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Q: How do I know if electronic products are real or fake?
I'm looking to buy a laptop and just trying to figure out what's real. Is taobao trustworthy?
10 years 18 weeks ago in Web & Technology - China
Generally yes, taobao is safe. If you get the laptop and you feel its a piece of crap or fake, you can call taobao and they will stop payment of the item. Just return it no worse for the wear.
taobao has a kinda partnetship or something with a site called Tmall , actually in taobao, where thats all new stuff and generally much safer as well. Laptops are getting cheap as hell. If your worried and new to taobao, maybe its better to actually go shopping in a brick and mortar place. You can play around, and find some good deals. For the couple extra kuai you have to pay you make up with peace of mind.
i agree with mike. i've ordered a ton of electronics from taobao and haven't had an issue. but, computers are getting cheaper and cheaper, just go to a real shop a buy it. besides, i always like to play with the gadget a bit before i buy it. on a side note, my buddy recently but the new iphone, i think the 32gb, not sure. when he got home and started toying with it, the memory app said it was only 16gb. the people at the store did something to the phone. when he took it back, they denied and yelled at him. his chinese is excellent, so he told them he was calling 12315, the number you call about fake goods. the apple staff got real nervous and returned the phone and gave him a discount on a new one.
I've seen a macbook ari copy from taobao. It looked the part, but it ran windows. Had I been shopping for a macbook I'd been very disappointed, but it looked like it was a very decent windows laptopn
icnif77:
If you have chance to get Mac in HK, do so. 25% discount to Mainland price. Different quality, too. Apple HK replaced (free of charge) Mainland IPod with the new one. I heard very often last summer in HK, how 'anything purchased in HK' is much better quality than Mainland. However, I am not sure, if Apple has different production line in HK.
Scandinavian:
China produces low quality products for the home market and high quality products for export. What is on the shelf in Hong Kong, if made in China, would be the export quality. In some cases there is probably no difference. Here in Zhuhai people get their Apple's from Hong Kong, not because of quality, but because of price.
icnif77:
Zhuhai. You're there! Exchange rate makes everything cheaper than in Mainland. I got few 'early Christmas presents' (to myself) last summer.
Mateusz:
That it was running Windows doesn't mean it wasn't a real Mac, since Macs can run Windows via Bootcamp. It still could have been a fake, but running Windows isn't proof of it.
Good advice thanks guys. I'm not the most tech savvy kinda guy so even going to an actual shop and playing around with it won't help that much. If it looks like and laptop and feels like a laptop then I'll just think it's real. Might take a friend along who knows his sh*t. Was browsing taobao earlier and saw a couple laptops with good prices but wasn't too sure. Is there a winner in the laptop versus Mac debate or is it just preference? Mac's just seem so much better, more reliable etc...
Paulberger:
i use to be an avid mac user. i switched to PC a few years back. yea, macs are really cool, but i found i never used them to their full potential. i basically need a computer to surf the web, make a power point or two, and email. it really depends on why you want the computer. if you are into movie editing, picture editing, and similar things, go for the mac. but if you are like me, PC is the way to go, plus it's a lot cheaper.
brother1818:
Thanks Paul, I hear what you're saying. Think I might be like you too. I've been living purely using an iPad for the last two years and get by pretty well on just that. But not having USB or CD functions is a pain in the butt.
Paulberger:
there is a chinese app for the ipad that turns it into a big usb stick basically. that way, when you plug it into a computer, you can save movies, pictures, files, etc on the ipad. its really useful. try it out. the name is 快用。
