2020 is going to be a challenging year for everyone, yes everyone. COVID-19 is spreading fast and is expected to infect a large portion of the human race because of its virality. Every country on the surface of the planet is planning and preparing for COVID-19 and rightly so. Individual countries have announced that they’re on the verge of an epidemic and it won’t be long before the WHO declares COVID-19 as a pandemic. Governments and major industries have all started preparing their pandemic plans in anticipation of the worst. The hardware manufacturing companies are in for a rough ride given how most of the manufacturing actually happens in Shenzhen and Taiwan.
We got to experience the effects of COVID-19 in January itself as review samples slated to arrive at our offices in early February got held back in Hong Kong indefinitely. Apparently container ships are leaving numerous ports in the region at only 10 per cent capacity. While container ships do make several stops to pick up and drop off more containers, it’s very unusual for a ship to depart with such few containers from the very first port. These sea shipments are how the whole world gets their technology hardware. That includes us.
What’s even more worrying is that India has never been a high-volume country for PC hardware since we barely buy anything compared to the likes of US or Europe. This is also why we don’t get enough allocation for products. When something new is launched, the vast majority of the initial stock goes to markets where it is more likely to get sold. Naturally, the US and Europe get first pickings. We’re lucky enough to get included in later batches of new product launches.
Now, factor in the fact that all companies are going to see their bottom lines severely affected because of the reduction in global sales. Obviously, companies would want to modify shipment allocation to maximise revenues. This would mean more products will be allocated to countries where they are more likely to be sold for certain. There’s the fact that reduced supply and greater demand will lead to prices skyrocketing. Since India is a price sensitive market and the whole world knows about this, we are less likely to buy stuff that appears to be overpriced.
Let’s summarise. Shipments are low, allocation is low, prices will shoot up and we’re not going to buy stuff at high prices. In the short term, we’re going to see some nasty pricing for PC hardware given that barely anything is manufactured locally. In the long run, we might see course corrections but the entire market will see an upheaval. If you’re planning on holding out your next PC upgrade for the next major launch from Intel, AMD or NVIDIA, then you might want to reconsider that decision. If your PC is good to last for the next two years, then you don’t need to upgrade.
Why two years? Well, the closest thing to COVID-19 was the SARS Epidemic that began in China in 2002 and went on to spread to 26 countries over the course of one whole year. No transmission has been recorded since 2004, so effectively, the virus hung around for about two years. COVID-19 spreads way quicker than SARS, so we might see this epidemic get over much earlier than the two years that SARS took but it’s still too early to tell. Traditional methods of projection are still all over the place and experts are yet to figure everything out so we don’t know for certain. All you need to know is that if you need to upgrade, then now’s the time. And if your PC has enough horsepower to easily last two more years, then you might as well upgrade after this whole thing has run its course.
Hi Agent001,
I have composed this mail to ask you about a question that’s been in my head for a long time. Well, you see, my class 10th boards will be over next month and I want to build a PC in the range of `45-55K just for moderate gaming. Now, I haven’t decided about anything except the CPU and GPU which I had earlier picked as a Ryzen 5 3500 + GTX 1660 @ `26K (I will buy it offline). Now, recently when I was surfing through Amazon.com just for checking international prices of some parts (I was logged in with my Indian account) I found out that the Ryzen 5 3600 shipped to india with only $9 shipping charges (There was no import fees mentioned whatsoever) which
would bring its total cost to around 183$. It was the same with the ZOTAC GTX 1650 super at only $159 + $11 shipping charges. During checkout, where both the card and the CPU was in the card, the overall shipping charge fell to around 12$ for standard 9-15 days delivery. Now I just wanted to know if it is safe to order from Amazon.com and whether I will have to pay the import fees even if it’s not mentioned there. Also which do you think is a better deal , the Ryzen 5 3500 + 1660 or the Ryzen 5 3600 + 1650 Super. I await your reply 🙂
–Anindya
Hey Anindya,
Getting stuff from the international Amazon portal isn’t going to be a problem as long as you stick to getting things from “fulfilled” sellers. Import taxes will be applicable if you are shipping anything to India. The tariff depends on the class/category and whatever is the declared value. Even items declared as gifts are subject to taxes. So while shipping is cheap, you will receive a mailer from the shipping agent when the product arrives in India for documentation regarding the product. They’ll provide an estimate for the import duty and your product will only be cleared after you pay whatever amount is decided by the Customs Official. Then there’s the question about Warranty being honoured internationally. Not all manufacturers will honour warranty on something that was purchased overseas. So it’s better you speak to an AMD representative to see if International warranty will be honoured. ZOTAC only honours warranty in the country of purchase. As for your last query, for gaming, these two processors are very closely specced so there will be barely any difference in performance. It’s better that you opt for the higher specced GPU so a Ryzen 5 3500 + GTX 1660 would be the better option for gaming.
Hello Agent001,
I am planning to buy a budget laptop under `35K by the end of March. I’ll use it mostly for binge watching shows, browsing and giving test series. Please recommend what to buy.
–Abhishek Kumar
Hey Abhishek,
You can check out the ASUS Vivobook 15 X540UA or M509DA. One gives you an 8th Gen Intel Core i5 processor with 1 TB hard drive and no SSD whereas the other gives you a 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen 5 processor with 256 GB SSD and no hard drive. The latter will give you a much better user experience because of the SSD whereas the former will be a little sluggish given the slower storage. Obviously, the former gives you far more storage capacity compared to the latter.