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Gadget-hunting along the streets of Mongkok

We came back from China this morning and had all afternoon free to check out the city. I joined Tony Velazquez to check out the upcoming Olympus PEN EP3 in a shop in Mongkok and did a little scouting myself.

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

In the two short days that I stayed in HK (people can’t believe it’s my first time), I learned a few things about the gadgets being sold here.

First, that there are two prices for every particular device — the official SRP and the street price. For example, the HTC Evo 3D has a suggested SRP in the major stores at Php30,500 while some smaller shops will offer it for as low as Php26,000. Not a surprise since it’s the same in the Philippines, though the discrepancy is not that wide.

With the street shops, there are two types of really cheap smarpthones — the local locked version and the international, SIM-free version. I almost had the unlucky chance of getting a China-locked Samsung Galaxy S2 for only Php21,500. The SIM-free versions are a bit more expensive — mostly in the Php24k range.

I liked the Samsung Infuse 4G i997 which was selling for under Php18k. The Android 2.2, single-core 1.2GHz processor and AT&T logo is a bit of a let-down though.

Among the most expensive of all the smartphones we’ve seen around is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 (around Php29k). The 16GB iPhone4 is is relatively cheap at Php24k.

We were told by our local tour guide that Mongkok is one of the places where you get to see and check out all of the cool gadgets. It feels like it’s the Virramall equivalent of the Philippines, though much more crowded, larger and with a wider selection.

One thing I discovered though is that the street shops will certainly entertain you and give you a little bit of discount at a time until you give in. In one instance, I was given 4 discount offers (from HK$4,650 down to HK$3,800) after delaying my decision to pick up a phone.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

6 Responses

  1. Avatar for CARLOS J REPOLIDON CARLOS J REPOLIDON says:

    sir/madam,
    no comments

  2. Avatar for sundaecone sundaecone says:

    warranty guys.. warranty.. unless the unit has international warranty

  3. Avatar for jonaflormicfren jonaflormicfren says:

    It’s almost the same with what we have here in the Philippines, because the one that controlled our market here are Chinese.

  4. Avatar for Kamote Kamote says:

    Wow iphone4 at 24k?!! That is really cheap. Some stores here are selling it for 30k and they also claim that it is on sale because the SRP was 37,000 for 16GB iphone unit. Does this mean we over rated all products of Apple?

  5. Avatar for dong dong says:

    hi abe! what’s the price range of those discounted casio g-shock watches(last picture)?

  6. Avatar for rache rache says:

    yeah! nice to go gadget hunting in mongkok! :) but be sure that the store you’re buying from is a good one abe. :)
    i found out that there are areas along nathan road you should be wary of when buying electronics. they try to lure you in with cheap prices & when you’ve decided to get it or paid for it, the “english version” of the item suddenly becomes “out of stock” or some other similar tricks.

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