Went to the Wanchai Computer Center.

First I was looking at the My-Blu, an accessory for the iPod that adds a remote control, FM radio and bluetooth with the headphones of your choice (connectible to both the iPod and your phone). The list price in HK for this is $600.

The first shop that I went into quoted a price of $720. I couldn’t recall the list price at the time and just said to the guy, “that seems too high.” He responded, “how much do you want to pay?” I walked out of the shop.

The next shop I checked quoted me a price right away of $550. But at that point I started to question how much I’d actually use this and decided to live without it.

Then I started looking at PS3′s – I’m more interested in the Blu-Ray DVD player; I’m not big on videogames. But I realized I had forgotten to research one important point: region codes.

Shop A gave me the right information, that the PS3 they were selling would play US, Japan and HK DVDs. However, they told me the price of the PS3 was $5,500, with two games. The PS3 should be under $4,000 and the games sell for around $400 to $500 each, so I walked out of the shop.

Shop B had a guy working there who told me that the PS3 would only play HK Blu-Ray DVDs and it would not play US ones. (This same guy told me that HD-DVDs also have region codes, so the XBOX 360 wouldn’t play US HD-DVDs, which is not true at all.) So was he an idiot? No, in retrospect, I think he misunderstood me and was giving me info about normal DVDs and not hi-def formats.

The price he quoted me for the machine was $3,980, but that’s slightly higher than the list price for HK. As these now seem to be in ample supply, I have no intention of spending more than the list price. Perhaps I’ll simply get one when I’m in Tokyo next week.

Last, the Logitech MX Revolution mouse. U.S. list price is $100 and it’s widely available discounted at $80 or less. All the shops in the computer mall had it priced at HK$960, which is a tad under US$130.

Basically, if you go shopping for this kind of stuff in HK and you haven’t done your research first, most shops will fuck you up, down and sideways – sometimes on purpose and sometimes because the people working in this shop are either stupid or just can’t be bothered to learn about what they’re selling.

Had I done more checking in advance, I would have skipped the Wanchai Computer Center and just gone to the Oriental 188 Shopping Center on Wanchai Road. AV Bi-Weekly magazine reports the 60 gig PS3 is selling for $3,780 there.

See, the thing is, there are a lot of locally published magazines – in Chinese – that cover this stuff in extreme detail – reviews, features, list prices and price comparisons at different shops. Local English-language coverage of this kind of stuff is minimal at best. Sure you can get American or Brit magazines for news and reviews or check the various web sites, but what you won’t get is local price guidance.

What I do is I buy the local Chinese magazines. My ability to read Chinese is limited and I’m more familiar with simplified characters rather than traditional and of course I can recognize the Chinese characters for different districts. And surprise! The stuff you absolutely need to see – model numbers, specs, prices, phone numbers – is almost all in English. When I’m really stuck, I can just show a page to someone in my office and ask them to translate for me. E-Zone costs $15 per issue. AV Bi-Weekly is $18. Other mags are similarly cheap.

It’s kind of like newspapers. Back in the US, you get used to a Sunday newspaper that weighs 10 pounds and is crammed with color inserts that, among other things, tell you of sales at supermarkets and pharmacies. The English-language paper in HK is crammed full of ads for expensive watches and real estate investment opportunities in foreign lands. But the Chinese language papers are crammed with those color ads (as are the more general interest Chinese magazines like Ming Pao).

I know, for some of you people reading this, the above is blindingly obvious. But perhaps for some of you, maybe not so much and maybe useful to know?

Hongkie Town
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