# cheapest ipod, best laptop...



## tweety_bird_bunny (Aug 15, 2005)

i wanna purchase a 40gb photo ipod.....plz tell me from where can i buy it genuinely over the net at the cheapest price available n wat is it???
also plz suggest me a gud laptop with following min configuration..
centrino 1.5 ghz, 256mb ram, 40 gb hdd, wifi


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## esumitkumar (Aug 15, 2005)

better ask it from someone in US ...or shop on ebay...
take only new sealed....and seller should have good feedback rating... 

lappi i idont know!


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## expertno.1 (Aug 15, 2005)

for laptop try out the Dell laptop series


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## Netjunkie (Aug 15, 2005)

You can get the iPod cheaper if you can get it from someone living in the US.

Zenith laptops have a decent price. Check them once before deciding on a particular brand.


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## FasTrack (Aug 15, 2005)

Netjunkie said:
			
		

> You can get the iPod cheaper if you can get it from someone living in the US.
> 
> Zenith laptops have a decent price. Check them once before deciding on a particular brand.



Hows Zeniths service ???

i wana buy a lappi too, kindly help.


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## drgrudge (Aug 15, 2005)

_Moved here_


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## sumitava_b (Aug 17, 2005)

For the laptop, if u wanna buy it from US go for sony vaio as they have the best international support which is very much necessary in lappie. Dell or HP comapq are equally good although they dont provide international support. For purchase in india, they are the best bet. You can check out Dell inspiron6000 available at 56K before tax. It has everything u want plus 512MB ram and 60GB upgradation as a free offer. 

IBM R52 will be marginally cheaper than it with almost same config. But after recent handover of hardware business from IBM to Lenovo, nobody is quite sure about their support in long-term basis. However Lenovo is one of the largest brand in China.


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## super_i_man (Aug 19, 2005)

Why is everyone intent on ripping off the indian government, why do u people always suggest "get it form US". Let people buy form India and pay taxes and levies applicable on the product. Let some money go to the government. Taxes are not paid and then the government has no money, then you come shouting "what is the government doing"!!!! What can it do when people like you are advicing people to get things form other places, dont pay taxes. Did you know only the salaried person ends up paying taxes and the businessman always ends up paying his CA's for saving his taxes, in a legal or illegal way.


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## Nemesis (Aug 19, 2005)

Mate, nobody is against paying taxes. But honestly tell me, aren't the taxes/duties that the government levies kinda unfair? I mean when they know that nobody makes iPods in India, why should there be heavy duties on it? The problem here is that the government levies high duties on products that should ideally have lower or no duties since there are no competing companies in India!! So while Dell USA is now offering $500 laptops, Dell India's cheapest laptop still costs Rs. 50k+. As a result, people buy things from abroad. The government stabs itself in the foot by charging high duties. This allows customs officers at airports to make tons of money


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## icecoolz (Aug 19, 2005)

I have to concur with Nem on this. Honestly I dont have a problem paying for taxes for goods which are to discourage people form buying abroad of good MANUFACTURED in India. Such as imported cars for example. An iPod mini is available for 200$ in US with bill and its 14k here (in bangalore with bill). Thats just grossly unfair. You wanna sell a product here where in I can get it at a lesser premium from abroad then I will. Taxation for competition purposes is fine. But this is just gross stupidity. When will the govt learn....:roll:


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## a_medico (Aug 19, 2005)

Nemesis said:
			
		

> So while Dell USA is now offering $500 laptops, Dell India's cheapest laptop still costs Rs. 50k+. As a result, people buy things from abroad. The government stabs itself in the foot by charging high duties. This allows customs officers at airports to make tons of money



totally agree... just see the following comparison :-

Dell 700m 12 inch widescreen
725 1.5 Ghz pentium M
60GB HD
256 RAM
combo drive
4-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Dell India quotes the price around Rs 64,000 ..

*Now upgrade it to* IntelÂ® PentiumÂ® M Processor 735 (1.70 GHz/400MHz FSB)
1GB DDR SDRAM 2 Dimms
80 GB Hard Drive
8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer write capability
65 WHr 8-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

just to add some spice.... add to it Free Dell Color Printer 720

The total price comes to around Lakh Rs or a bit more...

Same configuration i got for Rs 47,000 ..

Now thats quite a difference.....

i have ordered it and its coming in sept


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## kaysquare (Aug 19, 2005)

I would like to add camcorders also to that list.

I got a canon camcorder for 600 USD the same model but a PAL version in india costs ~57000 plus tax

Its the same wit sony camcorders also it is 1.5 to 2 times the prices in US. Add to that the bargain prices and discounts you get there.

Also the goods that sell in india or US they are made in china/Japan/Taiwan so why is this huge difference in prices?? Its Just unfair


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## sumitava_b (Aug 19, 2005)

super_i_man: Its very easy to advice others to be 'swadesi'. But cant u see the fact that we buy everything, right from branded cloths to expensive cars, in India but whenever it comes about hardware we go ga-ga for abroad. hardware is the region where india government failed to cope up with the global pricing. Here price is always double the price of the same model in US. Specially in laptop section, till now India does not have any manufacturing unit of any international company. Everything comes from outside. So whenever we buy a laptop in India, indirectly we have to pay the extra custom duty for them. So actually it is dampening for the whole industry. Not only US, look at how other asia pacific countries have modified the pricing to let their countrymen use more and more hardwares. Indian government seems to have realised the matter as reflected in the launch of 10K computer. Otherwise we have to rue over the fact that india has only 14 pc penetrations in every 1000 people compared to 64 in China.


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## super_i_man (Aug 20, 2005)

@ Nemesis: Taxes and duties serve lot many purposes then to combat home competition (hope this economics is clear). iPods can be termed as luxary goods and hence the high taxes on them. And regarding Laptops the market in the USA is quite different form India in the way of computing goods are concerned, with heavy competion from hundreds of different manufacturers. And the customs officers "may" be making tons of money because the people are such shameless creatures that they do what they are told not to do and know that doing this is beyond the legal limits.

@ icecoolz: ipod mini is a luxary good and I feel that taxes on it are justified. Imports of other essential goods have to be given priority than importing iPods for a few.

@ a_medico: the same reasoning is also valid here, no one wants to pay anything for the betterment of the society as a whole.

@ sumitava_b: I am against "swadesi" and I am for purchasing goods in India. And boss it is a universally accepted fact that statistics form china are not to be trusted. But this in no way dampens your argument that china has a good pc penitation. And we also dont know the tax structure in china, and how the governemnt earns. Many things in china are still government run. the labor laws in china are the worst in the world, industry safety records are poor. pricing of a product depends on what the 
governemnt want to convey to its people.
You raised one good point is that we purchase every thing in India, well I do aggree with you and what I want to say is that for how many of the 
goods that we buy in India that we ask for a bill!


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## Nemesis (Aug 20, 2005)

You didn't get our argument!! I agree that iPods are luxury goods but tell me, is there any competition for iPods in India? By an Indian manufacturer? The government should charge duties on goods to protect domestic industries, not just for luxury status! The case with iPods can easily be extended to goods such as computer hardware which is not manufactured by anyone in India. 

If the government eases taxes for such "luxury" goods, more people will be able to afford them and hence could pave the way for them being actually manufactured in India. Wouldn't that ultimately benefit the government? Rather than losing money on people buying goods from other countries.


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## Deep (Aug 20, 2005)

hmm I think its like this...

I totally agree with the point that we should buy stuff from India legally but at the same time I agree that they should not charge too much of taxes..

take these examples..

Nokia mobile phones, it was time when there was huge difference in legal nokia phone and grey market phone...

so people used to purchase from grey market and this was loss to government and nokia both...

so nokia reduced the rate or may be government might have reduced taxes..so the difference narrows down...and people go for legal stuff..

so this helps, nokia, government and poeple  - makes everyone happy and people do not choose to go for grey market stuff..

now take example of ipods..

shuffle costs around 6K in US for 1 gig memory one...
where in india its around 12K...

so the difference is...double the amount...

so people think that they should go for grey market one...

If government reduces taxes or say ipod reduces rates then people will buy from India...they wont go for grey market one...

so if government can understand this basic funda then I think it will help everyone 

Deep


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## super_i_man (Aug 22, 2005)

when the government imports something it has to pay in US Dollars. The government has to keep some money(dollars) to impot food grains from abroad. 10% to 18% of India's food grain requirements are meet form Imports. Then after food there are many other things it has to import, so things like luxary goods can wait. Pls dont compare Mobile handsets with iPods, there is a lot of difference between them (one is a communication device and the other is an entertainment device). Taxes can also be used as a dittrant so that less people buy imported goods and the saved forigen exchange can be used in some important place. There are a lot of tradeoff.


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## Deep (Aug 22, 2005)

I wont call phones like Nokia 6680, 6681 or new phones with cam, mp3 players etc.. just as communication device..it comes in luxury...coz for communication all you need is normal phone not cam and radio 

and about your point...money for importing food grains....

take this example:

ipod cost 12,000 in india and in US 6,000 and duties are say 4,000 rs

so out of 100 ipods being imported, people buy 10 because of high rates and other people get from grey market....

*so government earns 40,000 rs*

case 2: ipod cost rs. 8,000 in India and in US 6,000, duties are Rs. 1000 each...

since the gap between US price and India price is very less so more people will go for it..

so say from 100 may be 60 people will go for it...

*so government earns 60,000 Rs*

so this way government makes more profit...

Deep


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## sumitava_b (Aug 22, 2005)

super_i_man, are you some kind of bureaucrats or from some NGOs? .....just joking. Never mind.

But the point is that even after paying taxes, which is actually to help people from deprived sections (who cant pay tax) we still find the news of starvation of farmers in various places in india. This situation prevails only because of the fact that most of our politicians are corrupt enough to gulp down all the financial resources. I must agree here that still some people dont show all their incomes to avoid tax. But this attempts are unavoidable in any vast economic structure like in India. But whatever tax is being paid is fair enough for far more betterment of this country than what has been achieved today. It's a shame that Less than half of the funds allocated in any rural project are used for the actual purpose. Even today only 50% of the farms are properly irrigated. These are some of the examples for which you are advicing us to buy everything from india. But the question is that is it the way to squeeze money out of the people who are going to buy something 'luxury', if you call it 'luxury'. Isn't it a suger-coated exploitation in the name of democarcy, just to cover up the facts which we are too afraid to agree? It is the whole system which is to be blamed for, but if only a small section of people gets the burden of it then its unfair on the role of policies by Indian government.  

After globalisation happened, India saw enormous growth in different industries only when a large player entered the market and started selling the goods at dirt-cheap rate. Take the example of Reliance in mobile network industry or Maruti in auto industry. Keeping the price comparable to the global pricing is the the key of business success. In every field Indian government has accepted this fact. But still they feel the hardware industry as an alien thing in which thy are too afraid to make it competitive.

Nowadays there is a surge of ideas to place India in the list of 'developed' countries. But if we still feel computer components/accessories as 'luxury' items them I would only like to say that it's a long way to go.


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