In June my son will be returning to the USA to start college and I promised to get him a new laptop. He doesn't have a specific model/brand in mind but we wont be looking at the most expensive. Generally speaking, price wise, would I be better off getting one here or waiting until we get to the USA?

I would wait until returning to the US. You'll find better prices and easier to fix with warranty.

Definitely in the USA. Most manufacturers don't provide international warranty, and those that do often have some limitations on it. Apple is a notable exception but Apple is certainly cheaper in the US...

Thanks for the help. One other question that I forgot to ask. Are the extended warranty programs that they try to sell you when you buy a laptop in the US worth the money?

Is it practical and do you recommend buying a laptop for use in LOS and what are the best LOS wireless options for a laptop?

Edited May 18, 200818 yr by Kujah

Thanks for the help. One other question that I forgot to ask. Are the extended warranty programs that they try to sell you when you buy a laptop in the US worth the money?

In general, extended warranty on electronic items is not worth the money, anywhere.

With regard to your initial question, I would definately not buy a laptop in Thailand, as:

They are more expensive in Thailand - even after getting VAT (sales tax) refunded at the airport on departure.

Any instruction manuals will likely be in Thai, and possibly only in Thai.

Any warranty will be written in Thai, and usually only valid in Thailand.

There will be some software installed that is in Thai, causing complications if you want to uninstall or change it.

The keyboard key will have Roman & Thai characters, this may not bother you but resale value will be virtually nil unless you sell it in Thailand.

Language settings will be set up for Thai script - more complications to change.

If purchase in the US is convenient for you then that is fine. Too far away for me. If you do go ahead and buy in US then I recommend that you use mail order. Have it delivered to your US address to save sales tax. Personally, I prefer to go shopping in HK or Singapore.

Edited May 18, 200818 yr by SmartFarang

Check out the college your child will be attending... Many colleges have excellent programs to purchase computers/software at below market prices and usually have IT support for the systems you buy from them

Also Apple has a discounted website for college students:

http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/routingpage.html

Edited May 18, 200818 yr by sfokevin

Laptops/notebooks are coming down in price rapidly in LOS. I saw a few decent models under 20K earlier today.

That being said - I too would choose to buy the notebook in the US, especially if your son's university offers the student pricing which will be better than anywhere else you can buy it. Along with that come the special software packages for education as well...

sfokevin has the right idea. You will get a bargain on the computer and the software buying from most colleges or universities.

One other thing to consider; at least you can be guaranteed that the software that is preloaded on the laptop purchased in the United States will be genuine. Read Wednesday's Database section of the Bangkok Post concerning the recent police raids on IT shops. I beleve it was stated that 97% of vendors are bundling pirated software on the hard drives sold with computers and/or stand alone. I brought a new ThinkPad T61 back from the U.S. in March and found it to be cheaper than a similar model T61 sold over here. Actually, I was able to specify how my laptop was built and even with higher specificifications selected over standard, my laptop was still cheaper. I bought mine direct from Lenovo-IBM.