Buying a new PC

[$Pripps]

JR8, regardless of quality it will probably be better for you to buy the PC once you get to Germany for the simple reason that you will not really save any money. Hardware in Singapore is just marginally cheaper than in the west, probably due to difference in GST.

If I were you and would just go to a local PC dealer (in Germany) and tell them what components you want to have and let them build it for you. If something later breaks, you just return it to the shop to get it fixed.

If you buy a Dell or whatever here it is not 100% clear if you get service in Germany because there could be some clause that says service only allowed in the country of purchase, you would need to double check that.

[ScoobyDoes]

Normally the Country paying the highest GST will get favourable cost price, becuase of GST to the end consumer, they screw Asia based on pricing strategies in accordance with income pr houshold, and import standards that suit the models made for local markets which maybe assembled with graded components due to the lack of consumer protection, and cultural face.

And yet Hong Kong is also so much cheaper than Singapore.

For all the claims about buying electronics in Singapore I simply wouldn't. Take off the 7% GST and Singapore still works out a hefty amount more than HK for computers and electronics in most cases. Not all, but most. The GST is an excuse in reality given the higher 15-20% rates common in Europe.

For a laptop that was ~S$1200 here I paid HKD5,500.

[JR8]

I think my Pc is on it's last legs. It's about 5-6 years old now, and so many things don't work, I half expect it to die every day I turn it on (it certainly sounds as if it will!).

Question: I'm relocating to Germany in circa a month. Should I buy a new PC here, or wait until I'm over there?

Thoughts appreciated.

Of course the first thing you should do before considerations of washing potatoes is buy an external hard drive and back up anything of importance on the old girl before she goes "pop".

Consumer protection is a big deal in Europe so you'd probably be better off buying there
Good luck

Yep, sage advice!!

I run incremental back-ups to a saucy external WD drive every day via Cobian. And total C drive backups via Drive Image XML each fortnight [am now doing the latter weekly, as I really am fearing for this PC)...

I've faced PC-near-death twice before... and it isn't going to happen to me again!

[JR8]

Thanks Pripps, yeah I'm gonna wait, and hope the old bugger [current Pc] lumbers on for a few more weeks.

I was doing complete 'image back-ups' each fortnight. Started doing them weekly recently. But the hell of facing PC-death makes me wonder if I might start doing them every couple of days. It is always such a cataclysmic surprise when it happens.

For various reasons I won't pay GST in Germany which makes S$1,700 here vs. e700 -20% = e560

e560/S$1700 = 40% cheaper. Let's all (NOT) go on a shopping trip to Singapore!!

[ksl]

Have you tried cleaning your system up on the PC, and done virus checks, and spybot checks delete history and cookies. Then do the disk defragment from accessories-system tools. It really sounds like your data is scattered more than it should be on the disc

[JR8]

Thanks KSL. Appreciate the thought. The system is pretty clean, just long in the tooth I think.

I think the start of the end was last year trying to load up IE8, which failed. Then trying to back it out (via a restore point), which totally buggered my system.

Had to do a full OS reinstall. Luckily my data was ok (I was already backing up regularly after the first time this happened a few years back), just the PC has gone a bit schizo with two user-id's, two whole root directories of data. Plus it won't go into Standby/Hibernate mode any more (tried to fix, can't), plus I can hear a cooling fan going.

Probably best to make the move and get a new one, flip over my files. Wipe and double wipe this one, then give this one to charity or something and let them sweat over it...

[WhySG.com]

Washing machines, and all other electronic goods are made for Asian markets, lower quality control, and higher price is what you get in Singapore that is fact.

I have heard there is a Chinese brand of washing machine that is of higher quality than western produced washing machines.

They pour millions into R&D, and even responded to a consumer complaint that their machines did not clear sludge/mud at the bottom of the unit.

When a rep drove several hours to pay the consumer a visit, he found the person was a farmer using the washing machine to wash his potato's.

The company made changes to their design. So now this company is the only company in the world that produce washing machines that can wash both clothes and potatos.

sounds really like a HSBC commercial! lol

[WhySG.com]

Anyway, 5-6 years might not be the final stages. Sometimes if you take care of it well (clean it regularly physically, defrag, scanning) it might last a lot longer.

Besides, many people use their computers for nearly 10 years. Sometimes its just a component that is down - e.g. VGA card, hard disk.

And does your "PC" refer to a laptop or a desktop? Im guessing its the later. If thats the case, wouldnt it be troublesome to bring an entire PC home? Unless your luggage is already light to begin with?

[JR8]

Anyway, 5-6 years might not be the final stages. Sometimes if you take care of it well (clean it regularly physically, defrag, scanning) it might last a lot longer.

Besides, many people use their computers for nearly 10 years. Sometimes its just a component that is down - e.g. VGA card, hard disk.

And does your "PC" refer to a laptop or a desktop? Im guessing its the later. If thats the case, wouldnt it be troublesome to bring an entire PC home? Unless your luggage is already light to begin with?

Hi WhySG. Thanks for the reply. Yes it is a desktop. It has been kept clean via, AVG, Comodo firewall. Periodic purges with Spybot S&D, Malwarebytes, Superantispyware. But since the OS failure it has been downhill really. So much doesn't 'quite' work that it is becoming a pain. I mean I can click to go to Standby mode, the screen turns blank, but it is not in standby mode. All my pre-crash data is still there... but hidden so deep in sub-sub-sub-directories I never know where to go. Spent days trying to remedy that and couldn't. Tried to cut/paste my old data into My Documents and it attempted to delete them instead dumping copies in some ultra obscure deleted bin (you know, the kind with a 30 character alpha-numeric name).

You see where I'm coming from! My PC gets very heavy use; I'm just wasting too much time working around the current machines foibles.

p.s. I'm moving to Germany. So the comparison was buy here and ship, or wait til I get to Germany. The answer on that seems pretty clear.

[$Pripps]

BTW always good to have a some backup software running regularly - I use Acronis which works flawlessly so far, for instance when I wanted to replace my boot drive I just did a clone of the drive with Acronis on a new drive, unplugged the old boot drive and presto I was up and running again on my new velociraptor drive.

[JR8]

Oh I back-up!
I use Cobian and do an incremental B-U each day, and a full B-U each week.
I also use DriveImage XML and do a complete BU every 2 weeks.

For the record I nearly went with Acronis rather than DIXML, but tested out DIXML first, and am very happy with it...

[AbleNTrust]

Try a mac. A little more expensive but its worth its value.