Wow -- talk about FT drift!
Okay, a couple of points:
1. As a couple of people noted, a Chinese computer, from a hardware perspective, is identical to a computer intended for the Western market, except that it will, probably, have installed the Chinese version of Windows.
2. I have a legal copy of English-language Win2000 that goes with the computer it will replace. OS is not an issue. Cost of the OS is not an issue.
3. I don't care about warranty. I'm looking for a cheap machine to function as an FTP-server, VNC gateway, MP3 host server, etc. on my home LAN. Right now those functions are fulfilled by an old 75 MHz Tecra laptop with 32 meg of RAM (none of those are typos). I don't exactly need state of the art for this purpose. Regardless, my wife and I go to China yearly, my brother-in-law lives in Shenzhen, and we have a number of friends who live there. If I was even concerned about warranty repair, it would be manageable. However, I am not.
4. China produces computers for the Chinese market, and many western laptop brands are manufactured in China. For anyone who knows China, there are legitimate outlets that will sell such products locally, but there are also other outlets that sell production over-runs, etc. I assume there are both kinds of outlets for computers in China (many of our friends in China have computers -- they obviously bought them somewhere). In addition to the generic factories who OEM to outfits like Winbook, there is Lenovo who makes high-end Thinkpads. It makes no logical sense that a product that is manufactured in China costs more in China than in the U.S., and that certainly has not been my experience of other manufactured goods.
So, with all that said, and with my thanks for all the input, does anyone know a good computer store in Shenzhen?