Travelling to the USA, buy DELL in NZ or USA?

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flailman

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#210365 24-Mar-2017 13:16

I'm travelling to the USA soon for work and i'm interested in picking up a DELL XPS13 2-in-1 which is about $1k NZD cheaper in the USA compared to in NZ for the high end model.

Are there any concerns I should have, regarding warranty, NZ plugs etc? I think DELL has international warranty but I can't find any mention of it on their website.

Also I guess if I throw away the boxes that it'd be very unlikely that they'd ping me for GST at the airport?

tchart

2380 posts

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#1747024 24-Mar-2017 13:19

You should have no problems bringing it back but

We've had loads of reliability issues with Dell laptops recently (XPS 13 & XPS15 specifically). One XPS 15 for example had a DOA battery. We were told the replacement is 90 days away.

I'd be wary of buying it over there unless you can guarantee the warranty applies here.

YMMV.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18663 posts

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#1747052 24-Mar-2017 13:58

In the distant past Dell had a poor reputation for quality and I experienced that myself on a desktop I repaired. More recently I took a chance on an Acer Notebook because the one I really wanted wasn't available here (also much cheaper in the U.S., of course). It developed a widely-reported trackpad fault not long after arrival. Eventually I repaired it myself because every other option was just too much hassle and I was lucky because my repair was successful and no other faults developed. What I learned from this experience is don't buy big ticket items overseas unless you are absolutely certain they can be serviced under warranty here without too much difficulty or you are prepared to pay for any faults yourself. Otherwise just pay the 50% markup and buy it here.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

frankv

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#1747161 24-Mar-2017 16:15

See http://www.customs.govt.nz/features/charges/dutyfree/Pages/default.aspx

You can bring in $700 worth of "personal goods" duty- and GST-free, plus your "clothing and personal effects", plus booze and smokes. Laptops (and cameras, phones, sports equipment, and a whole lot of other stuff) apparently don't count as personal effects. If your laptop plus other "personal goods" bought oversees cost a total of over $700, you could be asked to provide proof that you bought it/them in NZ, or else have to pay duty and/or GST. Dunno how likely that would be to actually happen though.

1101

3122 posts

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#1748597 27-Mar-2017 11:06

frankv:

See http://www.customs.govt.nz/features/charges/dutyfree/Pages/default.aspx

You can bring in $700 worth of "personal goods" duty- and GST-free, plus your "clothing and personal effects", plus booze and smokes. Laptops (and cameras, phones, sports equipment, and a whole lot of other stuff) apparently don't count as personal effects. If your laptop plus other "personal goods" bought oversees cost a total of over $700, you could be asked to provide proof that you bought it/them in NZ, or else have to pay duty and/or GST. Dunno how likely that would be to actually happen though.

Its happened to me, many years back. NZ Customs held the goods till I could pay the duty/tarrif/gst on stuff I bought in the US.
Then they wanted proof that my camera was bought in NZ otherwise they were going to hit me for duty on that as well.