Just received my Surface Pro

[Ashles]

It's had a long journey to my home in UK.

All I can say is wow...

 

[Afy]

Did you have to pay customs duty? If so how much?

 

[Ashles]

Did you have to pay customs duty? If so how much?

I did - arranged it all through Bundlebox. I'll check how much (think it was approx £80)

 

[bosamar]

Where did you purchase it from?

 

[Afy]

My guess would be MS Store.

 

[Ashles]

Yes, MS Store. Have been playing all day. I can't understand any negative comments about this. It's so fast, the screen is amazing and it plays with all my old hardware without a hitch. And the battery has been lasting fine - on lowish (but perfectly fine) brightness working in Office it was offering six hours on battery. I have also tried it with an external DVD drive and it had surprisingly little impact on battery.
Only single surprise - it does get a bit warmer than I expected on the back, but that's no real issue.
Import fees worked out at approx. £130 in the end. Still think the total will work out cheaper than when it becomes available in the UK. But best of all I have it in time for my business trip on Saturday. Perfect timing (and Bundlebox really are superb).

 

[Afy]

Ah well I guess I am going to follow your lead and order one from the MS store when it becomes available.
But am torn between this, the Lenovo Yoga and the Sony Vaio Duo. Lets see...

 

[souldier]

Afy it totally depends on your needs. My advice is to not buy based on emotion/impulse but to think of which device would suit your needs the best. The Surface Pro is definitely the more portable of the 2

 

[vook]

Ah well I guess I am going to follow your lead and order one from the MS store when it becomes available.
But am torn between this, the Lenovo Yoga and the Sony Vaio Duo. Lets see...

The new yoga was delayed (til april i think?) but I think it is clearly the best of these tablets by far, also like $500 more of course. The Vaio Duo has poor reviews and is kind of ugly. Also it has a built-in VGA port... which, yuck, makes it seem horribly dated even though it is still almost brand new.

 

[Afy]

I saw the Yoga 13 at John Lewis a few days ago. The model they had only had a 64 GB HDD and 4 GB of RAM. If they had the 8 GB/256 GB I would have bought it on the spot.
With the Surface I like the pen functionality, ditto for the Sony. Witht he latter it is hard to argue the 14 hours with the battery backpack.
Personally I believe the Sony has gotten a bad rap, aka the Surface. It isnt a bad machine.

 

[CargoMatatu]

@Ashles,
How long did the process take from initial order to receiving the package?
Also, who or what is Bundlebox?

 

[Ashles]

@Ashles,
How long did the process take from initial order to receiving the package?
Also, who or what is Bundlebox?

Bundlebox is a service that provides people outside the US with a US mailing address so products only available in the US can be purchased. They give you a personal US address which the package is delivered to, then they forward the package on for you and arrange for import taxes to be paid.

I ordered from the US MS store first thing on Sat Morning, the Surface Pro reached the Bundlebox address on Tuesday. They emailed me within an hour of receipt so I could confirm the contents and pay for the forwarding delivery and import duties. They then sent the package that same day and I received it on Thursday morning at my home in the UK (and you can track the progress of the package throughout the journey).
It's a really excellent service.