I've spent the morning looking through low/mid-range ($1200-$1600) laptops available in NZ, such as the Acer Aspire/Swift range, some of the HP Envy models, Asus, etc, and I've noticed something - so few of the NZ-available models have discrete GPUs at the benchmark price. What I mean is that the manufacturer and overseas reviews will state that the base model has a discrete GPU, and it's factored into the pricing, but in NZ the prices seem to be based on the discrete GPU version, but most of the NZ models don't come with discrete GPUs. It's like we're being sold a special line of laptops that are cut down from the usual overseas typical models.

For example, I have been unable to find any Acer Swift 3 or Swift 5 models with the MX250, for example the SF514-54GT, even though that's the standard model overseas. All we get is the integrated GPU lower-spec models, but sold as standard.

Now I could pay $500 more to move into the bracket where discrete GPUs are standard (GTX 1650 etc), but now we're talking prices that are no longer ~1.5x overseas prices (i.e. USD/NZD ratio), but more like 3x.

What's going on here? Is this an attempt to cut costs on the standard models in the hope that most NZers read the reviews but don't notice the change?

Aside, does anyone know of something like an Acer Swift 5 but with an MX250 or better for < $1500?