while everyone in South Korea wants a MacBook Air even though widely incompatible for business and banking
while Asus and SamSung luring out look-alike thing models at considerable expensive price for their brand
laptop or notebook manufacturers and vendors alike are instigating all sorts of tactics to sell theirs in the age of iPad and whatever tabs .

and while supermarts have tried unprecedented sales such as W5000 fried chicken, which soon were shut down due to upheavals from independent fried chicken outlets, especially smaller ones siting the sale will run them out of business ..
their electronics department also does flash lucrative sales now-and-then .

I have always advised the best place for foreign residents of expatriates to buy a laptop or notebook is at your closest supermart such as eMart, HomePlus or Lotte Mart

  1. because of their many branches throughout the Korean Penninsula where you can get the feel of the portable machine,
  2. double product support provided by them the vendor and its original manufacturer,
  3. and affordable prices compared to their department stores run by the same conglomerate affiliate .

 

(Korea Tech BLog’s own Korean SuperMarts FAQ)
[Q] What is the Difference between eMart, HomePlus and Lotte Mart ?

[A] first they are the 3 largest supermart chain in South Korea operated by conglomerate “groups”
while the earlier two compete as main-frame supermarts the latter seem to put more priority on their more expensive department stores .

eMart may been seen as more supermarket while HomePlus has their own line of apparels .

 

IBM laptops in ThinkPad line were much popular with mobile businessmen with its sleek black look during the latter half of 90’s mounting to the Millennium . Chinese Lenovo as long-time player on the laptop market although a notch below IBM acquired them in 2005 and has continued its line since .

although Lenovo is no where popular a decade Post-Millennium as Apple nor SamSung here is one bargain in terms of price and power as portable machine goes in South Korea . this sale advertised on the front page of current eMart leaflet has been sold-out yesterday but seems to have been put back on track today :

 

Vendor : eMart
Sale Price : W699,000
for your reference the next cheapest On-Line Shopping Malls sells from W894,410 as of February 21st
Sale Date : February 17 ~ 29th 2012

On-Line Sale limited to first 200 buyers
with free delivery commencing March 2nd with in-Store Sale unconfirmed,
Actual Product Link may change depending upon a Branch near You

Model : Lenovo Z570-59321610
CPU :  i5-2450M (2.5GHz TourboBoost 3.1GHz)
Memory : 4G
Hard Disk : 500G
Graphics : GT630M with 2G Memory
Optical Drive : Super Multi
Operating System : Korean Windows 7

( Specifications )
Core i5-2450M (Dual, 2..5GHz), TurboBoost 3.1GHz, SandyBridge,
15.6″ Screen 1366 x 768 pixels, 16:9 ratio
4G RAM, 500GB HDD, DVD Multi,
GeForce GT630M Graphics,
WireLess N, BlueTooth 2.1,
USB 2.0 3 slots, HDMI, eSATA,
6 Cell Battery, Windows 7 Home 64bit
Violet Color, 3.4cm thick, 3128cc volume, 2.6kg weight

over-all it is powerful enough to run the latest except the most extensive 3-D games
still neither ultra-thin nor light-weight
but is the best bang(power)-for-the-buck deal especially with one year Global Warranty

– Korea Tech BLog, February 21st 2012 –