MY sister will go to Sydney to complete her degree course later this year. She is trying to decide whether to buy a computer in Hong Kong and take it to Australia, or whether to buy it in Sydney.
If she buys one in Hong Kong, is it a good idea to buy a portable computer? If so, which kind of portable computer is good enough? CHARLES MAN Hong Kong The prices of brandname computers do not differ that much between Australia and Hong Kong, or so my Australian colleagues inform me.
If your sister is going to live in Australia for a couple of years, I would suggest she buy a desktop computer and buy it in Sydney.
A notebook computer may be good for use on the go, and if she was insistent upon buying a machine in Hong Kong, it would make for easier transport. However, she's going Down Under to be a student, not a travelling executive, and would probably want some form of multimedia features in her PC, too. Multimedia notebooks tend to be at least 30 per cent more expensive than their desktop counterparts.
Another thing ... Australia has strict restrictions on the import of telecommunications devices, under which category modems fall. So buying a machine in Hong Kong with a built-in modem, for example, will only make for problems when she gets there.
FOLLOWING a question from an anonymous reader about personal digital assistants with accounting software built in, I thought the following piece of news that came off the Knight-Ridder wire service would be of interest. Apparently US company Franklin Electronic Publishers has come up with a new Pocket Quicken device that weighs only 4.5 ounces.
According to Franklin Electronic Publisers, you can easily slip Pocket Quicken into a shirt pocket or purse and carry your financial records anywhere you go. It's a minicomputer, complete with a tiny keyboard and screen.