Buying a US Laptop and Shipping it Overseas

[Skynautics]

Hi there!

 

I live in the Philippines (Southeast Asia) and I'm in the market for a new laptop. The local market is abysmal, with the abundance of gaming laptops being sold upwards of $950 with a GTX 1650 Ti. Most good deals start at $1,200, where a Legion 5 GTX 1660 Ti can be found, for example. RTX laptops found locally are either not recommended (Acer Predator Helios 300 for $1,250) or completely non-existent.

 

Like what everyone knows, the US has a great PC market, selling 2060 laptops at the same price a 1050 Ti desktop would be going for locally. I really want to purchase a new laptop from Lenovo or HP from the US, then ship it to the Philippines through a forwarder, but there are big risks with doing that:

1. If the item arrives damaged or defective, I can ship it back (I think. Please double check: https://www.shippingcart.com/help-center and go to Replacements, Returns and Claims to check) through the forwarder at no additional cost (I think). Getting a laptop locally, albeit more expensive, is safer.
2. If the laptop breaks 8 months into use, what will I do? Warranty for laptops don't cover international customers, meaning I have nothing to do. If anyone can recommend anything for this, please let me know as this is my main dilemma.

So I have two choices: I can buy a laptop locally at drastically higher prices but its a safer bet, or I can buy from the US and ship it here, which has the risk of damage while shipping, risk of being defective upon arrival, and risk of breaking months into use and having no warranty to protect me.

 

Please leave your thoughts and advice below, and I thank you for taking your time to read this. I look forward to reading your responses!

[MartinKweh]

I would say just buy one locally. I mean taking shipping cost duty tax and some other taxes in to consideration, it would practically be the same

 

 

Im from manila and i know the pain. 

 

[Skynautics]

1 minute ago, MartinKweh said:

I would say just buy one locally. I mean taking shipping cost duty tax and some other taxes in to consideration, it would practically be the same

 

 

Im from manila and i know the pain. 

 

I mean, my current shipping forwarder sort of 'covers' the taxes and such, but its really confusing. All I know is it costs around $20 to ship a book, and that's about it.

[Wh0_Am_1]

ASUS has an international warranty that is valid in nations with ASUS authorized repair centers which according to ASUS's own website the Philippines has multiple. Thereby I would recommend the ASUS TUF A15.

[Skynautics]

2 minutes ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

ASUS has an international warranty that is valid in nations with ASUS authorized repair centers which according to ASUS's own website the Philippines has multiple. Thereby I would recommend the ASUS TUF A15.

Oh thanks a lot! That's really helpful. Do you have any other ASUS recommendations below $1,200? It'd be great if they have an RTX GPU like the one you recommended. I just want to see my other options.

[Wh0_Am_1]

3 minutes ago, Skynautics said:

Oh thanks a lot! That's really helpful. Do you have any other ASUS recommendations below $1,200? It'd be great if they have an RTX GPU like the one you recommended. I just want to see my other options.

That's the only one (well save the previous gen model that has a trash CPU the Ryzen 7 3750h that isn't worth recommending)

[Skynautics]

8 minutes ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

That's the only one (well save the previous gen model that has a trash CPU the Ryzen 7 3750h that isn't worth recommending)

That's understandable. My main problem is that in the TUF 15, there's an 802.11ac WIFI adapter, which might not work with my internet. I use standard wifi, but I'm not sure if it works together properly. Is it fine if the laptop is sold by third parties and not Amazon? (Its on Amazon but the product comes from third parties)

[Wh0_Am_1]

If you are willing to wait until this crypto rush is over though ASUS has already announced their next gen laptops with the RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 with the 4800h and 5800h. But I would not expect to get your hands on these before July.  (oh I also just remembered there is the TUF F15 with the 10th gen Intel CPUs, and up to the 1660, but really isn't worth your time.)

[Skynautics]

2 minutes ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

If you are willing to wait until this crypto rush is over though ASUS has already announced their next gen laptops with the RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 with the 4800h and 5800h. But I would not expect to get your hands on these before July.  (oh I also just remembered there is the TUF F15 with the 10th gen Intel CPUs, and up to the 1660, but really isn't worth your time.)

Personally, I don't want to wait until July. I'm also assuming the 3060 and 3070 laptops will be upwards of $1,499, which is way out of budget already (max is $1,300). I'd rather go for AMD-RTX 2060 since AMD processors are faster and cooler (thermally) and the 2060 is just faster.

[Wh0_Am_1]

19 minutes ago, Skynautics said:

That's understandable. My main problem is that in the TUF 15, there's an 802.11ac WIFI adapter, which might not work with my internet. 

It will work with almost any Wi-Fi capable router (there may be issues with some pre 2005 access points). Wi-Fi is standardized across the industry and 802.11ac (also Wi-Fi 5) is the popular standard that is in most modern devices due to the fact that it has been in devices since the early 2010s. The main thing people take issue with this standard is that it is last gen and has more latency than the most recent 802.11ax (WiFi 6). Otherwise the aging standard is still perfectly capable and useable. You may just want to upgrade to a 802.11ax card.(if your router supports the latest 802.11ax standard which few do at this time due to it's relatively recent release.)

19 minutes ago, Skynautics said:

Is it fine if the laptop is sold by third parties and not Amazon? (Its on Amazon but the product comes from third parties)

It probably depends, just make sure that it is from a reliable seller such as ones on Amazon, Newegg, XoticPC or others. (though at the moment Amazon has the best deals for this laptop) (Yes third parties on Amazon should be fine)

 

14 minutes ago, Skynautics said:

Personally, I don't want to wait until July. I'm also assuming the 3060 and 3070 laptops will be upwards of $1,499, which is way out of budget already (max is $1,300).

well the 3060 will most likely be within budget, but you will have a hard time getting one. The 3070 may just be within budget but that remains uncertain. 

 

14 minutes ago, Skynautics said:

 I'd rather go for AMD-RTX 2060 since AMD processors are faster and cooler (thermally) and the 2060 is just faster.

The RTX 2060 is faster, but outside of RTX accelerated workloads such as Blender, Solid works, or raytracing compatible games. In rasterization alone the performance improvement of the 2060 over the 1660 is under 10% and the 1660 may be worth considering. Though do remember that more things are going to support raytracing and have RTX acceleration in the future so the 2060 will likely still be your best bet.