Buying a thinkpad from us to uk

Hi friends, I'm a bit curious. Suppose my friend buys a $900 thinkpad in the US and ships it to me in the uk. What will be the approximate cost of shipping and handling to uk? (I mean including customs charges, if any). What will be the final cost of the laptop?

 

before considering this, you may want to first make sure the system you're considering is eligible for warranty in the UK.   saving a few dollars buying a US model could result in a nullified warranty unless you spent the cash to ship it back to the States for repair.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=LOOK-IWS

if it's covered then there's nothing to worry about.

regarding shipping costs, the last thinkpads i shipped to france and singapore ran about $75 each if memory serves.   customs were up to the buyers in each case and i have no idea how much they paid.   i claimed fair value on each form and wasn't about to try to cheat the system.   if you're unwilling to pay proper customs then you might as well just buy local and save yourself the possible headache.

 

ok thanks, i was looking at a t500 more specifically from lenovo outlet. it was selling for $922

 

There are better deals to be hand through the sales in the CPP/SPP portals if you have a friend that can pounce on it now.

 

I am thinking the same but with a W500 which is near the 1K and almost perfectly configured and I want to ship it to France. Any ideas on how much is the shipping and everything?
Sorry for using your thread...

 

The tariff rate on laptops imported into EU is zero. However, you will have to pay VAT from the declared value (I believe it's 15% at the moment in the UK), if you have the laptop shipped from US. Shipping costs can be checked via USPS Postage Price Calculator.

 

when sending to Canada you get charged the GST on shipments over 100$. I'd assume UK has a similar setup.

When I bought my i7 on the forums, I had to pay ~15$ tax @ 5% GST. (now, you figure out how much I paided ).

 

You "paided" $300 +tax.
Seems a little high, but maybe you got something else with it, at the same time.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
Or maybe it was a bit ago, and there was a price drop. Haven't been following prices.

 

I doubt a notebook purchased from the Outlet has an international warranty, which is something to keep in mind. If something were to break it'll be expensive to fix. Whatever warranty it has it gets knock down to the base one-year warranty when it's sent to the outlet, even though the previous warranty may show up in the warranty look up.

 

it could be cheaper to buy it in the states and have it shipped to UK. about 3 yrs ago I bought a synthesizer from Germany which was manufactured there and had it shipped to Canada. Even after shipping costs and taxes, I must've saved over $1200 as opposed to buying it locally. Try and ship with UPS. For some reason their shipping charges were really cheap and taxes didn't go much over $100. The size of the synthesizer and its box was HUGE and heavy too, required two delivery guys to bring it into my apartment.

 

I just bought my new Thinkpad(see sig) in the US and had it shipped to the UK. Saved approx £900 on this spec when you look at UK prices.

 

How much did you end paying for it? Were there customs charges?

 

There are no customs charges on Laptops. You have to pay VAT though.

Look it up on the hmrc website.

You MIGHT get away with paying nothing if your friend marks the laptop as a gift.

Your friend will have to fill in on the customs form how much the laptop is worth. Obviously put in a lower but still believable figure here like $500.

I got a Lenovo X61T from an ebay reseller in the states. The seller marked it as a $500 laptop on the customs form so I paid 17.5% VAT on that, plus the couriers handling fee of around £15 or so.

Other than the fact it was the worst consumer item I have ever purchased (look up x61t bezel issue) there were no other drawbacks other than the US keyboard. Its mostly similar to the UK one, but there is a $ instead of a £ sign etc. Might matter to some.

 

nice..thanks!!can you tell me from where you bought it from?

 

The re seller stopped selling, so sorry, can't help.