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Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

Related, I just realized that Apple uses the same numeric price in multiple regions but just changes the currency. At current price, you'd save $3149 USD flying from London to New York City (minus travel costs) to buy a maxed out 14" MBP vs buying it in London, since the price is 9849 GBP vs 9489 USD...

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The EU price includes the warranty, which is at least 2 years but is officially for "the expected life of the product", which in the case of an $10,000 laptop would probably be a decade plus.

You can get AppleCare+ in the U.S. for $149/year which is just as good (or better) than any warranty.

Yes, but AppleCare+ is one service applied to whole series. A 20% price hike on a $1000 iPhone would be $200. Equalling 4-5 years of warranty would mean you need to put in at least $600 in AppleCare+, vastly more expensive than the $200.

You're completely right that the math changes with a $10,000 laptop though. Damn that number just sounds bonkers every time :)

Do you really think the warranty justifies that price differential? A warranty only protects against manufacturers defects.

> you'd save $3149 USD flying from London to New York City

Hey, Infantino was ahead of the curve! For the same price as an English MBP, you can get an American one and see the Three Lions disappoint against Panama!

You save a lot less after paying import duties.

Do you pay import duties in the UK on items purchased for personal use? The situation is changing constantly in the US, but generally speaking you do pay duties only over a certain dollar amount in value if you intend to keep the item in country after importation (and a MBP would be over that amount), but it's a fairly small percentage (around $400 in duties on $3149 saved here). I'm not sure how it'd work in the UK.

It seems like there aren't extra duties (anymore), but then again it's all very confusing and hard to navigate so who knows.

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