Lei Lui asks:

he
trustworthy B&H and Adorama in New York City have been holding the
same price ($1499) since the 10D first hit the market. Dell.com and
Circuit city also have this price. There was one occasion Circuit city
offered a 10% coupon for the 10D, but it was just enough to offset the
sale tax. On the other hand, some online stores, such as BuyDig.com
and ElectricSam have 10D for around $1150, brand new, US warranty and
such. These stores seem to be quite credeble. I saw them in the
PhotoExpo in NYC and they seem to have very high customer satisfaction
ratings. Since these stores may not charge sale tax, depending on
where the camera is shipped, and they only charge a small shipping fee
($12), the final out-of-pocket cost can be $500 lower than buying from
stores like B&H or Circuit City. Is this just because the online
stores have a very low overhead, or because they ship different
things? I remember a while ago there were two versions of EOS Elan 2E,
one was made in Japan and the other was made in Malaysia or somewhere
about. The price difference was $70-$90 for the $200-$300 body. Will
someone enlighten me on this issue? I am perfectly comfortable making
purchase online, but I want to make sure that I receive the real
thing, and with all the goodies in the retail box.

I bought my Minolta 7i from BuyDig about 2 years ago. Perfectly satisfactory
transaction at about $90 less than I could have gotten it elsewhere. I just
bought a Pentax *ist (hate that name) from Dell. Excellent transaction, but a
sale and rebate put their price down near that of the cheaper stores (cheaper
reliable stores, that is).

Simplest thing: make sure that you're not getting gray market goods without a
U.S. warranty (B&H sells gray market, but is established enough to offer its
own warranty, so that's a point to check--I don't think [though I'm not sure]
that the 10d is in great enough supply even now to be heavily gray marketed).




Charlie Self
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or
not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." Ernest Benn