Rip off Britain stinks

3610 Views 31 Replies 19 Participants Last post by DeadKenny, Oct 21, 2007

gadgetguy

Discussion Starter · Oct 7, 2007

Sorry if this has been discussed before but its bad enough the gauling gap between the States and over here with regards to the available Tivo technology, but when you see the Tivo HD selling for about £150 over there and in the UK we pay twice the price for our HD fix with less usability and features you have to wonder what the hell is going on!

Add to that £10 subs (£120 more every year) in the UK and £150 being the complete price in the States and you just want to throw up.

In short, the American market pays a fraction of what we do for tonnes more technology.

When are we going to get a fair deal.

1 - 20 of 32 Posts

cwaring

· #2 · Oct 7, 2007

When US ecomonies of scale kick in? Just a thought

MikeMar

· #3 · Oct 7, 2007

gadgetguy said:
Sorry if this has been discussed before but its bad enough the gauling gap between the States and over here with regards to the available Tivo technology, but when you see the Tivo HD selling for about £150 over there and in the UK we pay twice the price for our HD fix with less usability and features you have to wonder what the hell is going on!

Add to that £10 subs (£120 more every year) in the UK and £150 being the complete price in the States and you just want to throw up.

In short, the American market pays a fraction of what we do for tonnes more technology.

When are we going to get a fair deal.

When we can go to UK and not pay TWICE the amount for the same stuff for over here

kitschcamp

· #4 · Oct 8, 2007

Erm, yeah, right... that will happen when the likes of Microsoft, Apple, etc stop crossing out the dollar sign and putting a pound sign instead.

Andy Leitch

· #5 · Oct 8, 2007

kitschcamp said:
Erm, yeah, right... that will happen when the likes of Microsoft, Apple, etc stop crossing out the dollar sign and putting a pound sign instead.

Sometimes they even just pluck a number out of thin air and then put a pound sign at the front.

UK

Windows Vista Ultimate - Retail £369.99

http://www.comet.co.uk/cometbrowse/product.do?sku=375322

Which equals to $753!!

USA

Windows Vista Ultimate - Retail $479

http://nvnews.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=30710428/search=vista

Which equals £234!!

Even the most expensive store is still way cheaper then the UK price.

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iankb

· #6 · Oct 8, 2007

I don't think economies of scale have much to do with it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be charging us more for products than in the rest of Europe, when they don't even have to (or bother to) translate the language from the US version.

blindlemon

· #7 · Oct 8, 2007

It's basically an import tariff imposed not by the destination country but by the manufacturer!

Well, if anybody from the US wants to buy a Glo remote from me they're welcome - at £42.50 plus a £20 shipping surcharge of course

Ian_m

· #8 · Oct 8, 2007

Andy Leitch said:
Sometimes they even just pluck a number out of thin air and then put a pound sign at the front.

UK
Windows Vista Ultimate - Retail £369.99
Which equals to $753!!

USA
Windows Vista Ultimate - Retail $479
Which equals £234!!

Even the most expensive store is still way cheaper then the UK price.

But who ever buy MS software at the full retail price only the rich and thick !!!

I have never ever paid retail prices for MS software, even volume licence (which starts at only 5 copies in three years to qualify) is significantly cheaper (£200 for Vista Ultimate).

Full version of Vista Ultimate is available for around £270 and the OEM version for £91 (scan.co.uk).

Technically you can buy a disk drive + OEM Vista and pop it an old machine and not be violating the licence (too much). I have done this a couple of times with a 250GB disk (£30) + Vista Ultimate (£91) + (office 2007) £103. Only downside of OEM is if machine dies you loose the licence and MS will not allow activation (ok they do if you ask hard enough and know the "words") on a replacement/another machine.

Andy Leitch

· #9 · Oct 8, 2007

Ian_m said:
But who ever buy MS software at the full retail price only the rich and thick !!!

Or perhaps they just don't know any better, as they're not technically minded!
Not everyone is a geek.

Ian_m

· #10 · Oct 8, 2007

Andy Leitch said:
Or perhaps they just don't know any better, as they're not technically minded!
Not everyone is a geek.

Ok maybe not thick (sorry bit strong), but I am sure that before I spent £370 on anything, I would at least have a look elsewhere to see if I was getting value for money.

AMc

· #11 · Oct 8, 2007

Surely by definition you have to be a bit of a geek to buy an operating system separately?
I would imagine most people buy a computer and use what ever it came with until it breaks or they buy a new one. It's got to be fairly geeky to install a new OS on an old machine. I certainly haven't 'upgraded' OS on anything since I replaced Windows 3.11 with 95 on my work computer back in the dark ages.

cwaring

· #12 · Oct 8, 2007

iankb said:
I don't think economies of scale have much to do with it.

Well it was a guess. I'm not an expert

iankb

· #13 · Oct 8, 2007

OEM has its disadvantages. You can't replace the motherboard, or upgrade the OS. I had to 'persuade them' that a BIOS upgrade was a valid change. Hopefully, they now have me marked as 'tinkerer' and have given me a more tolerant authentication key.

Ian_m

· #14 · Oct 9, 2007

iankb said:
OEM has its disadvantages. You can't replace the motherboard, or upgrade the OS. I had to 'persuade them' that a BIOS upgrade was a valid change. Hopefully, they now have me marked as 'tinkerer' and have given me a more tolerant authentication key.

Not quite true.

MS OEM OS's are upgradable, what you mean is you can't use the OEM as an upgrade. I have certainly upgraded Win95 OEM -> XP, Win2000 OEM -> XP and XP OEM -> Vista via upgrade CD's, works fine as can be expected.

As for Office OEM, that is sligjhtly more relaxed. MS got into a right pickle in Office XP timescale, where people bought machines with OEM Office XP and installed their current standard of say Office 97, but when they came to reinstall/activate their OEM copies of Office XP they were refused !!! I think there is a tool to allow Office XP OEM to be installed if Office is already present, all the later OEM Office versions allow reinstallation and inheriting the older Office settings. We certianly got a machine or two with OEM Office 2003 installed, installed our standard Ofcice 97 for a while, before re-installing Office 2003 OEM again when ready.

As for motherboard changing, the words you need to know are "warranty replacement". A lot of people were being refused re-activation when their motherboard was replaced under warranty and they had not bought a new OEM licence. This has now been relaxed. We had a Dell XP machine die at work, dead ATA disk controller, got a new Dell motherboard from Ebay (£55) and had to phone to re-activate XP, but just said it was a warranty mother board replacement and was activated no issue.

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ericd121

· #15 · Oct 9, 2007

gadgetguy said:
Add to that £10 subs (£120 more every year) in the UK and £150 being the complete price in the States

I don't think this is the whole story.

As I understand it, Lifetime Subscriptions are still available in the UK for £200; they are not available in the US.

The cheapest Tivo I could find on the US site as $99, which is cheap, but looking at https://www3.tivo.com/store/plans.do, the cheapest subscription available is the 3-year prepay deal at $299, the conditions of which state

After the prepaid service period is complete, your TiVo Package will continue at the then-applicable monthly rate for the 3 year TiVo Package that was chosen.

That rate is currently $12.95 per month.

I'll let others do the conversions and calculations, but, as I see it, it's not as rosy in the US, nor as bleak in the UK as was made out in the original post.

dean9000

· #16 · Oct 11, 2007

this is true....no more lifetime subscriptions over here....i have a lifetime subscription series 2 and I bought back in '03 and just replaced the hard drive....it sucks that i can't get another lifetime but i guess i should be thankful for the newer tivo gear....

smokie

· #17 · Oct 12, 2007

...and, generally, pay is less in the US - and they have to pay more for healthcare - and they get less holidays. It's swings and roundabouts.

Pugwash

· #18 · Oct 13, 2007

If you're in the right industry, you can become a Microsoft Partner and buy their Action Pack. Due to the nature of my business I've just bought the FULL suite of microsoft desktop and server software with 10 desktop licenses for products like Office 2007 and Vista. It's only for internal use but it'll serve the 7 or 8 machines we have in the office and run a local Exchange server on Windows 2003 Small Business Edition. Total price: 200 (+vat) with a year of updates.

TCM2007

· #19 · Oct 14, 2007

smokie said:
...and, generally, pay is less in the US.

Eh? Median household income in the Uk is £21k; in the |US it's $48k.

blindlemon

· #20 · Oct 14, 2007

But you're including Bill Gates!

1 - 20 of 32 Posts

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