Buying Overseas - Hong Kong - Japan

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Dear Members,

I am a new Mac user, or actually a wanna-be user at this point. I will make a trip to Hong Kong and Japan this coming september, and I want to buy 2 MacBooks. One for my wife, and one for me. As my wife is Japanese, we would prefer to get hers in Japan, and mine in Hong Kong.

Reason being is that its 20-30% cheaper than where we live currently, Hungary.

My wife would like to keep using Japanese as her input-language, and for me all I need is a decent English US preferably input.

My questions are the following. If I buy a Mac overseas, will the warranty reach to Hungary? We do have Mac locally here, just the prices are high.

As I have never had/used a Mac, dont know what to expect OS wise. Is it like WIndows, which comes in a local language everywhere? I would prefer not to get a Chinese version in HK, as I dont read/speak Chinese. Will I find one with English in HK? If not, can I reinstall the English version? How is Japan? Will it be Japanese? All my wife needs in Japanese input, OS is okay in English, but if its Japanese, no big deal.

How is the power adapter? Can I just change the cable part like I am doing now, and keep the adapter? I assume it works on 100-240V range as well as regular PCs.

This is it for a starter, I am really looking forward to the change. I have currently a Vaio TR3/SP Japanese version, and the MacBook is very similar in style. I use the Vaio with Linux, so I guess the change for me will not be as shocking as for my Windows user wife :)

Thanks for all responses,

Ben
 
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Hi

Well, I am trying to find this out now. I have never seen a Mac from Hong Kong or Japan.

Ben
 
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Hi

I now found out that the Hong Kong version comes with english OS X and english Keyboard.

How is the Japanese version? What language is the OS and the keyboard?

Thanks

Ben
 
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Hi

I now found out that the Hong Kong version comes with english OS X and english Keyboard.

How is the Japanese version? What language is the OS and the keyboard?

Thanks

Ben

What language do you think the Japanese version is in? ;D
 
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Can't you select the language when you first start it up? But anyways, if I remember correctly the Japanese Macbook has the english alphabet, with Hiragana in the top right corner of the keys.
 
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Can't you select the language when you first start it up? But anyways, if I remember correctly the Japanese Macbook has the english alphabet, with Hiragana in the top right corner of the keys.

My sister used one when she studied abroad and it was the exact opposite, with the English in the top right corner of the keys. It was a first generation Macbook, though, it might have changed since then.
 
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Hi

Thanks all, so many replies in so little time.

I have never seen or touched a macbook, thus the silly question, sorry. Please enlighten me how this whole thing works when you purchase a MacBook.

I dont speak either chinese nor Japanese, but would like to see English on both MacBooks. When I first power it, it will ask me what language I want it to have? I only know so far Windows and Linux, and which those, you have one language, or reinstall to have another one. I mean the menus, etc.

Of course Linux will allow you to install it on any language as long as you follow the install from Step #1 even before HDD partitioning, etc.

Thanks for your help, and again, please bare with me as I am a complete newbie.

Ben
 
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Another few questions came to my mind,

I would like to have it with 2GB RAM, but I wouldnt like to fork out the extra cash for it to Apple, as the price is pretty steep. There are no issues with getting some quality RAM from a local supplier and replacing the 2 512MB modules with 2 1GB modules, right? Based on this article it seems to be a no-hassle process:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303721

Another thing, will the basic warranty be global? I will bring both macbooks to Hungary, and shall they have problems, I wouldnt like to travel all the way back to the Far East for repairs.

Is the 3year extension worthed?

Thanks

Ben
 
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Hi

Thanks all, so many replies in so little time.

I have never seen or touched a macbook, thus the silly question, sorry. Please enlighten me how this whole thing works when you purchase a MacBook.

I dont speak either chinese nor Japanese, but would like to see English on both MacBooks. When I first power it, it will ask me what language I want it to have? I only know so far Windows and Linux, and which those, you have one language, or reinstall to have another one. I mean the menus, etc.

Of course Linux will allow you to install it on any language as long as you follow the install from Step #1 even before HDD partitioning, etc.

Thanks for your help, and again, please bare with me as I am a complete newbie.

Ben

Oops, what I was referring to when I said "first start up" was the very first time you start it up. I believe that it's much the same as Windows, where you only select the language when you install a fresh copy of OSX. I'm not sure if it's possible to switch languages for different users on the same Mac, but if you'd like to see English on both, then there might be a solution..

On my Macbook, the main language is English, but Apple does have a special Input program that you can keep in your Menubar that will allow you to type characters of a different language. For example, I can turn my "Hiragana Input" on in my menubar, and if I key in "arigatou" it will type "あっりがとう". This happens until you turn English on again, which is just as easy. I'm not sure if this is different than a traditional Japanese keyboard; you may want to ask your wife.

I hope that helps. Maybe someone else can answer whether or not you can set up different languages on different user accounts.
 
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Oops, what I was referring to when I said "first start up" was the very first time you start it up. I believe that it's much the same as Windows, where you only select the language when you install a fresh copy of OSX. I'm not sure if it's possible to switch languages for different users on the same Mac, but if you'd like to see English on both, then there might be a solution..

On my Macbook, the main language is English, but Apple does have a special Input program that you can keep in your Menubar that will allow you to type characters of a different language. For example, I can turn my "Hiragana Input" on in my menubar, and if I key in "arigatou" it will type "あっりがとう". This happens until you turn English on again, which is just as easy. I'm not sure if this is different than a traditional Japanese keyboard; you may want to ask your wife.

I hope that helps. Maybe someone else can answer whether or not you can set up different languages on different user accounts.

Hi, Yes I understood what you meant. I mean the same, with Windows, unless you burn yourself an IMAGE with mulit-languages, there is no way to select languages. An XP CD is English, Japanese, CHinese, Hungarian, etc by nature. There is no way to squeeze out another language from a CD. Of course the keyboard layout you can set freely, but the menus you cannot.

And this is what I worry about, if my wife gets the Japanese one with Japanese OS, I may not be able to assist her as much as I would if it was in English. Although its still less of a worry than for me getting a Chinese OS, then we both (wife and me) would be out of luck :)

So steering back to the original questions then, will the Japanese MacBook come with Japanese OS X? The one on the photo above seemed to be in English.

Keyboards dont really matter, they seem to be fine, just like on any PC, with some Roman letter on the keys even if there are Japanese, or Chinese ones as well.

Thanks

Ben

p.s. I would not like to set up different languages for different users. Sorry if my post was confusing.
 
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Hi, Yes I understood what you meant. I mean the same, with Windows, unless you burn yourself an IMAGE with mulit-languages, there is no way to select languages. An XP CD is English, Japanese, CHinese, Hungarian, etc by nature. There is no way to squeeze out another language from a CD. Of course the keyboard layout you can set freely, but the menus you cannot.

And this is what I worry about, if my wife gets the Japanese one with Japanese OS, I may not be able to assist her as much as I would if it was in English. Although its still less of a worry than for me getting a Chinese OS, then we both (wife and me) would be out of luck :)

So steering back to the original questions then, will the Japanese MacBook come with Japanese OS X? The one on the photo above seemed to be in English.

Keyboards dont really matter, they seem to be fine, just like on any PC, with some Roman letter on the keys even if there are Japanese, or Chinese ones as well.

Thanks

Ben

p.s. I would not like to set up different languages for different users. Sorry if my post was confusing.

Yeah, sorry. I guess I never really answered your question. My mind was a little off yesterday morning as I was being held on the phone a hours trying to register for a college course only to find out that I couldn't.

Anyways, seeing as that picture has an English interface and taking into account that you can't really buy OSX (only upgrades). I think it's fairly safe to assume that there is no English/Japanese versions?

Giving a quick call or email to apple wouldn't hurt though, I'm sure they would be more than happy to answer a quick question like that. They'll also have a certain answer for your adapter question.

I guess that's not really much help either, but that's the best answer I can give you since I've never bought any computer overseas.

PS. I have a friend of mine currently traveling in a Japan, so I sent him a quick message, though I'm not sure how responsive he'll be as he's on vacation.
 
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Hi

Thanks for your asnwers again, its all appreciated. Sorry to hear about your college course troubles.

I found this site explaining about the Max OS X keyboard layouts softwarewise:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/keyboards/mackey.html#available

Basically its very similar to Debian or Ubuntu Linux which I am used to, very easy to install a keyboard layout, and easy to switch back and forth.

As for the OS language, I found a hint here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106478

From the text "The Mac OS X Login Window uses the language that was selected during installation."

This suggests there is an option to choose from a language upon initial installation.

Hope this is valid, no further info I could find,

Cheers

Ben
 
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From what I know (someone correct me if I'm wrong):

Mac OS X does not come in different language versions, like Windows does.

There is only one version of Mac OS X, and it supports the following languages:

* Brazilian Portuguese
* Chinese (Traditional & Simplified)
* Danish
* Dutch
* English UK
* English Canada
* English US
* Finnish
* French
* French (Canada)
* German
* Icelandic
* Italian
* Japanese
* Korean
* Norwegian
* Russian
* Spanish
* Swedish
* Turkish


Let's say you're logged in a user account in OS X.
Go to System Preferences, then to the International section, and you'll see a list of languages.

You can drag a language up or down the list.
This way, you can set the preferred order of the languages in which you want the OS and application, if available, to be displayed for that user account.

Let me clarify:
The one at the top of this list will the one in which the OS will be displayed.
This will also apply to applications.
All the apps that are made by Apple (Finder, Safari, iTunes, etc.) come in all the languages.
However, not all 3rd-party apps support all the languages listed above that Mac OS X supports.
For 3rd-party apps, it'll depend on whether the language selected is available/supported in that app.

And remember that this is a per-user account setting.
(meaning yes, one user account can have English, and another, Japanese)


As previously mentioned,
when you first open a new Mac, it'll ask you to select a language.

I believe this shouldn't be permanent.

As I've just said, you can easily change the language inside a user account.

The only concern is the login window, of which the language is set the 1st time you open the Mac,
but that Apple article you've found seems to indicate the language of the login window can also be changed, with some effort.

[[[ edit:

Oh wait, seems like that article is a bit outdated.

Read this:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302418

]]]




But since you can choose the language when you first open the Mac,
just make sure you choose English, so you won't have to bother with any of this. ;p





[Addendum 1]

Here's what that the International section of System Preferences looks like:

mac_os_x_international.png


For example, I have English at the top right now.
I can easily drag French to the top of the list.
Now, if I open an app, it'll be in French (if that app supports it of course).
If an app is already open, then it'll still be in English. If I quit it and re-open in, then it'll be in French.
If I log out and log back in, the Finder (desktop and folders) will be in French as well.


[Addendum 2]

Apple article: Changing the language shown in menus and dialogs

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh163.html
 
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Dear Remain,

I believe you just answered the most important questions I was asking, and I couldnt be happier with the results. This means I can go ahead and purchase the MacBook from every country of the world, and still be able to have my English OS. This is outstanding. Thank you very much for your input, greatly appreciated.

One last questions I have, regarding the adapter of the MacBook, and it should be trivial to answer for one who has one.

The Voltage is from 100-240V correct? Meaning it can be used everywhere.

Lets say I dont want to use a wall adapter for charging the laptop, but replace the power cable which connects the wall outlet and the AC adapter of the laptop. There are several kinds of these cords available on the market, one that is for desktop PCs, the bulky one; one that has two holes, and if you look at it from the front, it looks like a number 8; and there is another one with 3 holes, that makes a triangle. These are the connections that plug into the AC adapter.
Which one Apple uses? Or is it another one? And equally importantly what is the colour of this cord?

Thanks a lot

Ben
 
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Hi

I have gone to the Mac shop in Hungary, even though I am not going to purchase here, but wanted to check out the Macbooks, and to find answers to my questions.

So OS X, as above already discussed can be installed in several languages, upon first start. Even after having configured the system, one can change the language easily, also mentioned above in this thread, but I also confirmed it personally at the store.

The only one remaining question I had regarding the Power Adapter is also answered since I went to the store. The MacBook has a White cord that terminates in an Adapter, which plugs to the wall directly. This is different than most non-apple laptops, as usually there is a cord that terminates in an adapter that requires a cable which will eventually be plugged to the wall. So its "kind-of" a 3 piece deal, the cord between the adapter and the laptop, the adapter (these 2 are usually joined permanently), and the cord between the adapter and the wall. The MacBooks adapter will plug to the wall directly (no cord between adapter and wall), and it has a removable piece that actually has the wall-plugs, so one can change it easily when traveling. Its kind of like a cigarette box size-wise, and in one end, there is the piece which is interchangeable. I also found out, that if you take that small piece with the wall-plug off the adapter, you can then connect a "generic" power cable that looks like an "8" at the joint-point.

Thats all I was looking for, hope this will help others not yet seen a MacBook imagine things more easily,

Cheers, thanks for all the valuable inputs,

Ben
 
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Glad to have helped.


Hope the MacBooks will work out for ya. ;p
 
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Hi

Just to finish this thread off, I have purchased my Mac in Hong Kong, and had no problem with the keyboard nor the OS. Its the regular American keyboard, and as above mentioned, the OS install gave me the choice of what language to install it in.

All works great, I am already a Mac lover, thanks for helping,

Ben
 

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