Buy electronics in SARs or China?
 

so I am visiting all three and I was wondering where I should look to buy an SD card or two. I am looking for cheap(er) real equipment not super-cheap knockoff stuff. And also digital cameras...

so what are the price differences between Macau, Hong Kong, and Shanghai?

If you aren't going to be living in China, I strongly advise you not to buy any major electronic or photographic equipment such as cameras on the mainland. Genuine merchandise from reputable stores are no great bargains. Warranties will be meaningless outside the mainland, so once you leave China, you're not covered. Note that some types of electronics for sale in the mainland, such as cell phones, etc. may have different specifications from other places, or have features inactivated. You would also have to source an English-language operating manual unless you read Chinese.

For small, accessory items like memory sticks and cards, etc., usually no problem buying in major cities in the mainland, though there are fakes of name-brand products out there, as with nearly all consumer products in China. Try to get a recommendation for a reputable store. Hong Kong is a better bet, but not the Nathan Road shops. Some of the HK FT'ers can point you in the right direction for that city.

If SD cards are all you are buying, do it online at home. If you're from the US, current pricing is about $2+ per GB as general rule of thumb. Don't have to worry about the product quality. In China, not so sure.

+ 1
 

+ 1 for this. In Shanghai, there is a Best Buy, but 'real' items like digital cameras are higher priced there vs in the US. Also in SH as expo nears, the knock off products will be removed from the street stores.

And in Macau, you'd better concentrate on what this SAR is kept for*, namely: gambling.
I bought some nice garment and shoes there but never spotted any decent, large electronic store there.

*-Gambling, so beloved by Chinese people, is prohibited in Hong Kong and mainland. Interesting feature of today Macau is that, once under Portuguese rule, it was an obscure, dirty place with everybody speaking Chinese and hardly few Portuguese signpost - nowadays the Chinese governors equipped all the streets and places with new, prominet Portuguese signage. Maybe for the Chinese visitors to get the feel of a "foreign" country and thus to increase their desire to indulge in gambling?

I'd agree that buying online in the US is probably your best bet for the "smaller" electronics (SD cards, etc).

If you really must buy it here, then i'd say your safest bet is Fortress or Broadway in Hong Kong. Global warranties on purchases there.

Best Buy's prices in China are indeed seriously inflated, so stay away from them. If you want to take the risk buying in Shanghai, head to one of the many electronics malls, both in Pudong (Zhangyang Lu) or Puxi (Xujiahui). But without experience and a reliable contact, i wouldn't recommend it for a non-resident.

Forget finding anything in Macau. No electronics whatsoever.

Not exactly electronics, but Macau can be a good place to look for used Rolexes.

China imposes a 100% duty on all imports. Best not to buy anything there
but native crafts.

I also have an all-day connection in TPE... I thought I read once that most computer memory comes from taiwan, so is the SD card situation any different there?

Look up the prices using pricegrabber. Use that as your point of comparison. Easy.

IME: China is great for knock-offs of all sorts, but expensive for genuine items.

agreed. If you want dual SIM iPhone knock off or a fake Rolex China is great. For the real deal, not so much.

As far as buying SD memory, just get it in the US. A lot of memory is indeed manufactured in Taiwan, but unless you're buying in bulk it won't be any cheaper.

I have gotten memory sticks and other stuff (like SD cards) in Shenzhen and Beijing in the electronics areas, and prices were decent although not much different than in the U.S.

In China, when you buy anything like this, you ask the merchant to demo it before leaving. They will all be set up to prove to you in that case that you are getting what you paid for. You will also be in an area with a zillion little stands selling the same thing, so you can ask around and find how low they will go. These people tend not to rip you off to the same extent that they do in tourist areas, you typically will not get hyper-inflated prices.

Stuff like lithium batteries for mobile phones are much, much cheaper in China than in the US. When buying one of those, you try it in your phone before leaving the stand.

[QUOTE=RichardInSF;13784218]

In China, when you buy anything like this, you ask the merchant to demo it before leaving. They will all be set up to prove to you in that case that you are getting what you paid for. You will also be in an area with a zillion little stands selling the same thing, so you can ask around and find how low they will go. These people tend not to rip you off to the same extent that they do in tourist areas, you typically will not get hyper-inflated prices.
QUOTE]

Very good points and absolutely true. When buying anything in China, it is customary to take it out of the box or package right there and test it out, whether it is a memory card, cell phone, electric hair dryer, etc. In fact, the merchant will think you nuts if you don't!

Reason being its probably false branded and inferior grade. Merchants rarely honor any returns.

Oh ye of little faith! :p

Actually, it's also because you can get an occasional dud, even if absolutely real and from a store known for selling genuine merchandise. I've had this happen even in the USA. Returns even to willing merchants aren't fun anywhere in the world. So not only do I check memory sticks and minispeakers at BuyNow Electronics Mall, I've even had Carrefour here in Beijing open the Philips vacuum cleaner box, checked for inclusion of all the accessories, and plug it in and run it in the store...before repacking it. A heck of a lot easier to check in the store rather than get it all the way home only to be surprised. I've actually done similar in the USA (after paying of course). The look on the faces of the store personnel is priceless...:D

Indeed, merchants who accept returns are not necessarily sourcing higher quality goods, but they're probably just building it into their retail price so that they end up with the same or perhaps even a bigger margin.

In the absence of government regulation, competition means that the lowest price usually wins.

I have never found anything at the electronic malls in Zhongguancun
thats a better price then in the US. Except bootleg software
which 9 times out of ten doesn't work anyway.

I too have never had much success at finding bargains at electronic malls. However, if you can read a bit of Chinese and are technically inclined, there are many bargains to be had here.

For example, I've just picked up 6 802.11n routers for Y159 each. The cheapest comparable product in the US is $34.

The only catch is that the firmware is Chinese so it needs to be reflashed. But the hardware is identical.

Actually there are some decent prices for genuine accessory-type items, if you know your merchandise and your local vendors. You have to remember that some of us live in China, and don't get back to the USA but once or twice a year. Yes, I prefer to order from newegg.com or similar and pick it up in the USA, but when you need a new flash memory stick or cell phone battery, sometimes you can't wait, regardless of price differentials or quality risk. This is where local "trustworthy" (I use that word on a relative basis) sources come in handy. But again, to repeat my original advice to OP, for the casual visitor, I wouldn't recommend making China the focus of an electronic or photographic shopping trip for high-value merchandise.

There are many cases of people being shown fake demos or similar. Being shown a demo of an item doesn't always equate to being given a legitimate product. Even before you delve into the issue of International warranties.

How about?

-cell phone chargers
-Li batteries
-routers (as noted above)
-refurbished computers (like the place on Women's Street)
-entry level cell phones
-noise canceling headsets

Don't forget Hello Kitty cell phone charms^

The demo is pretty foolproof for the smallish things I've bought (i.e., memory sticks and lithium batteries). And for those things, I've been more concerned about whether the device is properly functional rather than whether it is genuine.

I haven't bought a PC in China but if I ever did, probably I wouldn't be satisfied with a demo, I'd have it assembled and test it myself for a half hour. But my knowledge of the area may not be typical of all.

full disclosure: I already bought the camera in the US but I was just having buyers remorse and wondering if I shouldn't have waited until I was in Macau next week. Glad to hear I probably did the right thing in that regard.

as for the SD card, i live in kind of a podunk town so the biggest I can find without ordering is 16 gb but I want a 32 or bigger (napoleon complex). However I am leaving soon so I don't want to ship one. So somewhere in Taiwan, Macau, HK, or Shanghai I will probably buy a 32 gb or bigger SDHC card.

I guess I am really not looking to get a deal neccessarily, but not to get ripped-off. I am getting the impression that maybe HK would be the best for this... or maybe TPE but I will only be near the airport. Is there an electronics district in HK or should I go to a big-box? Also I will be in MFM first so are there ANY reputable electronics stores there?

and on a sidenote, does anyone how what the biggest SDHC card currently available is?

I've bought very inexpensive "universal" DVD players in China -- prices ran from $25 to $50 USD -- that we got so we could watch Region 6 DVDs when we got home.

Just be prepared to pay more for it in China than you would pay online in the U.S. You might think that electronics stuff is cheaper because so much of it is made there, but it's hard to beat U.S. sale prices. In fact, if you find one on sale at Fry's, you could probably have it shipped overnight and pay less than you would in China!

While I'm convinced that Fry's sells many of its loss leaders below cost, I still maintain that certain products are even cheaper in China. SD cards are a category that could go either way; just be sure to test it before you buy.

Be really carefull with memory cards etc as ebay if flooded with sticks etc that for instance will say 32gb.. when you do the properties of it on the computer it shows 32gb. The reallity of it is that it is only 8gb. You can search yahoo to find a free program to run on the stick to determine what it really is. I bought one and I am pretty computer savy and I thought It was really 32 gb but when I ran the test it was only 8gb. Fortunately I got a refund. But be very carefull as most of them are coming from China.

Last trip I saw a guy selling 120gb and 240gb flash drives. You expect me to believe those sizes???

These sizes do exist now, but they usually come with a SATA interface.

Yeah, I've seen SSDs of those sizes but not flash drives.