Advice on Computer Purchase

[Cutty Shark]

Good afternoon.  I live in Bangkok and use a desktop computer only.  Next month I will go to the USA for three months.  I’d like to purchase an easily portable computer.

 

Could you please advise me on these two points:

 

Should I make the purchase here or in the States?

 

Could you recommend good brands/models for me, please.  I basically use the computer for easy things like emailing, watching Youtube, and typing documents. 

 

Thanks!

[Somtamnication]

Get a Dell. You can get onsite service in Thailand. XPS 13 or 15. Super little computer and well worth it now as some are on sale at Best Buy.

[lopburi3]

Do you want large screen (15" or so) or use smaller screen or send to external monitor?

 

Do you plan frequent travel with it (might want smaller screen)?

 

USA is lower price - and should have SSD drive (here most low priced units are HDD) - and all you need is a lower priced unit.

[Isaanbiker]

One more for DELL. They offer a three year warranty and have to send technicians to your home and fix it.

 

       I've got a DELL notebook, almost 10 years old that still goes strong and a desktop that never had any issues. 

[Bang Bang]

Can't go wrong with Dell of course. But I got a Microsoft Surface laptop a couple of months ago and have been very happy with it. 13", light, touchscreen, (not blazingly) fast and 30k b. was great value.

[WalkingOrders]

If you plan on staying in thailand a laptop would have both thai and english symbols on kybd. Useful for resale, trade in later. Or for giving to any girlfriend or thai family later, should you wish to upgrade. Pricewise, not much difference

 I would buy here in thailand. 

 

[glegolo]

31 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Do you want large screen (15" or so) or use smaller screen or send to external monitor?

 

Do you plan frequent travel with it (might want smaller screen)?

 

USA is lower price - and should have SSD drive (here most low priced units are HDD) - and all you need is a lower priced unit.

Also Sweden has lower prices for computers than you can find in Thailand....

 

glegolo

[OneMoreFarang]

2 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Get a Dell. You can get onsite service in Thailand. XPS 13 or 15. Super little computer and well worth it now as some are on sale at Best Buy.

Dell has the reputation for the international service.

But be careful!

A couple of years ago I worked for an international company with head office in Europe. They bought in Europe some (business) Dell PCs, servers, etc., configured them all in the head office and then send them to Thailand to the reginal office.

They just took the PC out of the boxes, connected everything and all was fine.

 

Until the moment when they had a hardware problem. They thought, no problem, Dell has worldwide warranty so lets contact their Thai office and get things sorted. That was the moment when Dell Thailand explained to them that currently they won't get the desired service here. Because it seems Dell has different service areas. The Europe warranty was in that moment useless in Thailand.

They had to start a procedure to transfer the warranty from Dell Europe to Thailand (or Asia, something like that). And as far as I remember that was not done in a couple of hours. I think it even took weeks.

All that happened many 10 years ago and maybe things changed.

If you think about buying Dell I suggest you doublecheck with them (not just the sales guy somewhere) what happens if you have a problem with that device in the USA if you bought in Thailand - or the other way around.

 

 

Personally I have very good experience with Lenovo Thinkpads. Some of them have Thai only warranty and some have worldwide warranty (as far as I know without hassle).

[ianezy0]

I haven’t got one myself but I like the large tablets that has a keyboard attached. Like the Microsoft Surface or the IPad.

 

can be used as a tablet or a powerful laptop when keyboard is attached. But both are very portable.

A lot depends on your budget.

 

good luck

[Cutty Shark]

I appreciate this good advice I've received so far.  Do you recommend any specific computer stores in Bangkok?  I'm near Ekamai but can go anywhere.

[lopburi3]

JIB chain is likely the best choice in Bangkok - they also have website and many locations.  

https://www.jib.co.th/web/

 

If shopping for price you might want to plug models into this website - just make sure results are exactly same version as computers are sold in many configurations.  Have set for Lenovo Yoga 530 which is 20k on JIB including Windows10.

https://th.priceprice.com/Lenovo-Yoga-530-14-27190/

 

This appears to be able to do what you want at a very reasonable price.  If you want storage for downloads easy to attach USB drive and it can output HDMI if you want to view on TV.  Legal Windows10 installed and total less than 12k.

https://www.jib.co.th/web/product/readProduct/32364/NOTEBOOK--โน้ตบุ๊ค--LENOVO-S130-14IGM-81J20012TA--BLUE-

[Henryford]

Whatever you get make sure it has an SSD not HDD. I recently bought an Acer Spin 5, been really pleased with, portable, and it spins. 24000 baht.

[jimmyyy]

I have had good luck with HP laptops, i don't have a laptop anymore, i build my desktops with parts i hand pick. 

[Cutty Shark]

I've decided to get my new computer here in Thailand.  Is there anything I need to prepare in order to use it in the USA during my vacation there?

[AlexRich]

I’d buy an Apple Airbook ... very light and powerful. But given what you use it for you might be able to get by very well with an iPad. You can get a Word package on it for typing documents and a keypad stand to give you that laptop feel. 

[NanLaew]

21 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Get a Dell. You can get onsite service in Thailand. XPS 13 or 15. Super little computer and well worth it now as some are on sale at Best Buy.

Get an ASUS. YOu can get onsite service in Thailand with a worldwide warranty that can be extended free to 5-years maximum. Great deals online at tigerdirect.com but you will need a VPN to place and track your order.

[marcusarelus]

3 hours ago, Henryford said:

Whatever you get make sure it has an SSD not HDD. I recently bought an Acer Spin 5, been really pleased with, portable, and it spins. 24000 baht.

I've got an SSD and Hdd.  SSD for boot up.  Other than that don't see much difference.  I use a 500 GB SSD. 1 TB HDD and a 3 TB external desktop drive 3.0 USB - 10GB per second transfer rate.  

 

I've a Dell that I upgraded the only problem I ran into was the pins on the motherboard when upgrading the graphics card.  It limits my alternatives to a GE Force GTX 1050 TI. 

 

Next time I'd buy a computer that was easier to expand, Dell uses mainly Dell components to upgrade.  

[kekalot]

57 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

I've got an SSD and Hdd.  SSD for boot up.  Other than that don't see much difference.  I use a 500 GB SSD. 1 TB HDD and a 3 TB external desktop drive 3.0 USB - 10GB per second transfer rate.  

 

I've a Dell that I upgraded the only problem I ran into was the pins on the motherboard when upgrading the graphics card.  It limits my alternatives to a GE Force GTX 1050 TI. 

 

Next time I'd buy a computer that was easier to expand, Dell uses mainly Dell components to upgrade.  

where do you get that 10GB (Gigabyte) per second from? that is 10,240 MB per second.

a Samsung 850 Pro has a write speed of ±520 MB/s  (about 5% of that speed)

even 10Gb (Gigabit) connection would give you 1250 MB/s which is more than double the speed of a Pro SSD

 

USB 3.0 has limits of "up to" 640 MB/s which is faster than those SSDs and I've never seen USB3 devices even get close to that speed

[marcusarelus]

2 hours ago, kekalot said:

where do you get that 10GB (Gigabyte) per second from? that is 10,240 MB per second.

a Samsung 850 Pro has a write speed of ±520 MB/s  (about 5% of that speed)

even 10Gb (Gigabit) connection would give you 1250 MB/s which is more than double the speed of a Pro SSD

 

USB 3.0 has limits of "up to" 640 MB/s which is faster than those SSDs and I've never seen USB3 devices even get close to that speed

 

[kekalot]

58 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

 

 

test results for this exact drive above

this drive at 184 MB/s is 1.8% of 10GB per second and would take 55 seconds to transfer 10GB

you must have used the wrong terminology, that's why I was asking.

 

 

 

 

[SheungWan]

If portability is an issue, then weight and size needs careful attention. Older models tend to be heavier. Smaller bezels = less overall size and less weight. Have a look at the latest Asus Vivobook S14. Not sure if available yet in Thailand but a useful reference point. PS, OP requirements might make do with a Chromebook. See Samsung Chromebook Plus V2.

Sent from my SM-N935F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[marcusarelus]

2 hours ago, kekalot said:

 

test results for this exact drive above

this drive at 184 MB/s is 1.8% of 10GB per second and would take 55 seconds to transfer 10GB

you must have used the wrong terminology, that's why I was asking.

Movie to an external hard drive with USB 3.0 takes a few of seconds.  The major reason for an SDD drive in my opinion is boot time.  I like big computers because I don't think people will steal them as easily as a laptop.  My next one will be custom built at a Thai shop with lots of color and tubes all over the place.  

[William Osborne]

I switched to a 9" tablet recently and its fantastic for day to day internet, movies, following stocks, etc...can open MS office docs and do basic editing.......but still need the laptop if have some excel work....if you dont do any serious MS office

 work, tablet is way to go

 

[bendejo]

You might want to get an idea of prices and brands available in the US, here's the place I usually use: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/laptops

 

I haven't shopped for a laptop in LOS for a while, but I noticed if you want a legit Windows license to be bundled it'll involve a premium (and may not be legit after all ).

 

 

[logder]

I always use laptops and right now I'm using macbook, so I couldn't give an advice on computers, although I would definitely recommend you to buy it in the US. I always try to buy electronics when I go there since it is cheaper because of the currency differences.

[KneeDeep]

On 6/24/2019 at 1:13 PM, marcusarelus said:

Movie to an external hard drive with USB 3.0 takes a few of seconds.  The major reason for an SDD drive in my opinion is boot time.  I like big computers because I don't think people will steal them as easily as a laptop.  My next one will be custom built at a Thai shop with lots of color and tubes all over the place.  

 

Would have been nice if you thanked kekalot for taking the time put you right. 10 GB/s is a hell of a lot different from 185 MB/s. But that would have entailed admitting that you got something wrong.  

Maybe you meant 10 GB/min. That would be about right, actually up to 11 GB/min

 

If you utilised an SSD external drive, then you could expect that speed to double, at a minimum. So of course you would see a difference betwixt an SSD and an HDD.

 

But at the moment you have the best of both worlds. SSD for fast day to day computing and HDD for capacity and the purpose of back up.

 

 

[Cutty Shark]

I appreciate all the advice I've received on this thread.  I've made notes so that when I go computer shopping, I'll have all your recommendations handy.  Thanks!

[Cutty Shark]

 

Thanks so much for all the advice I’ve received.  This afternoon I went to Central World and looked around at JIB and other shops there.  Following that, I’d like to request some more details from you, please:

 

First, I’d like to restate that I’m pretty much a computer novice who basically uses the computer for very easy tasks such as emailing, simple documents, web surfing, and listening to Youtube.

 

I don’t want to spend money for things I don’t need, but on the other hand, saving money is not a priority.  I’m definitely willing to spend the amount it takes for an efficient and enjoyable computer experience.

 

At JIB and other places, I found some of the models that you folks mentioned, so I’d like to inquire further.

 

The ASUS Vivobook is priced at B12,900 (128 SSD), 16,900 (512 SSD), and 20,900 (512 SSD).   Is there a reason that I might go for the cheaper or the more expensive model?

 

I also received interesting recommendations for Dell, Microsoft Surface, Acer Spin 5, Apple Airbook, Lenova  Yogo 530, Samsung 850 Pro and Samsung Chromebook Plus Vs.   I'd be happy to hear more about these.

 

One poster also recommended a 9” tablet, considering my limited range of usage.  I asked about tablets at JIB, but they don’t carry them.  What brand do you recommend?

 

For my next questions, please consider that I’m a computer dummy who has had very little computer experience except for here in Thailand.

 

When I take a computer the USA, will I need to buy a special power cord either here or at my home?

 

Will I need to get some kind of power source to use the computer during the 20+ hour trip between here and there?

 

If you have any other advice for me, I would certainly be happy to receive it.  Thanks!

[lopburi3]

 

You do not need the more expensive Asus - the 128ssd cheap model is probably the best for you - if you need additional storage you can buy external drives or cards for that.  Remember that entering USA (or anywhere) your SSD could be examined so you may not want extra materials on it anyhow.  Power supply should provide service on 120 and 230 volts without adaptor (but check on brick).