for me in US (amazon price now at $263). Are US-sold Palms markedly different than Beijing-sold ones (warranty, price, pre-loaded software, etc.) Can anyone lay out pros and cons? Also, where is a good place in BJ to shop for one? Thanks!!

[Xiao Kui]

I got a Palm TX in CHina for 2100 RMB in April. A friend said they were priced at 1900 when he checked them out in Sept. Of course this is in Kunming where there is only one place that sells Palms so not enough competition to get the price down. My palm came with basic Words to Go (by Dataviz) and basic Pocket Tunes (which I upgraded) It also came with some other standard software for moving photos from your PC to your palm. The basics it came with seemed to be pretty standard for Palm.

I have been back in the US for 6 weeks now and my Palm TX is also compatible with the WiFi here - I haven't had to reconfigure anything. I bought my Palm for Pleco and turned out using it for a lot more: as a photo-album and mp3 player, reading ebooks, etc, so it was definitely worth it for me, and having bought it in China hasn't been a drawback so far. Also the Chinese Palm comes with CKJOS software already installed (for reading & writing Chinese), if you buy a Palm from the US you might have to install that yourself - I'm not sure.

As far as the warranty goes, I'm not sure if mine is covered here in the States or not, I haven't had any problems with it so far, and would probably be willing to pay to get it fixed here if I had to. In China it's under at least a very informal warranty since there was only one place selling them in my town they told me just to bring it back to the shop if I had any problems. (I asked for the baoxiu ka and that's what I was told)

[chicago]

Thanks Xiao Kui! I take it that your Kunming-purchased TX also has penpower pre-installed? If so, that bundle (+CJKOS) favors buying the palm in China, right? Also, Xiao Kui, can I assume your charger works fine in US?

Can any Beijingers recommend a reliable place to shop for a TX?

[Xiao Kui]

Charger is for the range of voltage 100-240V, so it works fine in the States.

Penpower came pre-installed, but I usually deactivate it in Preferences because it sometimes interferes with Pleco, which comes with its own handwriting recognition system. ( i just set PenPower on 无.)

[jujubeans119]

good for you then. i have been unfortunate with my palm. i bought a new palm tungsten E2 in a palm authorized electronics store on huai hai lu (my palm dream). around a month after i bought it, it just suddenly konks out on me and the digitizer wont work. i call customer service, after much tinkering they surmised it was a hardware problem. so i had to travel almost 2 hrs from where i live to drop the palm off at the dhl office near the pudong airport. tai mafan. 2 days after they confirm that they received it in singapore. 1 week after they said the repairs are already finished. i dropped of my palm nov 20, 5 days before the hsk ( i was totally gutted, i was thinking what now?). its already dec 12 and still no palm tungsten E2. i've been emailing them since last week about it and they tell me TODAY that sorry their courier does not know my address and telephone number, could i please email it to them? whaaatttt??? i already gave all my contact details when i called them on nov 20, they even emailed me a copy to confirm it and they dont know where to send it? are they for real? who sends out units without a shipping address? so there. i hope nobody else experiences the bad luck ive had (sighs)