Job Discussion Forums

[jpendon]

My fiancee, who is coming to Japan with me, needs to bring his PC with him, for work.

He needs to bring the tower (mid-size), a 24" monitor, a 22" monitor, a 9"x12" graphics tablet, a keyboard, and all the necessary cords.

What is the best (and cheapest) way to safely get the PC to Japan? Ship it from Canada to Japan? Take it with us on our flight?

Thanks!

[G Cthulhu]

[seklarwia]

I just bought a monitor of a similar size. It wasn't cheap. If you bring over only the hardrives, buying all the hardware might set you back a pretty penny. Maybe you should try and get a rough idea on how much buying replacement hardware will cost from amazon.co.jp, then compare that with airline excess costs and shipping costs, then decide that way.

Also, you most probably won't be allowed to take that all on as hand luggage. Do you trust it to go into the hold and come out intact?

[wayne432]

Back everything up to dvds and buy a new comp in japan

[jpendon]

Thanks for the advice!

After looking at amazon.co.jp, my fiancee says that buying a new PC would be too expensive (over $2000 CDN), compared to getting it shipped from Canada.

I think we'll end up getting it shipped. We will try calling our airline to see if they have any special handling services for computers, but we're not counting on that.

Thanks again!

[jdubb]

Backing up everything to an external hard drive might also be an option.

[passport220]

It is really just a math question of your overall baggage weight to figure out if you should pay the airline excess baggage fees or ship 3rd party. I usually just load all the heavy stuff that I can into my carry on bags.

You might look at bringing all of the computer stuff except the monitor. Monitors are heavy and bulky. You can buy a good quality second hand monitor fairly cheap once you arrive in Japan.

[wayne432]

[passport220]

[seklarwia]

It can, but in general it doesn't. It will be safer being shipped.