The U in Hong Kong: the Fortress Deal
January 9th, 2005Besides the “mom and pop” electronic stores I visited today, I came across a local chain store called Fortress. They also sell a Sony U. Their model is equivalent to what’s called the U50 in Japan and on sale on Hong Kong streets in a variety of smaller shops, but the official version in Hong Kong is called the U8G. It seels for HKD 15,980 in a package with a CD/DVD burner.
That’s not a bad deal. The only US model (labelled the U75O) was sold for USD 2,000 without a CD/DVD burner. The specs vary slightly on the two models; the US one had 512 MB of RAM and a different chip (a Pentium M) that is reved up to 1.1 MHz, whereas in the HK model the RAM is cut down to 256 MB and the processor is a slower one (Celeron) running at a slightly lower 900 MHz. But the Sony CD/DVD burner would add another $400 in the US, and the speed difference wouldn’t matter much for many common applications.
Posted from my Sony U