plucky

Hi,
I'm coming out to Dubai in December.
I've had conflicting advice about whether to buy a laptop in the UK and bring it out with me or wait and buy one in Dubai.
On the one hand I am told it will be much cheaper to buy one in Dubai, plus it would be configured for use out there.
On the other hand I am told that you cannot, or at least are not supposed to, download certain software in UAE, eg Skype, and need to have it already on your computer.
What do people think?
Regards.

Madam Medusa

with the current exchange rate, it might be marginally cheaper...but you get lumbered with the arabic keyboard, and it's a bit of a pain in the arse finding your way round to start with...

MM, xx

danjar

Hey Plucky, I'm moving out at the end of Nov and have had the same dilema. Having looked into it I decided to get one in the UK. I purchased one online through Dell as I think they're pretty much unbeatable value wise. If you were to order one from Dell.ae it actually costs about the same anyway.

The main reason for me getting one in the UK was so I could bring all my music, video and photos over on it (as well as software obviously).

If the software issue is the only reason you'd be buying in the UK there are ways round it, I believe you can pay a small amount and use the t'interweb through a VPN, don't really know much about this though. Worst case scenario someone can download software in the UK and post it to you on a CD or memory stick!?

Where will you be working/living?

Dan

Cham128

without getting into the the technicals... instead of a dell have a look at the sony vaio fw11e much better quality and costs around £650 in tescos... we were about to buy a couple of dells for my team at work and then found those which were cheaper and more powerful. oh and we got them faster as there was a 30 day wait on the dell we wanted!

danjar

Bugger! Should've gone to Tescos!

Jmover

we waited until we got to Dubai to buy laptops for the kids when we got here, we were surprised to find that the same computer was the same price as in the UK - It doesn't make much difference in price, but if you do get one in the UK, make sure the computer comes with an international warranty - so make sure you get one from the bigger companies that sell world wide, should anything untoward happen.

I think it may be easier to get one in the UK and bring it over already set up - some websites here are blocked which can be a pain, depending on what you want.

Hope you enjoy the move over.

DiveBunny

Hi - (having just done all the research for my new laptop!) I found it depends really on what spec you want. If you want an 'off the shelf' then buying in Dubai is fine, but if you want something a bit more customised (higher specs etc) then getting from the UK was much better. I did a deal with Dell in the end - much higher spec and cheaper than buying it here. If you speak to the people at Dell, rather than do the whole thing on the web, you can get really good discounts (I got 20% off an already discounted web price). Good luck!

Sky Blue

If I was you I would consider getting yourself a MacBook they really are worth the extra cash and although I would never want to tempt fate do not get many viruses.

plucky

Thanks for everyone's tips.
I'll get one in the UK after having read all the advice.