Quote:
Originally Posted by nairbv
@natch: I was referring to the fact that the iliad and the hanlin cost $100 more if purchased within China. I don't know much about the iliad but wrt the hanlin, it's *made* in China, and regardless of if I'm buying from inside or outside of China, I'd be ordering directly from the tianjin based company which would be shipping it to me. When I tell them I'm located *in* China the price goes up a hundred bucks, and they can't give me any kind of explination besides that it's their "product policy." I can understand an "early adoption premium," I know these things are expensive, but the deal with the hanlin just seems like an idiot tax.
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I was browsing a chinese forum via Google Translate, & came across something that might explain the reason for the price differential.
This is GUESSWORK - I'm not too confident in the machine translation, but in China, when you buy a Hanlin eBook reader, you get access to several free books via their internal network. (I think around 10,000?)
Now - the catch is that they're not really free
You're paying for them in the increased price of the eBook reader
Since western customers can't get access to these ebooks - well....