Ordinary Gweilo

I bought Tuesday’s SCMP not realizing that Jake van der Kamp is away again (possibly ashamed after Monday’s rather poor effort).

The Technology section is now down to 6 pages, presumably because they can’t sell any advertising. It is filled out with syndicated stuff, including a column from Dan Gillmoor (the guy who attended the Hong Kong blogmeet that I unfortunately missed) about how easy it is to change your mobile phone service provider in Hong Kong mobile. I can’t link to the SCMP and the column isn’t there, but you can find the same content here or via Dan’s blog.

However, hidden inside the paper is a small magazine called “digitalaudiovideo” which does have some advertising. It’s about electronic gadgetry such as DVD recorders, plasma and LCD screens, MP3 players etc.

Anyway, it includes fairly detailed reviews of two DVD recorders. They have taken a surprisingly long time to come to Hong Kong, but there are a few available now. The shocking thing is that they are so expensive here compared to the States. I want one, but I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices that are being charged by Fortress, Broadway, etc.

The reviews in DAV are of the Sony RDR-GX7, which seems to be a good quality machine; and the Panasonic DMR-E100H which also has a 120gb hard disk drive, meaning that you can record stuff to the hard drive and then put it on to a DVD if you want to keep it. Last time I looked, Fortress etc. were charging about HK$9,000 for another Panasonic model with an 80gb drive which is available in the States for less than US$600. Given that we have no sales tax in Hong Kong, where do they get these prices from?

The other item I have seen in Fortress is a Samsung DVD HDD Recorder. At first I thought it was a DVD recorder, but actually it’s a DVD player with a hard drive, so you can record programs and watch them, but the only option for keeping a copy would be to attach it to a VHS recorder! Even this is about HK$5,000.

I suppose the excuse they will have is that they have to adapt this equipment for the Hong Kong market (voltage, dual NTSC and PAL, multi-region) but that can’t be too difficult, surely? Presumably before long a Chinese manufacturer will have a cheaper machine available in Hong Kong, and personally I’m quite willing to wait.