Trying to buy a Mac Pro in China

[laowei]

After studying these forums along with all kinds of benchmarks and review I felt ready. Today was the day. I would go out and buy myself a spanking new Mac Pro. I had made up my mind after a long struggle; it would be a quad core 2.93 with 6 GB RAM and a 4870 card.

At the moment I live in Shanghai, China. This as usual complicates things and rules out the obvious web order; the Apple web site is in Chinese only and is lacking a web shop. But across the road from our house is an small store which is an authorized Apple dealer where I have bought a bunch of small stuff like iPods before.

I have already checked the prices for the new models on the Apple web site; they seem surprisingly decent. They are about 15% more than the prices in Hong Kong which corresponds to the sales tax on electronics.

I walk over and talks to the manager and explains that I want to buy a quad core Mac Pro. He looks funny at me and says: "But for Mac Pro, only 8-core 2.8Ghz is available".

I explain to him that a new series is out now and shows him the official web site as the vendor specific pages dont seem to be updated yet with the new models. The guy probably does not sell too many MPs.

I also show him the US pages where I quickly configure the machine I want; I have done it many times already.

He says "Hold on" and makes a call to Apple. Then he comes back and says "Sorry, here in China there are only 2 models without any configuration options" "You can choose between 2.66 Quad Core or 2.26 Octo Core". It is not possible to order anything else in China.

I am speechless.

The guy actually says that if I want a 2.93 I could go get one in Hong Kong. But I dont want to do that. Besides the obvious transportation hassle there are issues with customs and service.

So I walked out from the store without having ordered anything feeling pretty frustrated. I even sat down starting to spec out parts for a Core i7 PC at Newegg.cn.

So now I am reviewing my options.

1. Buy a quad 2.66 locally, order 3PP RAM and a Apple 4870 from somewhere that will ship to China.
2. Buy a quad 2.93 with the right accessories in Hong Kong or Singapore when passing by for work (which happens now and then)
3. Build myself a Windows box (cheap, but not really appealing)
4. Make do with my struggling MBP until I move back to civilization.
5. Hope that all this is a misunderstanding and start checking with other vendors.

None of these options are really attractive to me... But #5 is on the agenda for next week.

//Sleepless in Shanghai

 

[vaderhater245]

How much longer are you staying there? I'd say #5 for a few weeks.

 

[gzfelix]

After studying these forums along with all kinds of benchmarks and review I felt ready. Today was the day. I would go out and buy myself a spanking new Mac Pro. I had made up my mind after a long struggle; it would be a quad core 2.93 with 6 GB RAM and a 4870 card.

At the moment I live in Shanghai, China. This as usual complicates things and rules out the obvious web order; the Apple web site is in Chinese only and is lacking a web shop. But across the road from our house is an small store which is an authorized Apple dealer where I have bought a bunch of small stuff like iPods before.

I have already checked the prices for the new models on the Apple web site; they seem surprisingly decent. They are about 15% more than the prices in Hong Kong which corresponds to the sales tax on electronics.

I walk over and talks to the manager and explains that I want to buy a quad core Mac Pro. He looks funny at me and says: "But for Mac Pro, only 8-core 2.8Ghz is available".

I explain to him that a new series is out now and shows him the official web site as the vendor specific pages dont seem to be updated yet with the new models. The guy probably does not sell too many MPs.

I also show him the US pages where I quickly configure the machine I want; I have done it many times already.

He says "Hold on" and makes a call to Apple. Then he comes back and says "Sorry, here in China there are only 2 models without any configuration options" "You can choose between 2.66 Quad Core or 2.26 Octo Core". It is not possible to order anything else in China.

I am speechless.

The guy actually says that if I want a 2.93 I could go get one in Hong Kong. But I dont want to do that. Besides the obvious transportation hassle there are issues with customs and service.

So I walked out from the store without having ordered anything feeling pretty frustrated. I even sat down starting to spec out parts for a Core i7 PC at Newegg.cn.

So now I am reviewing my options.

1. Buy a quad 2.66 locally, order 3PP RAM and a Apple 4870 from somewhere that will ship to China.
2. Buy a quad 2.93 with the right accessories in Hong Kong or Singapore when passing by for work (which happens now and then)
3. Build myself a Windows box (cheap, but not really appealing)
4. Make do with my struggling MBP until I move back to civilization.
5. Hope that all this is a misunderstanding and start checking with other vendors.

None of these options are really attractive to me... But #5 is on the agenda for next week.

//Sleepless in Shanghai

Call 400-692-7753 in China. It's Apple's tele-shopping partner's number in China. Or try to call Beijing's Apple Store for more info.

 

[Fomaphone]

depending on how bad it's "struggling" and how soon you're moving, you might want to just hang in there with a good data back-up solution.

if you can wait but not for terribly long, i'd consider waiting until june. there might be more availability with a launch of Snow Leopard. if you'll be moving before this summer, i don't see any harm in getting the 2.26 octo and apple care now, then selling when you have to move. if you want to buy the 4870 card separately, you could sell your machine with the stock 120 card and keep the 4870 for your new machine.

 

[Tesselator]

1. Buy a quad 2.66 locally, order 3PP RAM and a Apple 4870 from somewhere that will ship to China.
2. Buy a quad 2.93 with the right accessories in Hong Kong or Singapore when passing by for work (which happens now and then)
3. Build myself a Windows box (cheap, but not really appealing)
4. Make do with my struggling MBP until I move back to civilization.
5. Hope that all this is a misunderstanding and start checking with other vendors.

None of these options are really attractive to me... But #5 is on the agenda for next week.

//Sleepless in Shanghai

You forgot option #6.

Contact me in Japan and have me send you one by private carrier. Serious offer if you want to. Sorry I don't offer financing tho so it's a cash exchange.

 

[Menphis]

It is true and a little bit ironic that though most Apple products are assembled in China, for some high-end products like Mac Pro, you cannot get a customized BTO one in China probably because Apple is not seeing China as an important market for such products.

I suggest maybe you could consider the following options:

1) Buy a standard Quad or Octo Mac Pro in China, at a price 15% - 20% higher than in HK.

2) If you are experienced with taobao.com (China's eBay alike site), you can find stores there who could help you order a Mac Pro from HK (much cheaper!) and deliver to local address in major cities of China like Beijing and Shanghai by charging reasonable fees for logistics. Also after you buy an AppleCare for the Mac Pro, you could enjoy worldwide warranty accordingly including China. Though, you should take some risk by ordering online.

3) Forget about buying a Mac Pro in China.

 

[UltraNEO*]

Why not buy one, order one in Hong Kong and export it back to Shanghai?
Or isn't this a viable option?

 

[laowei]

Thanks for all the good advice. It is a holiday in China today so not much progress.

As it looks like I will be staying in China for the foreseeable future I would like to solve my problem with a Chinese vendor. Shipping from other countries works but last time I did import something I was slapped with a 30% customs fee on the sales price.

I did some searching on TaoBao and found a few sellers importing from Hong Kong and reselling in China. Prices were a bit less than the stores here. These companies are likely a bit dodgy. I assume they are smuggling the stuff from HK to avoid taxes; still as I would buy from the local company in China I should be exempt from tax. And of course there is a risk in Internet deals.

I also contacted a few Apple vendors in Shanghai by e-mail to see if they can help me out.

 

[Tesselator]

Thanks for all the good advice. It is a holiday in China today so not much progress.

As it looks like I will be staying in China for the foreseeable future I would like to solve my problem with a Chinese vendor. Shipping from other countries works but last time I did import something I was slapped with a 30% customs fee on the sales price.

So, we'll write $859.95 on the invoice. And we can still insure it for the full amount at the same time.

 

[laowei]

Thanks for the offer. I checked the mac prices in Japan and they seemed quite reasonable (relatively speaking).

It looks like I will go to Hong Kong next week. I am currently checking with some HK dealers if they can provide a machine to my specs in that timeframe. If so, buying it there and bringing it back on the flight is quite straightforward. Still the risks involve lost luggage, brutal baggage handlers and nosy customs officials. On the other hand, I usually tend to be a lucky guy.

Still, if I can secure a machine on the mainland I will do so. I have a lot of hooks out. Lets see if any of them will return anything useful.

 

[mbimac]

Also you can check it out in BESTBUY located in XIU JIA HUI area maybe they handle Apple computers,I am not sure (it's near Pacific Center at second floor) There is a big singe I think you won't miss it.

Good luck