Hello everybody,

  I’m seriously considering getting a TR2AP3 from the U.S. At the
current exchange rate it is cheaper than it’s feeble European cousin,
the TR1MP, and nobody needs BlueTooth anyway.

  Now, does anyone have first-hand experience with this? What are the
odds that I will be charged an exorbitant amount in duty and VAT upon
arrival of the package? I’m thinking along the lines of a Fedex shipment
from a friend to me, declared as a gift of no commercial value. Is
this safe? Please share your experiences, along with method used,
whether it was sent by a company or by an individual, etc. Also, what
are the warranty implications of getting it this way? Let’s hear it,
I’d like to know whether this is a feasible route of obtaining a box.

  Also, if anyone from the States is reading this and embarking on a
trip to the UK soon, contact me. If you bring a machine, I’d be happy
to meet you in London and pay cash.

  Greetings,

  - Stefan

The import duty varies depending on classification of item being imported.  For laptops it is 0% (nothing).

(The TARIC code is 847130.)

I’ve legally imported electronics from the US and had to pay 9% duty *plus* 17.5% VAT on the duty inclusive price. They also added a £35 handling charge for the privilge of having my package opened by them.  For the TR2 at $2499(£1410) this would come to around £430 in charges (total £1840). The duty may be different for laptops though (I imported networking equipment).

If you attempt to wilfully deceive customs over the value of the item you’re importing you’re commiting a criminal offence and run the risk of them confiscating the item or worse (this wouldn’t be covered by any insurance on the shipment).  In reality I think they’d probably just bill you for the VAT and duty before handing it over but as I’ve no experience in this so I can’t really say for sure (customs have lots of strange legal powers and can make your life v.difficult if they want to).

Gifts are liable for duty and VAT if they have a declared value over £36 (£18 for non gifts) if you delcared the value as £36 the item couldn’t be insured for more than this.

Everything shipped by the major package comapines (fedex, airborne express, dhl) gets checked through customs as they handle it themselves under contract from customs. Packages do slip by when sent via normal post simply due to the volume of packages they deal with but I doubt you’d want to risk that with somthing as valuable as the TR2.  They don’t normally open packages which have the declaration form correctly filled out (if you want to risk sending with no insurance) but they do still perform random checks from time to time.

If you really want to avoid paying your best bet would be to get someone to bring it in their luggage (as you’ve already suggested) or to get a cheap ticket (you can find tickets to new york for ~£180) to the states and bring it back yourself - this would wind up costing about the same (including hotel costs etc) as declaring the item through customs but you’d be spending the money on a weekend in the states rather than giving it to the government. However this is still illegal and I can’t recommend it.

NB - I don’t believe that the standard Sony US warranty is valid in the UK.

Most of the info on imorting items via post is available here and here on the HM customs website .

regards,

—
drbob

if you do buy the us version, you have to pay extra for the xp pro version and you don’t get bluetooth. You will have a slightly different keyboard layout and a dubious guarantee.
ON the plus side you will get double the amount of ram.
The cost of the unit is the same as buying it in the tottenham court road minus the vat. The best bet would be to get some one to buy it for you who could claim back the vat, rather than go to the US.

I did exactly that about a month ago.  Bought the TR2AP3 from PC Connection in the states.  The cost came to almost exactly £1500.  They shipped via DHL and it arrived in a very quick 2 days.  DHL pays the fees on your behalf so you receive your shipment faster, and the bill arrived about 2 weeks later.  The taxes came to £270 in total - DHL charged £5 for admin. 

This still comes in less than the retail cost of £1799 for the UK model.  True that you may have problems with warranty, but I expect you could work around these by shipping it to a US repair center if necessary (or get a friend/relative in the US to assist). 

Whatever you decide, good luck.  It’s a great machine and well worth the effort.

[/gotopost]

Too late now, I’ve already bought the TR1MP. Picked it up today on Tottenham Court Road for 1650 pounds inc. VAT. Should it become necessary, they’ll do me the memory upgrade to 512k for 50 quid. Maybe instant gratification of sorts, but I kinda bulked at the risk and hassle of getting it from overseas.

At any rate… this machine rocks. The screen is unreal. It makes my iiyama monitor at work seem shitty by comparison.

Happy New Year,

  - Stefan

Gultronics. I paid 1650 cash. I’m sure I could have haggled a wee bit more, but they said they’d throw in the memory upgrade to 512mb for 50 quid if necessary. You don’t have to pay more than 1650.

Also, FWIW, I’m happy as a pig in shit with this box. I’ve spent many, many hours cruising the various wifi zones in London and I love it.

Greetings from London Victoria (ReadyToSurf WiFi )

- stefan

Don’t mean to annoy you but i bought my tr1 at Gultronics and paid £1600 in October!

Nice one I wish I would have known, I would have had a bit more haggle room.. I just saw the thread about 1650,—being the going rate on TCR, so I straight up demanded that. 50,—either way isn’t going to matter much but still, respect.. Care to share you haggeling technique? What kind of carpet trader moves (eg. arguments) did you bring?

The trick is to cruise the whole of the tcr and find the best price and then go to the shop with the nearest price and say can they better it. or what will they throw in etc. If you can compare two shops it is always a good thing, and keep haggling.