danb Posted September 25, 2019 Report Share Posted September 25, 2019 Hi. Hope all are doing well. I was watching HSN the other night. Late. They were having a " sale " on Ipad's. It was 9.7 inch ipad and had 128 GB of memory, and was the 6th generation, I think and maybe came with IOS 12 software for $499. It also came with a pen/stylus, a detachable keyboard, a case and some free software. A choice of three different colors. I am not an Apple person but my Lao Po is. I almost bought it but decide not to. I wasn't sure it was a good buy. And I had some questions that I didn't have answers to. So, I went to sleep. The next morning I woke up and decided to buy it. I thought it would make a good Christmas gift for my wife. Well, I logged onto the HSN site. Sold out. A missed opportunity, not sure? Some of the concerns was if there was a tariff on it? How does that work if I brought back to China in mid December? Where do I pay the tariff? In China at the airport or at the USA as I leave for China? If I took it out of the box, charged it up and used it for an hour or so, then would it be considered used , and not new? Has anyone had experience paying a tariff going or coming to China? Any idea what the tax would be? And BTW, does anyone know if that was a good price for the Ipad. At the time I wasn't sure, now I am thinking perhaps it was at least a good price if not a great price/deal. What do you all think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg.D. Posted September 25, 2019 Report Share Posted September 25, 2019 Costco has that for $329 without the pencil and keyboard. It is last month's model so it's hard to compare to Apple prices. My wife has that exact one and it replaces her laptop most of the time execpt when doing ArcGIS - which is windows only. I would say the price is fair. But do check with local retailers, including Apple. WRT bringing electronics in and out of China I don't think you worry about that. Even if it was a gift, I don't think duty charges kick in until $800. But, personal stuff just comes and goes. Truly, they are more concerned about security concerns. People these days travel with multiple phones, tablets and laptops. Now, if you get one, you might do her a favor: unbox it, register it in her name through Apple and put all the app's on it if she is coming back here with it. Or, if she is staying there some time she might want to register it in China and deal with changing her appnstore region back here later. Personally, I would open it and register it here. Grab a bunch of app's that she uses and carry it in my carry on. This can even include the ExpressVPN App. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted September 27, 2019 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2019 Greg, Thank you for the reply. I looked at a Costco site. That price of 329 is better than my 499 price. Of course they throw in some other things like the case, keyboard and stylus ( none of which are Apple's products, I think.) I am not Costco member but maybe I can find someone at work who is a member. It looks like they are coming out with new version in a week or so. The IPad will stay in China for a while so I will probably try to register it in China. Thank you again for all the info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertH Posted September 28, 2019 Report Share Posted September 28, 2019 Just buy it no worries from customs. I just came back yesterday we had 3 suitcases packed full of electronics I picked up in Shenzhen. I mean PACKED we had 20-30 of a few models of Bluetooth head sets for my wife to sell in our store. They asked us the value we spent on the goods and it was less then the $1600.00 USD we were allowed duty free. I had the receipts if they wanted to see them but they just said no need and waived us threw. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy W Posted September 28, 2019 Report Share Posted September 28, 2019 Welcome back, Robert. I imagine you avoided the trips to Hong Kong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertH Posted October 1, 2019 Report Share Posted October 1, 2019 Welcome back, Robert. I imagine you avoided the trips to Hong Kong?Actually we went to Hong Kong for 4 days and all was quiet. Saw no problems at all and we covered most of the place. We were there from the 17th to the 21st I guess it got a little more iffy after we left. I guess we benefited a little from the lack of travel to Hong Kong right now, hotel prices were great, we stayed at the Eaton HK in Kowloon for 65.00 USD a night and the trip to HK Disneyland was perfect.....the place was deserted maybe 500 people in the whole park no lines at all. How was 10/01 I bet the parade was on most of the channels. I watched some of it on U tube. Man those troops could march not being funny... those guys had perfect timing it was cool to watch. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy W Posted October 2, 2019 Report Share Posted October 2, 2019 Welcome back, Robert. I imagine you avoided the trips to Hong Kong?Actually we went to Hong Kong for 4 days and all was quiet. Saw no problems at all and we covered most of the place. We were there from the 17th to the 21st I guess it got a little more iffy after we left. I guess we benefited a little from the lack of travel to Hong Kong right now, hotel prices were great, we stayed at the Eaton HK in Kowloon for 65.00 USD a night and the trip to HK Disneyland was perfect.....the place was deserted maybe 500 people in the whole park no lines at all. How was 10/01 I bet the parade was on most of the channels. I watched some of it on U tube. Man those troops could march not being funny... those guys had perfect timing it was cool to watch. People LIVE there fairly safely, so I can imagine you can also VISIT there fairly safely, especially Monday through Friday. It's unclear what the odds are that you might inadvertently run into a disturbance. Like you say, no crowds, and VERY low prices where places are open. Metro stations are mostly damaged, but it's unclear how functional they are. Did you have any problem crossing back into China? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertH Posted October 4, 2019 Report Share Posted October 4, 2019 No problems at all, was pretty quick threw all sides in about 30 min. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy W Posted October 4, 2019 Report Share Posted October 4, 2019 No problems at all, was pretty quick threw all sides in about 30 min. I guess you knew not to wear black . . . or white. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertH Posted October 8, 2019 Report Share Posted October 8, 2019 I dressed in Rainbow and was very flamboyant told all the guards they look Fabulous! Kinda weird... got a few Wechat links that way...... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
True Blue Posted October 9, 2019 Report Share Posted October 9, 2019 (edited) Original poster. Go to a site called Swappa.com. They sell used cell phones tablets pcs and gaming consoles there. Apple commands a premium over android and both my wife and stepdaughter are Apple fan girls. For whatever reason, non Samsung android cell phones and tablets are attractively priced on this web site. Also if you are Sprint or Sprint service lines the price seems to be lower. Look for android non Samsung tablets for the best deal. Swappa payments are through PayPal so you are protected and can get a refund easily if not happy. Pick a corporate seller who cleans up phones and has a lot of ads and good ratings. I just got a 5 camera Sprint model LG v40 release in sept 2018 as their flagship model for $210. Paid 10 each for a durable case, screen protector and Tello sim card. So my investment is $240 of less than 1/6th the new Apple 11 Pro Max. LG makes some good gear but doesn't know how to market it properly so the price after 1 year plummets from $900 to $1100 range down to $210-350 range. The LG phone compares favorably and is probably 90 per cent as good as the latest top of the line $1,250 to $1,500 Apple 11 Pro Max . It even has some nice features (head phone jack, expandable storage shdc card memory up to 2 TB (I have a $40 400 GB card I got on Black Frida and it works great), it has much better sound dac converters etc, screen unlock based on 100 feet of my home in google maps, 3 camera picture preview on back) features that Apple doesn't have or did have and dropped. Because it is the Sprint model it is cheaper. With Sprint, I can get a Tello.com (runs on Sprint network) plan for unlimited talk, text to USA, Canada, Mexico and Mainland China along with 1 GB of data (don't need much as I download stuff on wifi) for just $10 a month. No contract and I can cancel anytime. So far so good. Arrived in excellent condition. I think my Apple fan girls are jealous and want me to find them Android phones from Swappa. Edited October 9, 2019 by True Blue (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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