New Laptops From Taiwan

Just came back from Taipei and wanted to give y'all some info. Have not been back to this forum in a while.

I got myself an A6Va a while back and the poor thing miserably crashed. Apparently for a well known motherboard reason exposed in a taiwanese forum. Sent it for repair through worlwide warranty to the bay area and got it back in less than a week with a new motherboard. Guess what... This board now has a dip switch for the FSB just like the Z71V. The switch were set to 400MHz but it did not take me long to figure out how to get it back to 533. This laptop was an amzing deal for US $1250

Now back to Taiwan:
I just got myself a W3V. Once again amazing price there. For US $1225 I got the PM 740 with 1gig of DDR2. The only difference with the US spec is the HD which is a Fujitsu 4200rpm. All in all, I like the design of the W3V but the A6Va had the X700 128mb and a 1.3mp webcam... The W3V has the size, the nicer look and Bluetooth. The weight is very close which surprised me. 5.4lbs for the W3V Vs 6lbs for the the 15.4" A6Va.

I saw the M9V there. Amazing little machine. It is a W3V but with a 4:3 screen and a webcam. It is also much lighter (4.2lbs) but only a 6 cell battery.
This guy was going for US $1350. They were out of stock. All laptops were having a 1gig memory promotion and the M9 and a bunch of stuff extra for the promo (MP3 player...)

I also saw the W6V which I had read a little bit about. Well it is a 13" widescreen version of the V6V. It uses integrated graphics and is based on a slim design. The DVD drive is a 2X and is therefore pretty unique. Did not have time to play around to see if it heats up like the V6V. This puppy was going for a premium: US $1600

Anyways. that was a cool trip... Amazing price difference isn't it?

I was in Taipei. Guanghua market is a bargaining place. I did not even need to go there. Just went to a Nova. No need to bargain. I am sure there are lots of them in Kaoshiung. I would avoid the 3C stores though as they never have the latest and greatest and are a little out of date in pricing.
The keyboard is not really a problem. It is a reguslar US keyboard with the addition of the chinese phonetics. It will not impair you.
The only funky thing I found is that my A6Va I bought 3 months ago has maintained its price (actually dropped by 30 bucks) while the W3V has dropped 300 bucks... It used to be 1500 if you read some of my earlier posts.
Don't know why the A6Va is not being imported.