I've just brought two
Sony Vaio PCG-GRX316MP - one for me, the other for our comany Finance Director.
They're a bit of beast of a laptop (really more a desktop replacement unit) and came complete with WinXP-Pro, 16.1" UXGA TFT (now that's big !) running at 1600x1200, 1.6GHz Pentium IV Mobile, 30Gb HDD, internal V.90 Modem, internal 10/100 ethernet card, 256Mb RAM, combined DVD & CDRW, 3xUSB slots, 2xPCMCIA slots, 1xFireWire slot, 1xMemoryStick port, plus built-in audio, etc...
Now the (VAT inclusive) Sony RRP for the unit is £1999, but we paid £1701.
So, I hear you say, "Uhm, how come Crashy managed to get each one for £298 less than RRP ? That's a 17.5% price reduction !"…….. (ah, there's a clue there somewhere)
Well, all you do is go into the Dixon's branch at your local airport ( Nb. You can call them first to confirm that they'll have what you want, and / or to order it in for you. E.g. see:
http://www.baa.co.uk click on an airport, then click on 'Shopping & Eating', then click away until you get to 'Shops after' )
You then turn up for a flight with a ticket / boarding pass and make the purchase. You don't even have to take the unit with you there and then, if you don't want to - they'll deliver it to wherever you tell them.
The way it works is that the airport shops are keen to have you believe that the shopping that you're doing is still duty (VAT) free ( not true - as you'll see in a minute ) and as such they're marking prices down to make it look like this is the case.
But the best bit is that, whilst you appear to be making a duty(VAT)-free purchase, what they actually give you is a receipt that's complete with a VAT number and the full VAT amount printed on it.
So, and if you're VAT registered, your company can recoup the VAT that you've paid - assuming of course that your purchase is actually a company asset (which in my case it is).
Accordingly the true cost of each unit to my company was a mere £1448 - which imho makes it a real bargain for a serious bit of kit - and so puts a happy smile on both mine and my FD's face !
Ps. The Sony Vaio FX series are also very nice and come in at a few hundred £'s less then the GR series - indeed I believe only a few days ago another of our Directors purchased a FX604 (using the above mechanism) - although my preference is always to have a screen that will support a resolution of at least 1280 x 1024.