I’ve had a relationship with computers since the dawn of consumer PC’s; longer than I’ve been married, in fact. And neither marriage nor buying a new laptop are an easy thing in my universe. So here I am, trying to buy a new laptop and browsing the net from one end of the world to the other looking for, well, at least a decent compromise.
Ideally, Apple would have brought out some great new laptops, but they didn’t. Skylake chips for those prices? No way… So maybe just go for a Windows 10 machine and lock down all the spy and bloatware that OS ships with. It did take some soul searching, but I finally set my sights on the Dell XPS 13 inch 2in1.
It ticks those boxes I’m currently after, such as a fanless design (think usage on the bed and other less ventilated places), edge to edge screen and enough grunt to handle at least occasional photo and video editing. All good? Well, no.
Went to Dell Hong Kong’s website where the XPS 13 inch 2in1, i5-7Y54, 8GB RAM, 256SSD is listed for HKD 12,999 versus USD 1,199.99 on the US website for the exact same laptop. That’s a whopping difference of about 475 USD!
This thing is made in Asia and Hong Kong has no VAT or other taxes that are levied on this. Is there any reason aside from „because we can“ for this surcharge? Shameless comes to mind, but so does having a chat with our institute’s purchasing department. Why should customers in this region get treated like fools by Dell? Time to vote with our wallets. Apple, for example, does not feel the need to treat its Hong Kong/Macau based customers in this way.
So still no new laptop, and let’s see what Apple comes up with later this year…