Wow, that's cheap (Mac's in Japan)

Sharknose

Sharknose

Sharknose

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I’ve just shocked myself as well, comparing prices of Apple MacBookPro’s, if you buy them online from Apple’s different stores.
Normally, Japan is pretty expensive for consumer goods, and it’s certainly no cheaper than the UK normally.

So, I did a little comparison for UK , Australia (relocating there for 3 months in the next couple of weeks) and Japan (since I live here at the moment).
What the!!!
Australia is a little cheaper than the UK, by about 100 UK Pounds, once you do a currency conversion. However, the Japanese store was about 500 UK Pounds cheaper!!!

What with Boot Camp being available, I am so, so tempted to head off to the big Apple store we have in Ginza (Tokyo), and blow some cash!

So, if I have a dual boot Mac, what would be the recommended way of getting all of emails from MS Outlook???
Also, how compatible is Apple's iWork software packages with MS file formats?
 
Can't you just use office 2004 (for mac)?

You wouldn't have to worry about compatibility then, and you could set up your emails in entourage (ms outlook clone) :cool:
 
Slightly random question but I've always wondered. Do the japanese use a qwerty keyboard or not?
 
riven said:
Slightly random question but I've always wondered. Do the japanese use a qwerty keyboard or not?
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Yes and no, the english keys are in the qwerty layout, but the Japanese keyboards have extra keys for changing input method between roma-ji Kan-ji and Kata-kana oh and english
 
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What does a Japanese keyboard look like then?

I've no intention of going back to a PC either now.
 
get to the store....

even thought my macbook pro died after a week i wouldn't go back either. in fact i'm just about to get the mrs an imac to have at home to replace the asus laptop i bought her only 6 weeks ago.
 
Comparing base model 15.4" 1.83GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro


Great Britain: £1429

United States: £1098 ($1999) - Saving of £331
Canada: £1128 (CAD$2299) - Saving of £301
Japan: £1209 (￥249,800) - Saving of £220
Australia: £1336 (AUD$3199) - Saving of £93

Where did it all go wrong? :(
 
I understand that when you order online from the apple store there is a long waiting time, but if i was to purchase an apple laptop from the apple store would i be able to walk out with it there and then? I only ask because i am going on holiday to the US later this year, and for £300 off i think having a US powercord and what not is worth it.
 
Al Vallario said:
Comparing base model 15.4" 1.83GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro


Great Britain: £1429

United States: £1098 ($1999) - Saving of £331
Canada: £1128 (CAD$2299) - Saving of £301
Japan: £1209 (￥249,800) - Saving of £220
Australia: £1336 (AUD$3199) - Saving of £93

Where did it all go wrong? :(
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VAT - the US prices don't include sales tax.
 
Dublove said:
Get one mate. I've been using a mac for a week and I have no intention of using windows ever again at home :)
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why? what's so great about MacOS?

I tried a Mac out recently. Had to give it back to the owner after a weekend. Didn't miss it. Sure it had plenty of dialog boxes flipping about the place and dashboard widgets rippling the screen. It had Word, Excel, Powerpoint (or something equivalent), Photoshop ... nothing dramatic.

I liked the edge2edge browsing in Safari.

But all the toolbars are cut off in every application and you can see through them. With a few applications open it looks clunky and ugly. Like it's littered. Didn't like it.

This is only my opinion after having tried it. Maybe it's not for everyone.
 
punky_munky said:
What is the rate of tax like?
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Between 5 and 8 percent depending on where you live. Some counties like New York are as high as 13%, others like in Alaska are as low as 1%.

Where I live it is 7.5%. Where I work it is 6.5%
 
The Japanese and Oz prices I listed include the Sales Tax (Japan is 5%, not sure about Oz), so as far as I'm concerned I sort of comparing like for like.

I must admit, I'm looking to get away from using MS Office on Mac. The other thing, I would want to wait until it's available with those Universal Binaries.

Not too much of a problem, because I'll still have Windows to dual boot into anyway, which gives me time to slowly move stuff over.


Japanese keyboard on the Mac looks a lot cleaner than the PC Japanese keyboards. They only have two extra keys for switching language input modes (the PC ones have about 3 or 4 extra ones, which means the space bar on a Japanese PC keyboard is horribly small!).
Although in Japan you can get Macs with US keyboards, having a Japanese spec one is great because my wife can use it more easily, and I've adapted to using them in work anyway.

The international support looks much better in Mac (no matter if it's a Japanese, US, UK or Oz Mac). Just testing it out, loved how the OS and the Apple supplied apps (iLife etc) are all multi-lingual, meaning my user account would be in English and wife's would be in Japanese.
 
Mr Spew said:
What does a Japanese keyboard look like then?

I've no intention of going back to a PC either now.
Click to expand...

japanese_keyboard.jpg
 
blade007 said:
why? what's so great about MacOS?

I tried a Mac out recently. Had to give it back to the owner after a weekend. Didn't miss it. Sure it had plenty of dialog boxes flipping about the place and dashboard widgets rippling the screen. It had Word, Excel, Powerpoint (or something equivalent), Photoshop ... nothing dramatic.

I liked the edge2edge browsing in Safari.

But all the toolbars are cut off in every application and you can see through them. With a few applications open it looks clunky and ugly. Like it's littered. Didn't like it.

This is only my opinion after having tried it. Maybe it's not for everyone.
Click to expand...
It doesn't crash? I've no need or intention of going back, there's no point for me.

Toolbars are cut off, how? Never had that sort of problem.

Everything is laid out more naturally, it's easier to navigate, quicker, and, well, yeah, that's it really.
 
I'd really like someone to show me the way to this parallel world where Windows is unstable as hell and MacOS is some kind of angel in comparison. In my experience they are both as reliable as each other.
 
We run both Mac OS9, OSX, XP and Linux at work and they all function *** same.

I find there are as stable as each other, driver support is far far superior on XP than Mac OSX.

But its horses for courses really. Given the choice id take a PC since for £2K i can get a better specced PC than a a mac of equivlent price.

Nikumba
 
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