Where is the Cheapest Country to Buy a Laptop?

As worldwide currency rates fluctuate and the U.S. dollar tanks we're seeing lots of tourists flock into the country and leave with hordes of electronic goods. Is the U.S. really that much cheaper than the rest of the world for buying?

In order to get an idea of how much laptop prices vary around the world we used the various Dell sites in each country to configure the price for an Inspiron 1520 with the following configuration:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7150
• Windows Vista Premium
• 15.4" WXGA Screen
• 2GB of RAM
• 160GB HD
• 8x DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
• 6-cell battery
• Dell 1390 Wireless card

	USA	UK	Germany	Japan	Canada	Australia	China
Dell Inspiron 1520	$1,074	£579.01	€879.01	140,830 Yen	$919 CAD	$1,657 AUD	7998.12 Yuan
Converted to US Dollars	$1,074	$1,176	$1,279	$1,249	$901.95	$1,445	$1,085

Based on this we should all be rushing to Canada to buy our laptops, or at least a Dell Inspiron 1520. But a look at the basic Apple MacBook offering with the following specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
• 80GB Hard Drive
• Combo drive
• 1GB RAM

And a look at pricing around the world reveals that the U.S. is much cheaper than anywhere else for this Apple notebook.

	USA	UK	Germany	Japan	Canada	Australia	China
Apple MacBook	$1,099	£699	€1,049	139,800 Yen	$1,249 CAD	$1,599	10,498 Yuan
Converted to US Dollars	$1,099	$1,421	$1,527	$1,240	$1,225.83	$1,394.25	$1,424

Some of the worst laptop prices in the world belong to Australia, ironic since that country is closer than the U.S. to where notebooks are mostly designed and produced in Taiwan. So long as the U.S. dollar remains weak, it's a pretty sure bet consumer electronics in that country will remain cheaper than elsewhere. Which would explain all those European tourists stocking up on electronics goods to take back home. Just be careful about customs and tax declarations on the way back home!

 

Doesnt this ignore that the dell is actually much cheaper in the us than canada because of the online coupon structure.

If you chose a 1500$ usd dell, it would cost maybe 1800 in europe but 1100$ average in the us.
The price difference for a dell is higher than you listed imo.

 

I'm not so sure Taiwan is closer to Australia then to USA.

 

Buying a laptop in Malaysia would be pretty cheap imo.

 

It does ignore that fact yes, I was assuming an ignorant shopper was making the purchase in each case

Just compared list values.

 

Do the European prices include VAT? And do the US ones not include any sales tax? Adding my local sales tax to the US price (8.5% here in San Francisco, CA) brings it pretty darn close to the UK price... for the Dell at least, anyway. (There's still a significant gap with Apple's pricing... And of course not everyone pays as much sales tax.)

 

yah, can't miss the coupons, wow take a look at apple; look how they screw anyone who is not American (nothing against Americans, just why should you get the better price? I think it should be close to equal)

 

Well, its important to factor in taxes too...like American states like Oregon with no sales tax, and Canada with lots of sales tax (10% or more, depending on where you are, except Alberta).

 

oh yes isnt canadian and euro sales tax like almost 20% unavoidable whereas in america it is normally 7% but as low as 0% and as high as 8.5%

Youve got to factor in this data one more step to reality and the price difference is more like 50% at least.

 

Yeah, this seems pretty flawed. Like someone else said, the coupons in america can knock off, literally, 33% of the final price PLUS its easier to avoid GST/PST/VAT/etc...

You should have put an extra column in for 'best price', where you used all applicable coupons, discounts and deals. I remember a few months ago, when i was configuring the 1520 i was planning on buying, the BEST price i could get on dell.ca was around $1500(T7300, 2 gigs of ram, 160gig hard drive, 8600GT) while i saw people on these forums with the exact same system in their sigs, with prices in the $1100 area.

 

Ok.......I did this twice in my head so I must be pretty dumb if I get this wrong. But I`ll take the risk.

Isn't this whole article BOGUS ....because I think if the US dollar looses value cost of importing goods in US increases while US goods sold in foreign countries get cheaper.
For example if 1 USD = 32 TD(taiwan dollar) then something that costs 3200TD to make in taiwan will be available in US for 3200/32 = 100 USD.

Now if USD looses value then say 1 USD = 30 TD and so something that costs 3200TD will cost 3200/30 = 106$.

So, if the US $ values go down foreign made products like laptops should be more expensive in US and not less.

So please correct me if I am wrong but it seems like this whole article is written on wrong math !!

 

I think you are right. I'm pretty sure Taiwan is a lot closer to the U.S/Canada than to Australia.

 

Taipei to Sydney = 7,098 km
Taipei to Darwin = 4,194 km
Taipei to Los Angeles = 10,939 km
Taipei to New York City = 7,013 km

So Australia is closer. The reasons are because of volume of sale, and because most of these computer companies are American.

 

I did notice this trend working at Circuit City in Las Vegas. I happen to work at a store that is pretty close to the Strip (where all the major casinos are at) and we get a lot of foreign tourists shopping for notebooks. I've seen people from just about all around the world; a lot of which are really hard to sell notebooks to when they have very bad English.

It seems they have the idea to travel to America/Vegas to party and to do their yearly Christmas shopping.

 

the hp dv6500 that costs 1135$ in the us
costs around 1600$ here in egypt(t7200 and 8400gs),and my 8510w isn't even available here yet

 

the distance isn't calculated that way,it's calculated by the shipping distance between each town,and i think the shipping distance between Taiwan and the US is longer
but I agree that the volume of the sales and the amount of the taxes is the things that control it,the price in the us may be even lower in the us than in Taiwan itself in some cases

 

guys if your talking about dell.. then the cheapest is in malaysia since the power plant of dell is in penyang.. malaysia also is the supplier to other countries like singapore, japan, and many other country including in europe or even U.S... justcheck the www.dell.com.my

i read someone here whos in europe when his dell 1530 arrive.. it has the seal made in malaysia

so i think it depends in which country are you living.. example if your in malaysia then dell is the cheapest, or if your in korea then samsung and LG.. if your in U.S apple and of course taiwan for asus is the cheapest if compared to other country..

 

No
The company quanta makes its notebooks in malaysia, and china and I think vietnam now.

They are the largest notebook manufacturer in the world they make everyones notebooks including apple mbp, dell lattitude etc

They are a taiwanese company though.
So dells are made by whoever makes them. The inspiron in made by a different company called compal in china.
Dell doesnt make computers.

Everything you stated is incorrect. All apples dells etc are made by taiwanese companies. None are made in the us.

LG and samsung are made in korea. Only that stands to reason that they be cheaper there.

ALL meaning 100% of notebooks are made in the far east. not one model is made anywhere else, its not 99.9999999

The 5 largest taiwanese companies make over 90% of notebooks themselves.5% are made by the 5-10 smaller makers.
That leaves fewer than 5% of notebooks are made by korean and japanese companies. And then youve reached 100%

edit ps
dell 1530 is made by wistron, a taiwanese company, in malaysia. Wistron is the 3rd largest manufacturer. It is not made by dell dell is a completely fabricationless company, whatever office they have in malaysia doesnt manufacture.

Im not trying to split hairs wistron could have a factory in malaysia that only makes dells in fact i think thats correct.

 

This math is right, ACTUALLY here in the philippines Electronic goods are expensive.

i bought a laptop through my uncle in the states at 674$ thats around 28,308Php. FOR THE SAME SPECED LAPTOP, here in the philippines is around 49,999Php, thats around 1190$!!!! so there is a big difference here. with the Dollar getting weaker its definitely the cheapest place to get electronics, for Philippines that is.

electronics in the states are getting cheaper with the weaker dollar, here in the philippines we can earn more at home and buy outside.

 

if you add in the tax u.s. is cheaper

 

Whoa, you live in the Philippines, too?

Most electronic gadgets [digital cameras, computers and parts, etc.] are more expensive here. Plus, most laptops here are still Napa-based; Santa Rosa laptops are rare.

I can't find a better laptop for price comparison, so let's just use the ASUS EEE 4G. It's $400 on Amazon, which should be around PHP[Phil. Peso]16800, using the current exchange rate at $1 = PHP42. But it's sold here for PHP19800, around $471!

Even my laptop. Dell doesn't sell here, but there's a computer merchant here that does sell Dell, albeit being not configurable Dells. My Vostro costs more than double when you buy it here [compared to my Vostro, which was bought in the US], and it doesn't even have 8600M GT.

Even though the value of the US dollar weakens, laptops are still usually cheaper, if not cheapest, there.

 

I like the idea of this news post, but as others have pointed out taxes and shipping can and do change the price of a machine quite significantly.

However, as doing all the tax calculations would add quite a bit of time onto writing this article I can appreciate why it was left out. Most people can do the math themselves and figure it out anyway, if they want to.

I think it's still quite an interesting post/idea.

Next time I'd suggest HP and Lenovo. The HP business and Thinkpad lines seem to fluctuate quite a bit in price from what I've seen :\

 

Not that I know much on this topic, but I would have expected to see Hong-Kong or Singapore in that list.

Also, choosing Apple as a reference for price comparison is, in my opinion, a bit weird. Compared to other manufacturers, they tend to base their final price a lot less on production/import costs & taxes, and a lots more on "perceived"/"accepted" price (cf iPhone price in Europe vs the USA, for example).

 

Just to give you guys an idea about price differentials when I purchased my Inspiron 9400 back in February of 2006 it came out to (after Canadian taxes of ~15%) to a whopping 3200$ CAD whereas at the time people on these forums were getting similar configurations that I had (dual core 2.0, 7800 Go card, 1 Gig ram etc...) for about 1800$-1900$ with those 750$ coupons from back in the day.

 

There's also no tax for electronics imported into Malaysia afaik.

 

I am pretty sure the Dell Penang factory is Dell operated and managed. It proudly states Dell Asia Pacific and has a big ass Dell logo. Quanta supplies some major components like the motherboard and parts of the chassis to this factory, so they might be located nearby, but final assembly and control is definitely Dell, not Quanta.

Similarly, HP has a final assembly plant in Singapore and Johor afaik. These plants also do final customisation and assembly of printers, servers and some high end PCs.

Such plants tend to have close coupling with their major component suppliers such that their suppliers also have their plants or warehouses set up close to the factory so parts can be delivered immediately.

 

Your math is right, but what I'm saying is that while prices remain (mostly) fixed in the U.S. and the dollar weakens, those that travel to the U.S. have more buying power due to their stronger currency.

 

No it isnt. what do you guys pay in US taxes?

I pay 14% (6% provincial + 8% federal)

 

yup Australia and NZ are quite expensive when it comes to laptops! Their prices for computer hardware varies too, computer internal parts are quite on par with the US give or take but accessories (mice, keyboard, flash drives) are usually more expensive.

 

Where on Dell China's site were you able to configure your Inspiron that way? I can't find a T7150 option; T7100 is the closest...and starting with a base configuration, by the time I add everything the test model features, I get a price pushing 10,0000 RMB. Granted, they have a nice e-value 1520 right now for 8,000 that includes a T7200/2GB/80GB/8600M/DVDRW but Dell and their direct sales model is an exceptional case and not representative of the whole market. China is no bargain for laptops; what's on offer here may look tempting, but the specs on whatever brand/model you might be looking at are crippled compared to what you'd expect to get in the US for a similar price. On the other hand, come from another country with Draconian taxes and China might seem like a wondermall of cheap toys. Still, day and day out, the US remains the world's bargain basement for electronics.

 

This is (at least until now) all completely wrong. Because almost all international business contracts world wide are based on USD, regardless of the currency in those countries. But a shift is being made these days more and more from USD to the Euro, because the USD lost in value and is supposed to lose more in midterm while the € is stable and solid (for an example several major banks increase their assets of Euro derivates and decrease USD and some companies also do contracts in €).

By the way, the price for the Dell is in Germany exactly the same as in th US, if you count in 19% VAT (1278,06 USD, sold here for 1279€). And there are coupons too, although I don't know what they are worth.

I thought about buying a Dell several times over the past 3 years through my Cousin, who serves in the Army and is stationed here, and he doesn't pay tax when it gets through his base here in Germany. It always turned out that it just wasn't worth it - it was sometimes +100-200 € more and sometimes -100-200 € cheaper but then all the hassle, Guarantee issues, and of course I need a German keyboard (which is way too expensive if you ever need to buy one).

I think the reason that foreign people buy more electronic stuff in the US these days is that a) the dollar is low and b) new technology hits the stores in the US faster (most of the time) and c) people are to dumb to add the taxes. It can get really expensive if you don't declare the taxes here in Germany and they get you at the air port!

el

 

On a ranking of notebook manufacturers, dell does not qualify.

Whatever they do whether its assemble the whitebooks or etc, they do not manufacture any notebooks.
What model do you suggest they make? I mean I can tell you who makes all of dells models.

This might be just how you define 'makes'. A quanta factory might have dell on it. Im not really sure.
if what goes on there is that they install the ram and put the lcd in, or 'assemble' then dell does do that. they do that in texas as well.
There is not an american company that makes notebooks.

 

There is also coupon structure in Canada.

 

Er, both Oz and Taiwan are on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. I know that most maps have the Pacific on the edge since there's not too much land there, but it's a BIG frickin' ocean. You really don't know long flights until you've moved from somewhere like Oz to live in Europe or the US.

 

That's true, in addition to the import taxes being a deterrant, some companies even put labels on electronics goods saying it's illegal to export them out of the country. Dell U.S. makes you agree to that when buying in the U.S. I know. Still, it's hard to impossible for them to track such things.

 

Err, they do exactly that in the Penang factories. No part manufacture is done, but final assembly, testing and configuration.
There are other parts which may be manufactured in Penang, like the Intel chips, hard disks and RAM, but like you said, they are not manufactured by Dell, but by their suppliers who have factories nearby.
This process qualifies Dell to say the notebooks are "Made in Malaysia" even though technically it's only assembled since they don't manufacture the individual components, but their ODM and component suppliers do. I agree with you that Dell doesn't qualify as a notebook manufacturer in the true sense.

It's not a Dell-branded Quanta factory.

HP on the other hand actually contracts their ODMs to do final assembly in China, so their inventory and supply chain is managed by their ODMs and your notebooks are shipped from the ODM direct. I'm not sure if Dell does that too.

 

This comparison is pretty rigged; from my experience, buying laptops from Canada costs so much more than US after you factor in shipping, sales, deals and coupons. There's no exception to this.

 

i can vouch for that article, buying laptops in aus is a rip off. for example i have just purchased the the Sager Np 9262 from Xotic pc.. its costing me around 5500 AUD including all taxes and freight duty. the same laptop here is around 7300 AUD with the same specs.. so by buying it from the US i will be saving quite a bit of money.

 

Yeah prices in Aus are shiiit! The difference between Aus and US is genrally actually a lot worse that then examples you have given. If you are after an Asus the price difference is huge...

 

Whats the main reason or reasons for laptops in the us to be cheaper? you would think if you were in Asia they would be cheaper becuase they are made there

 

lol good question. either sellers here in asia are greedy or Americans are really that generous in business,lol honestly it could be taxes and other factors. in the US they sell everything online and through warehousing mostly which lowers the price drastically, there is no such thing here in the philippines and sale is usually done through retailing and stuff. so that could be a justification, still ive found comparable deals like

this sony camcorder i bought for myself at Bhphotovideo in the states

DCR-DVD508 DVD Camcorder,
3 Megapixel CMOS, 10x Optical/20x Digital Zoom,
6 Megapixel Still Images, Color Viewfinder, 2.7" 16:9 LCD Screen
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/475484-REG/Sony_DCRDVD508_DCR_DVD508_DVD_Camcorder.html

599$ =25158Php

then i saw this model here in the philippines for retail

Sony DCR-DVD308 DVD Camcorder, 25x Optical/2,000x Digital Zoom,
1 Megapixel Advanced HAD 1/6" CCD
, Color Viewfinder, 2.7" LCD Screen

for 42999php=1023$!!!!

see the difference. i bough a 3x better camcorder for almost 1/2 the price.

 

First, where did you get your data from? Second, how is it possible that Taipei is closer to LA than NY? It should be the other way around. LA is on the west coast of the U.S while NY is on the east coast.

 

A 10 hour flight from Vancouver to Beijing isn't long to you?

 

How about a 16 hour flight from Toronto to New Delhi?

 

10 to Japan, another 2 or so to Beijing (just did it last month!)

 

Well, it's on the high side, but two consecutive 13 hour flights from Auckland to London, with a 2 hour hell in a closed waiting room in LAX whilst they refuel/change crews is more what I was talking about.

Back On Topic for a second, I'd have thought that Oz was enough of a market to get shipments directly, but perhaps not. Distance from big markets like the US and Europe is always cited as the reason electronics Down Under are so expensive, so perhaps there's shipments from China/Taiwan/wherever to Asian countries, and shipments in English and other European languages to the Americas and Europe. From there they go to us, costing the extra trip in transport costs and practically every other additional cost.

 

That's a good question about the source. According to here, LA-NYC is 12,500 km.

Keep in mind that these are probably 'as the crow flies' distances, so there would be some changes from planes flying on certain non-straight-line routes between these cities, and cargo ships would have to navigate around obstacles. And a shipment of something from Asia would probably go to Sydney directly, not Darwin. Otherwise it would then involve a long, expensive land transport route across the unpopulated expanses of NT, SA and NSW before reaching where most people actually live and shop.

 

Yes, and this is how it works.

Dell notebooks in canada are on a permanent discount. Whenever there are coupons (delivered via email), they claim you can get 25%, 50% or 75% off 'selected systems', and you do (most people get 25% off) but the 'selected systems' are notebooks with no discounts at all, and it actually works out to be more expensive in some cases to buy notebooks with the coupons!

 

The cheapest is HongKong,becase no TAX anymore

 

its all good in the end though, as i live in the west coast of aus its just a short 4hr flight to singapore to get all the electronic goodies i can for a fraction of the price that i can get here!!