G5: What should I buy at Apple and what elsewhere?

S

snipper

Registered
[I know, the Dutch have a reputation of being cheap, and this will conform it:]

I live in the Netherlands and when I compare the price of a G5 2x2 GHz/2 GB RAM/2x 250 GB striped raid/20' flatscreen to exactly the same set in the US Applestore, the latter is about 2500 dollars cheaper.

I know Apple's memory is expensive and I can save money by buying the additional 1,5 Gig elsewhere, even after 'customs'.

But are there more thing I might as well buy somewhere else, like the RAID?

Please tell me your tips and experiences!!
 
The stripped RAID they are selling is just two disks that are configured in a stripe in software. You could buy 2 250G SATA drives for around $250 US each and remove the 160G drive it ships with. Or, buy it with one 250G drive, and buy a 2nd one via a 3rd party. Other then memory and disk drive, not much else you could remove to buy 3rd party.

Brian
 
snipper said:
[I know, the Dutch have a reputation of being cheap, and this will conform it:]

I live in the Netherlands and when I compare the price of a G5 2x2 GHz/2 GB RAM/2x 250 GB striped raid/20' flatscreen to exactly the same set in the US Applestore, the latter is about 2500 dollars cheaper.

I know Apple's memory is expensive and I can save money by buying the additional 1,5 Gig elsewhere, even after 'customs'.

But are there more thing I might as well buy somewhere else, like the RAID?

Please tell me your tips and experiences!!
Click to expand...

Did you compare prices without taxes ?
 
The Dutch price is including 19% tax (7.147,14 euro = 8800 us dollars)
The US price is $6,223 - but I have no idea if that's including tax (tell me!).

I DO know, that when I'd buy a Mac in the US and import it to the Netherlands, I'd have to pay import taxes.

I've looked this up at our tax'service' website. The 'import'taxes would be 12,2 % of $6,223 = $759.20. Besides that the BTW ('national' tax) would be 19% of those $6,983,- = $1,326.77. The set would therefore cost me €6711/$8308.

The same taxes apply to the costs of sending the hardware over to the Netherlands, and of course, the costs of the postage itself. G5 and monitor weight about 18+9= 27 kg. Say I'd like to import from Other World Computing, 1004 Courtaulds Drive, Woodstock, IL 60098. I estimate the weight of the computer and monitor at 18+10 = 28 kg and a total of 0.416 m3. This would cost me about €760 at TNT, or $ 940 to get it here in 5-7 days.
With 12,2% import taxes (€93 or $115), this would be about $1055/€853. Above this, I'd have to pay 19% BTW(tax), wich would bring the score at $1256/€1015.

This brings me at a total of € 7726 or $ 9564, which is €579 or $717 above the Dutch applestore price.

Companies get a refund of the 19% BTW (€ 1141), so the set costs them € 6006 or $ 7585.
The imported, same set would cost them $ 6,223 (€ 5027) plus $ 940 TNT shipping = $ 7163 x 12.2% importtaxes= € 6492,29 or $ 8036.88


So sure, it's better to buy your Mac wherever you live, but only because of the high costs of shipping and the import taxes Europe has.

Can anybody tell me what the taxes (and therefore REAL prizes) are of the G5 where you live?


Regards
 
The taxes in the US depend on what state you live in. For me in Minnesota, I'd have to pay 6.5% tax on it. In California you'd pay 7.25%, in Deleware you'd pay zero.

Brian
 
If you buy online, you may not have to pay any taxes in the US, unless you're buying from Apple. They charge tax for purchases in every state.
 
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