eXtensions: Bangkok Tuesday Morning -- New Mac Retail Shop: Paragon Center

eXtensions

Bangkok Tuesday Morning: New Mac Retail shop, Paragon Center

By Graham K. Rogers

Bangkok is just starting to get back to normal after the Thai new year, otherwise known as Songkran, or the Water Wars. I shut the doors on Wednesday and emerged Monday morning. Tuesday was time for some business in town and on the way back I wandered into the Paragon Center, Siam, for a look at the new Mac shop that had opened on Monday.

For a moment as I arrived, I thought it was still shut: staff but no customers. I thought the happy workers were having a sales meeting, but it turned out they were gathered round one of the iMacs looking at the third part of The Matrix.

Walking in to the shop -- indeed the extent is conveyed from the outside with the vast area of clear glass -- I had the impression of plenty of space for customers to wander round in. The center area of the shop has several Macs (mainly notebooks and iMacs) up and running, and ready for customers to try.

Not long after I entered, a number of people did come in and start to look, although most were interested in the iPod area off to the right. As I was taking some notes, Khun Pornthep (who tells me - sadly for us who haunt Siam -- that he will be spending more time in the Thonglor shop) came out and we had a look round the shop together. He was kind enough to select the Windows boot up on a 2GHz, 20" iMac, and restarted it. The process took an impressive 60 seconds. It was kind of creepy seeing the blue skies and green hills of Redmond on a Mac for the first time in real life. I hope the shop leaves this on display to attract some passers-by.

The Mac minis with Intel chips have begun to come down and were offered for 26,900 (1.5GHz solo) and 34,900 baht (1.66GHz duo). These prices are still a bit high, methinks, with the dollar now down to under 38 baht. The difference for the 1.66GHz one is about $100 on US list price. Like all retailers in the Apple compass, the iBook 12", 1.33GHz is yours for 33,900 baht. We may look for a replacement for this range real soon now. Real soon. Maybe even tomorrow is the rumours are right.

The iMacs are better priced, I think at 56,900 for the 1.83 17" and 72,900 for the 2GHz 20". Both have an adequate 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth and Airport, plus Superdrive (burn your own DVDs). The former has a 169G hard disk and the latter 250G.

As well as the computers -- there are some Power Mac G5s on display off to the right of the shop too -- and the iPods, the left side of the shop is displaying a good range of accessories, although there is room for more.

This will make a good change from the usual sales areas of Apple shops in Bangkok where the customers have to fight for space. Among the goods I noticed the Creature Speakers, similar to those I have had for a couple of years now. They are on sale here in red, black and white and the price is now 4,990 baht. They were 5,500 when I bought them in September 2003.

The shop is on floor five of the Paragon Center and is right next door to the Paragon Mall's own displays of computers, including Macs. Prices there are shown with VAT (7%) included. There are also more Macs and iPods inside the Mall in the electrical goods section.

For further information, e-mail to Graham K. Rogers.

To eXtensions, Year One

To eXtensions: 2004-05

To eXtensions, Year Two

To eXtensions, Book Reviews

To Education Page

To Motorcycles Page

Back to homepage