Korean Job Discussion Forums

[eamo]

I spent a fruitless afternoon at Yongsan on Saturday trying to buy 3 items which were listed on Danawa but not in stock at any store in Sun-in Plaza.

An 8800GT graphics card.....Okay, it's new. I know. But it has been available in the States (and elsewhere) for 3 weeks now. Not one store in Sun-in Plaza had one. The stores I asked all phoned around, but, no. Not a one.

An Intel E6750 CPU. Great chip at a great price. Listed in Danawa for 180,000 on many Yongsan stores. Again, after much phoning around, nothing.

Here's the killer.......A Seagate 500GB SATA HDD....this hard drive is the vanilla HDD at the moment. It's the industry standard. Millions of these are sold around the world. It was released months and months ago.........to my shock and horror, non-existent in Yongsan. I suspect a few stores somewhere had them, but when I asked 3 stores who all had a big selection of HDD's, not a one.


What's going on here? It seemed like every store had either obsolete stuff or low-range new-ish stuff. Nothing there was cutting edge or even near it. I left Yongsan with a pathetic can of compressed air!! That was the only thing I wanted which was in stock!!!

I'll be ordering online in future rather than wearing out shoe-leather in vain.

[spliff]

[The Lemon]

Ordering online is indeed the quickest, but if you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO have the thing that day, you might try visiting the real-live offices of the site that's the listing the piece on Danawa or Omi. I've done this before with some success - sometimes the online site is tied to a real Yongsan shop, or is working out of a tiny Yongsan office. It takes some running around to find the correct address/building, but it can be done.

For the things you're talking about, did you try Sunin Plaza?

[eamo]

[bassexpander]

I think we're also on the edge of getting the ultra-fast flash-based hard drives, right? When those puppies hit, they probably don't want to have to much of anything that's not flash-based.

Imagine your windows loading up in a few seconds vs. what you currently load at.

Not sure how far off we are yet, but I know they're supposed to come soon.

[sojourner1]

I had various problems like this in the states when trying to buy upgrade and replacement computer parts retail. I still never did get a fan I needed to make a non-Korean laptop right as it's not available in Korea, but could be sent via international delivery. I use a house fan under the laptop instead since it's old after making trips to Pusan and Seoul to talk to many technician/sales people with no luck. eBay and mail order are the way to go if you really want that part as retailers are just not willing to take the financial risk of having inventory that decreases in value as only mere days pass. When I need parts or want parts, I want them NOW just like you, not 2 to 4 weeks from now which is why I would make shopping trips and talk to numerous people who only sold new systems or a severely limited selection of mediocre parts. As many of you know, it's doable to build a desktop system in some Korean electronics markets, but high end parts may still yet be very limited or non-existent. For the average PC end user like myself, I think I could do fine in Korea's PC building markets, but I am laptop man. If you want to buy a whole new high end system, then retail is the way to go, but it costs the big Won. Otherwise, mail order is your option for anything not found in limited retail stores.

It's like that just about anywhere you go. It's all on eBay and other websites, but not in stores unless buying a whole new computer already put together with a brand name on it such as Toshiba, HP, and many others.

[kprrok]

I won't be doing any of my buying for new stuff at Yongsan. I'll be ordering from TigerDirect or online here if it's cheaper.

I can see the 8800GT being hard to find, but the E6750 and 500GB HDD? Those are probably two of the biggest selling components in their areas right now! It's insane not to have any!

I'm going down on Sunday to try to pick up some blank DVDs and a new DVD writer. My 2.5 year old DVD-RW has finally given up I think. It took almost 15 minutes to burn 1.5GBs to a DVD this past week. Plus I can't use the drive if my wife is logged on and I just do a quick swap! Luckily, since it only has to last 5 months before I build my rig and this becomes my wife's PC, I'm going with a cheapo LG or Samsung that should be everywhere!

KPRROK

[itaewonguy]

we bought our 500GB seagates in sunyplaza..
cheap as too.. was something like 120.000 plus case if I remember this was over the summer..
dude if its not on enuri its not in yongsan

and yeah my days of going to yongsan to buy gear are pretty much done
I just go there when im bored and feel like looking around..
best deals are online..

[samd]

I also bought a 500GB SATA HDD from Seagate there a couple of months ago.

Strange that they didn't have any this weekend.

How much cheaper is Danawa? The novelty having worn off going to Yongsan, I also wouldn't mind trying those guys out.

[Giant]

Well, as far as HD's go, I've never had a problem getting 500GB drives at Yongsan.

[SuperHero]

Yeah I got a 500gb SATA drive in the spring no problem.

[eamo]

I've no doubt the Seagate 500GB drive was there somewhere but I did ask three stores which had lots of HDD's on display but not the one I wanted.......

..........Anyway, I went on Enuri and Gmarket last night and got all the items I wanted (except 8800GT. Still not released in Korea) for the same price listed on danawa, 2 day delivery and payment over 3 months. I don't see the point of trudging around Yongsan unless you enjoy that kind of browsing/shopping thing.

[Thunndarr]

[eamo]

[Giant]

Dayum!! Now thats an arrangment!!!