How a fire and the "rape tax" convinced me to get a Mac

South Korea is not a Mac-friendly country. Most people who know anything about this country will tell you that. 99% of the country uses Microsoft Windows, and 99% of those people use Internet Explorer. I already knew that when I came here, so I wasn't surprised to find that almost everything computer-related for sale in Seoul is designed for PCs.

Therefore, it is with great irony that earlier today, I bought a new MacBook here in Seoul.

Why get a new computer? Well, there were a few reasons why. My HP Pavilion laptop has had its share of problems in the past, and it has been showing signs of wiring problems since September. For example, the monitor would blink and you would hear a high pitched noise every time it did. The batteries and adapter were both dying -- it wouldn't charge more than 25% to 35%, and even before this started happening, the batteries had a tendency to consume a lot of power sometimes and little power at other times; in other words, battery consumption was unpredictable.

And yesterday, the monitor blacked out. Yet, it wasn't completely black -- I could still see the windows on the screen and everything, but it was just blacked out. And every time it happened, I would smell something similar to burning, and the smell would be coming from the fan. That was quite scary. Fixing all of these problems would likely cost more than the laptop itself.

Coming home from work today, I was surprised to find that my usual view of Namsan from my shortcut was obscured by a HUGE fire. It was a clear day, but the smoke covered the whole view of Namsan. A firefighting helicopter had to come in to drop fire retardant on the area, like in a forest fighter. The fire probably destroyed at least 3 or 4 buildings. After the burning smell from my laptop, seeing the fire freaked me out a little, and convinced me that it might be a good time to get a new laptop. I already said that my next laptop would be a Mac, so it was a no-brainer.

I saw a good price at a Seoul electronics market called TechnoMart the other day. The price was identical to Future Shop back in Canada. However, TechnoMart was cheaper because of the incoming HST sales tax in British Columbia this summer -- or, as I like to call it, the "rape tax," because it feels like the government is raping us for money. And it appears like the tax rate is increasing even more very soon. Partially thanks to the rape tax, I was convinced to buy a Mac in South Korea -- one of the most Mac-unfriendly places in the world.

With the rape tax in mind, it was already cheaper. But Seoul's electronics dealers usually give you a deal if you say that you want to pay in cash, so I got it reduced by another 100,000 KRW ($100 Canadian) -- and it was already cheaper than Canada!

This was surprising because it seems that Apple products tend to be more expensive in South Korea, generally speaking. It's rare to see a Mac in use over here, but there is an increasing number of Apple specialty dealers. The dealer I bought my MacBook from basically said that South Korean technology is changing quickly in favor of Apple products (especially after the iPhone's debut this past winter), and a lot of Apple dealers are trying to get ahead of the competition.