NextStopHongKong Travel Guide

As a shopping paradise, the computer and electronic products in Hong Kong is always the popular object. The “Computer and electronic products” here refers to laptop computer, Apple products, MP3 players, desktop computers etc. and computer-related accessories, such as external hard drives, USB finger, SD card, card reader and blank DVD/blueray DVD. There are many places where you can purchase electronic items. Especially in hot shopping spots like Sham Shui Po and Mongkok, you can find the large electronics chain stores like Broadway, Fortress, Gome, Suning everywhere. We have talked about the “Large Chain Store of Computer and Electronics”. Here we mainly talk about the computer center in Hong Kong. Besides computer accessories and related products, you also can find computer, digital camera, MP3 players and many parallel imports in computer center.

Computer Center

Terms:

Hong Kong’s electronics and digital products are divided into parallel imports and licensed imports. “Licensed imports” means the items are imported and sold by the licensed and authorized agents. If the product has quality problems, you can enjoy after-sale warranty service. “Parallel imports” means the products should not enter the Hong Kong markets, although the product is genuine, due to being imported and sold by the non-authorized agents and dealers, if there is any quanlity problem after purchase, you cannot enjoy any products’ warranty from the product company. But generally you still can enjoy the warranty from the store. Warranty period varies by stores.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Parallel Imports and Licensed Imports:

Licesed Imports:

Have relatively fixed price and formal warranty. Nowadays in Hong Kong lots of licensed products can enjoy a China Nationwide Warranty.

Parallel Imports :

The price of parallel imports is generally a little lower than the licensed imports (of course, products like iPhone and iPad which are immediately out of stock in formal agents have much higher price). If you think the price difference can compensate the trouble of after-purchase service, you can consider to purchase the parallel imports.

In addition, another advantage of parallel imports is that you have the chance to buy some items that you cannot find in formal agents, such as the Japanese mobil phone and laptops. Sometimes parallel imports enter the market ahead of licensed imports.

In computer center, if you purchase a digital camera, there are often two prices, one for licensed products and one for parallel products. But if you need worldwide warranty or nationwide warranty, parallel imports may cause some trouble later.

There are several Hong Kong computer centers:

Mongkok Computer Center

Golden Computer Center

Wan Chai Computer City

My two cents and personally opinion: many people have been asking about my personal experience. I have to admit that I often go there and look around to check prices. For small things like USB-flash drives, hard disks or computer peripherals I had good experiences buying in the small stores inside the Computer Centers. But when it comes to do big purchases I prefer to go to one of the above-mentioned big chain stores. The reason for this is mainly that as a customer you do have more rights and they usually have more stock on new items.