buying a laptop in india

Unfortunatly my laptop was recently stolen. I need to get a replacement. What are the prices for laptops like in Delhi compared with online stores in the US? Any recomendations on stores in Delhi I'm wondering if it is better to have someone buy it in the US and then Fedex it to me as a gift or to buy in India. Also is cheap software available in Delhi, i.e. pirated, because that may be anouther issue as my software disks are in the US my copies were stolen with the laptop.

pricing here is probably on par with what you would find in the US. The difference is that you might have to hunt a bit harder to find exactly what you want (finding the right brand, model, getting to the shop, etc). Nehru place in Delhi is a good place to start (more hardware shops then you can shake a stick at). You can pick up sub notebooks for about 20-30,000 rupees - full notebooks for about 30-40,000 rupees?

re the pirated software - can't help you there. Being in the industry - it would like cheating on your girlfriend. Also - even the quality of the licensed software can be dodgy at times, let alone the pirated stuff. Have had to fix up a few laptops recently which turned out to have the korean version of windows operating systems with a translation programme! Suffice to say when these went belly up - it was not repairable or updateable.

Thanks, yeah not really keen to used pirated stuff but I've got the disks back in the US for legit copies, and not planning on shelling out the money for the software I have already. Could just have copies of the disks sent I guess.

well getting the copies sent is equal to getting a copy here in India itself.

Check the custom duties for this. There is a limit above which an electronic item is not treated as a gift[get this exact number from the officials]. In that case you may end up paying the custom duties.

If you visit the Dell India site you can configure the laptop to suit your needs. Their office is in Bangalore, and they'll courier it to Delhi.

Pirated software is available in Palika Bazaar, what were you looking for specifically?

You still have to pay duty whether it is a gift or not.

Couple of Ideas. Toshiba and sony both have numerous showrooms throughout the country where you can buy laptops with original software. Toshiba especially will only put original software on their systems. From the showrooms you can order just about every laptop available.

Prices will be reasonably higher than what you would pay in the US, sometimes double depending upon which stores you use in India and in the US.

Do not import from another country unless you plan to pay double for the laptop as customs will tax you like crazy for bringing in electronics no matter the purpose or sender.

dell's delivery period is 2 weeks if not 3 weeks after you pay up... all transactions are online as you know.
i'd suggest you get one off the shelf... HP, Compaq, Vaio.

more often than not - person/s selling you the laptop will have the info about loading pirated software.

since i'm on the topic - and for anybody interested... dell is going great guns with its customer care
got thru their customer care in two phone calls.
battery replaced in 24 hours...
they must be feeling the heat!
however - stay away from their XPS M1330 - vista is locked in thataone as opposed to their other models.


:brishti

Comparing the prices between the DELL US and India sites did not look encouraging the Indian site is much more expensive even with the weak rupee. Anyone know if Kathmandu is any better?

Anouther thought if I have an non-new laptop sent to me in India not in new packaging is it still subject to import tax. And how would they know what price to charge?

Prices are much higher then US INTERNET prices. e.g. my Vaio was $1100 in the US (amazon), about 15% more in Delhi.

With regard to pirated software - I have had a problem with this. My laptop was purchased for 33,000 rupees in Jodhpur two years ago, and had what I thought to be genuine software. It worked beautifully until a couple of weeks ago when I had to have a complete uninstalling and re- installation. There was no licence no. for the original software to be found anywhere. The re-installation was done with pirated CD's - and within days I had a message in regard to this from Microsoft. I bought for 6,000 rupees a validating Product key so that all is now 'genuine'. One or two hiccups, but now all updates installed etc. and running o.k.
I think if purchasing a computer here, be sure to make sure it is genuine software with a Product Key for you, plus the CD that goes with it.

Yeah, the one thing I do want for sure is a genuine operating system, so it can be updated for security.

i would suggest something off the shelf as well , and i would not recommend Nehru Place for a laptop , you can check out online sites such as ebay India and get in touch with a few sellers through that route , but for about 25k right now you can get a laptop with an excellent configuration.

My office recently got me a new HP 520 notebook which is excellent as well , i am using it with XP right now but MS 2007 software , 512 RAM , DVD , Wireless assistance - a very efficient package , i think i remember seeing it offline for about 28-30k.

YOu also have the Acer and the Compaq range which starts around the 20k mark - buy one of those , upgrade it a bit and i think you should have something which you would be pretty happy with.