WARNING: Grey import iPAQs

DavidW · Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2004 4:06 pm Post subject: WARNING: Grey import iPAQs

In a recent post in this forum, I mentioned my experiences of buying a new iPAQ hx4700 that turned out intended for sale in Malaysia rather than the UK. Fortunately, I realised this within a couple of hours of opening the box before opening the software pack or installing any of my software on it. The supplier allowed me to return the iPAQ for a full refund.

Another poster to the same thread has bought an iPAQ h2210 from another supplier - the box was marked explicitly "Not for sale in Europe".

Whilst some Hewlett Packard products are the same worldwide, iPAQs are not. The issue goes further than just the power supply in the box - and that can be misleading anyway, as Malaysia apparently uses the same power plugs as we do in the UK.

If the iPAQ is a model with built in 802.11b "Wi-Fi", my experience is that a Malaysian machine has a US specification radio which works on channels 1-11 but not on channels 12 and 13 that are available in the UK and most of the rest of Europe.

A machine destined for the Far East will lack any iPAQ Choice points that are found as a voucher in the box of many iPAQ models if they're official UK stock. There was a voucher for four points in the box of my UK specification iPAQ hx4700.

Most importantly, you may have a shorter warranty or even no warranty if you buy a "grey import" machine. The HP warranty checker I first tried told me that the Malaysian hx4700 had a 1 year warranty, whereas the same checker said the UK hx4700 I replaced it with had a 2 year warranty. There is some confusion over this, but certainly you're safe if you have a UK specification machine.

Fortunately it's possible to tell what country version you have before opening the box. There should be no problems returning an unopened iPAQ if you find yourself with a "grey import". EU purchasers that are consumers and bought by mail or Internet order can invoke the Distance Selling Directive to return an unopened product.

If you look at the box, usually on the side opposite to the part you lift to open an iPAQ box, you should find a label. On that label, usually under the first bar code, is a HP part number, which should end #ABU for UK specification. #ARE is Malaysia.

On the top of the same label, there's a description of the machine. It should end UK for a UK specification machine (with older machines it may end GB - certainly this is the case for an old Compaq iPAQ h3970 box I checked). MAL is Malaysia.

For a further check, you can try this HP warranty checker. If you feed in the part number and serial number (which also appears on that label), it will tell you a country, which is apparently the country the product was supposedly destined for. This may not work for all iPAQs and it may not be the definitive HP warranty checker for the UK (which appears to be here and does not give country information).

If you are sold a "grey import" without being warned it's a grey import, I suggest you consider seriously returning the iPAQ and buying elsewhere. You may also wish to contact HP with details of the seller and description the iPAQ was sold to you under.

It cost me less than ten pounds more to get a UK specification iPAQ hx4700 which all the HP warranty checkers I could find agree has a two year warranty. The Malaysian machine only had a one year warranty according to the HP warranty checker that gives the country, though the second checker I mentioned says both machines have a two year warranty if I say, correctly, that I'm in the UK. The warranty document in the documentation pack of the Malaysian machine was not a worldwide one - it only mentioned Far Eastern countries.

Some accessories are also country specific - most notably the iPAQ Folding Keyboard (HP part number FA118A). A US version will have a US English keyboard layout, with the punctuation in different locations to a UK English keyboard. FA118A#ABA is US English, FA118A#ABU is UK English.

It appears that anything country specific should have a HP part number that finishes #ABU for the UK. With this keyboard, you must install an English (UK) driver if you have a UK English keyboard - otherwise the punctuation will be in the US layout!

The iPAQ Bluetooth Keyboard is only available in US English layout and I have heard it said that HP do not plan to produce this in other layouts. An HP part number that ends #AC3 appear to signify a HP product that is not country specific. To my knowledge. FA287A#AC3 is the only part number for the iPAQ Bluetooth Keyboard.

David

peat · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 01, 2004 Posts: 18

Yes, unfortunately today I received a HP 4700 and it is an ARE part number.
What makes this worse is a specifically emailed the company before ordering
to ask them about grey imports and I was told "no we only stock ABU models for the UK market"!!
Since the man mentioned the ABU bit I thought goodo he seems to know his stuff, I trust him! Big mistake that was.
I also checked in this forum and seen that everyone had said good things about this company so didnt think I had anything to worry about.

Ive emailed the company so I am expecting a major apology and this to be sorted extremely quickly.
I wont mention the company name at the moment as it could have been a geniune mistake but if this problem isnt sorted quickly then I will be onto every forum that is out there to warn people and I will report them to HP.

Ps. Can someone give me a name of a company that definately sell UK model HP hx4700's?
ta

norfolkmustard · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 07, 2004 Posts: 2

I would have said GlobalPositioningSystems.co.uk going by the comments on here, but I just received my hx4700 from them, and it's got #ARE all over it Evil or Very Mad

phoned them right away and was told it's nothing to worry about, same spec as UK model.

"To ensure that we are able to offer you, the customer, the most competitive pricing, we source our products from many different suppliers and distributors. Therefore, although most are, we cannot guarantee that all HP products will have a part number ending #ABU.

However, a worldwide warranty is provided for all HP products which we retail. This can be verified by going to http://h40133.www4.hp.com/wws/ and entering the appropriate information from your product. The results will show the unit's warranty start date and the type of warranty you are eligible to.

Retrieve, Repair, Return + Telephone assistance is the standard 1 year warranty on all new HP products which we retail.

Furthermore, all consumer electronic products we retail carry the CE mark which ensures that the product complies with the essential requirements of the relevant European health, safety and environmental protection legislations aswell as an assurance that the that the product may be legally placed on the market in an EC country.

Regards"

peat · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 01, 2004 Posts: 18

The company I got mine from (a different one to yours I should add) tried that line with me but I'm not having that.
According to everything I have read. Malaysian ipaqs will not connect to wireless networks in the UK as they are on different channels.
So in my book thats not the same spec as a UK model which obviously does work with wifi networks. As I will be using wifi nearly 100% of the time this is a pretty big problem.
My ipaq has already been returned and the company "said" they did have an #ABU in stock so they will replace with that. Why they didnt send that to me in the first place I still dont know.
I wait with baited breath to see what the postman brings in the next few days.

alan338 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 11, 2004 Posts: 3

Hi David,

Isn't this another case of Rip-off Britain?

As you said on your previous post in the thread titled 'Expansys - I received a Malaysian specification iPAQ hx4700', "The reason for 'grey imports' is simply money - if the vendors can get product from abroad more cheaply than they can get product from UK wholesalers, it means more profit for them."

Lets not forget that the Grey import market exists because the manufacturers have different pricing policies throughout the world.

Shouldn't we be 'hanging' HP rather than the retailers who are simply the messengers in this case?

How do HP justify selling what are essentially the same machines at around £50 dearer in the UK than Malaysia?

DavidW · Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:18 pm Post subject:

The 802.11b "Wi-Fi" difference is that the UK spec iPAQ hx4700 machines have radios that operate on channels 1-13, and the Malaysian spec iPAQ hx4700 machines have US spec radios that operate on channels 1-11, at least in my experience.

This means a Malaysian spec machine will not see a European Wi-Fi installation that operates on channels 12 or 13. A Malaysian spec machine should work correctly on a Wi-Fi installation that uses channels 1 to 11.

It is therefore incorrect to say that the Malaysian #ARE machines are the same specification as UK #ABU machines - at least when it comes to the iPAQ hx4700. As I said, Malaysian hx4700s do not have the four free iPAQ Choice points, either.

This is clearly a problem. Particularly with the iPAQ hx4700, I'm unclear who or what is responsible for all the Malaysian machines that are around. It may be the retailers deliberately importing them, but it may be that Malaysian machines are available from HP UK's wholesalers. I don't know and I'm not going to guess.

My comment that Alan quoted was based on my experience that you can get a UK specification machine for little more than a Malaysian specification one if you persevere.

So far as differential pricing goes, the offering does change slightly from country to country - UK specification machines have iPAQ Choice points, and all the HP warranty checkers agree that they have a two year warranty, which is not standard in many countries. However, it appears that the Malaysian machines may well have a two year warranty in the UK after all.

I think the only fair minded situation to say is that there is a situation where there are differences in the product and there must be some incentive for the retailers to supply Malaysian machines. That incentive may be financial, it may also be to do with supply and demand. I'm not in possession of all the information to judge why this situation has arisen, and I don't therefore feel able to "blame" anyone.

The only definitive statement on warranties can come from an authorised spokesman of Hewlett Packard UK, and as I'm not a Pocket GPS World Team member, I can't contact HP for such a statement on behalf of us all. I will suggest this to the team, but I can't promise we can do anything. Even if we try, HP may not be willing to give us a definitive statement anyway. If anyone does contact HP, I suggest that they get the name, job title, and either a direct line phone number, extension or email address of whoever they speak to - as well as asking whether what is said is an official statement on behalf of Hewlett Packard.

I am always very careful not to assume too much when it comes to warranties. It's usual for mobile devices to have a worldwide warranty, as the users often travel internationally with them. However, the worldwide part may simply mean that warranty service for an in-warranty device is available worldwide, and the precise terms of the warranty offered may vary according to the country version of the product and/or the country it was purchased in.

There have been cases, for example with some imported GPSes that turned out to have problems, where the UK office of the manufacturer said that they were not bound to offer warranty service on GPSes that people had bought via eBay from the Far East. However, that was not Hewlett Packard, the product was not sold by a UK retailer and there was no mention of a worldwide warranty.

My only recent experience of HP warranty service amazed me. My one year old Color LaserJet 2500n dropped most of the cyan toner in the bottom of the machine - something like a failed seal in the cyan cartridge, which was the original one supplied with the printer. This is an incredibly rare experience these days - modern laser printers and laser cartridges rarely suffer from this kind of problem. The printer had a standard one year collect and return warranty; the cartridges have a lifetime exchange warranty so long as the on-cartridge memory doesn't contain a recorded 'low toner' flag.

I called HP really just after an exchange cyan cartridge. However, I was asked for the printer's serial number, then, after a couple of minutes on hold was told that not only were they sending me a cyan cartridge by courier to exchange with the faulty one, but they'd be instructing an on-site engineer to clean the printer. Next morning a cartridge turned up on a "before 12" service, and an on-site engineer came in the afternoon, who spent an hour carefully stripping and cleaning the printer. I then had to ring HP to get the faulty cartridge collected.

It is clear that, at least sometimes, HP go far beyond what they warranty actually says. It must be borne in mind, though, that this is a totally different part of HP's business to handhelds, and I doubt I would have got such a response on a cheap home printer.

The CE marking side of things is quite correct - Malaysian iPAQs are CE marked and meet all the appropriate legal standards for sale in the European Union.

If everyone was clear as to what was going on, this wouldn't concern me. If you had the option to buy a Malaysian machine more cheaply than a UK specification one, especially if you were completely clear about the warranty implications (if there are any), then that's up to you. I believe any retailer that does that may well benefit, as everyone would be clear what they were getting. Some people would be happy to save a bit of money with a Malaysian machine, others who, like me, are unhappy with anything other than UK specification will be able to buy safe in the knowledge that they'll get a #ABU UK specification machine. I'm sure the retailers can price both options to make a profit.

The EU has ruled against various companies for grey importing, particularly on products like clothing. However, I don't know who is doing the importing in the case of these iPAQs, and whether there are similar restrictions in EU law on the import for retail sale of goods not intended by the manufacturer for sale within the EU.

In the end, the main thing that concerns me is that people are buying expecting UK specification machines and are finishing up with Malaysian specification ones. That was the situation I found myself in, and I'm clearly not alone.

I can only suggest that anyone who finds themselves with a non-UK specification iPAQ when they expected a UK specification one rejects the iPAQ unopened, and makes it clear to the retailer why they are doing so. Consumers should be able to reject unopened goods without penalty under the EU Distance Selling Directive, irrespective of what any terms and conditions say.

If only UK specification iPAQs are acceptable to you, it may also be worth requesting, if you can, #ABU UK stock only at the time of order to try to prevent needless returns. It will save time and money if the retailer either puts you on back-order until they have #ABU stock, or declines your order.

David

Tripper · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 02, 2004 Posts: 5

Hi David,

Just a quick note following my post here

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=13439

It seems that HP definately will not be willing to pick up grey import units on full UK warranty (see my post above). Folowing your link to the HP warranty verification site, I inputed the details of the Malaysian 2210 I have sitting here and it told me 12 months Parts Only. That is pretty poor and I would not want to live with that having invested £200+ in a unit.

So just make sure you have a UK unit if warranty is important to you.

A personal thank you for all the hard work you have put in helping us to understand this complicated situation.

Cheers

Keith.

Nanette · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 12, 2004 Posts: 1

I've just bought a 4150 with Tomtom from Total PDA. My husband wanted this for Xmas and has talked about it for the last month.
I wanted to surprise him and not knowing much about them I started searching the web. A colleage of mine recommended looking at this site for some ideas and good sites to buy from.

I was unaware of such warranty issues and am glad I found this post.
Totalpda were very helpful and explained the differences between UK ipaqs and grey market ones which reassured me I would be getting a legitimate pda for my husband and not thowing my money away if anything was to go wrong. Their website also made it clear that they sold only UK stock, where other sites I found it hard to tell.

Having read the post about SuperEtrader it makes you think who is really legit out there?

Dave · Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:57 am Post subject:

Grey importing is an unfortunate problem forced onto a lot of retailers by the consumer.

Everyone wants something for the lowest price. It's evident in our forums here that people are always shopping around to get a £400 PDA for as little as £5 cheaper, and for the retailer to do this means in a lot of cases they have to sell at cost and not make a profit, or do some grey importing.

Whether it's morally correct is another matter, but if consumers were willing in most cases to pay the extra cost of a UK model which can sometimes cost £50 more, then there wouldn't be a problem as retailers wouldn't have to grey import.

Why are UK models £50 more ? It's not 'rip off Britain', it's just a fact of life. Having to customise a PDA to a specific ROM edition, change language files, change instructions, freight costs etc, it all costs money. Each company will add a small percentage of margin on to this from HP down the chain to the retailer and that usually makes up the cost difference. However, the cost difference can be eradicated in most cases by going direct to for instance a malaysian distributor who is prepare to export the devices they buy in and avoid using official distribution channels and grey importing.

Morally, if there's going to be a problem with UK warranty then retailers should state whether they are grey imports or not. Grey imports are fround upon by many manufacturers as it's seen as 'bucking the system' and avoiding going through the set distribution chain. Most manufacturers do obviously try to set the retail RRP/SRP of the unit in the country going by supply/demand and whether it will sell at a higher price. Most consumers feel this is price fixing and try to buck the system by purchasing on ebay, importing models from other countries by purchasing from retailers say in America or Taiwan and this then means that UK retailers can't sell stock if they go through official distro channels.

DavidW · Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 2:41 pm Post subject:

I don't think I'm the only one who would happily pay a little more for a guarantee of a UK specification machine. For me, it's worth it - you know there's no doubts over the warranty, you get the iPAQ Choice points (which are worth around 15 pounds), and the radio in a machine with built in Wi-Fi is a UK specification one with 802.11b channels 12 and 13.

As you say, Dave, there is extra expense in "versioning" for different countries. I'm not one that buys on price only - I'd far rather pay £20 or £30 more if I know that it may save me problems down the line.

What frustrates me is that people don't know what they're getting in the current situation. If both vendor and purchaser were clear whether you were getting an import or not, I've no problem with that. There's probably many people who don't care that their machine is an import and would be happy to save a few pounds.

Expansys were the company that supplied my Malaysian hx4700, which I returned. They've now indicated in their forums here that they will only be supplying #ABU UK stock iPAQ hx4700s from now on.

The thread was my original thread of complaint there - and you can see if you read it that there were many other people concerned. I have no way of verifying personally whether Expansys are going to stick to their promise.

David

intrinsic · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2004 Posts: 4

Just thought I would add to this thread....

Yesterday I ordered 2 HX4700's and a couple of TomTom 3's from SuperEtrader to go with them. After they arrived I noticed that they were both Malaysian imports from looking at the P/N. I immediately rang them to point out that nowhere on their website was it mentioned that they were supplying grey imports. I spoke to a very helpful and understanding man called Eamonn who assured me that very early in the new year they would be getting the UK spec models in and would be more than happy to swap them out. I did point out that they had been opened but he said that considering the circumstances he would allow me to continue using them until they were able to swap them out. Now providing he sticks to his word I would consider this to be first class service and so far would look forward to using them again.
I will post again in the new year to follow up on events.!! :D

Fatty · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2004 Posts: 9

Intrinsic,
Don't use it whatever you do. You may find the helpful yet anonymous Eamon does not exist in 2005 or was a "new starter" and should not have given you this "advise"!!!

DrBasil · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 23, 2004 Posts: 6

Thhis is just a simple case of rip off Britain

I have been in the trade for many years now and gray imports hold the same warranty with HP as UK models.

If you buy from Europe, the plug will be a 2-pin euro plug but still works in the Uk with an adaptor, and holds the full UK warranty - just check by phoning HP or looking at their web site where you can put in your serial number and look at the warranty info.

If you buy a Malasian import (usually code ARE or similar) they come with a UK type 3 pin plug and also a full UK warranty.

Dont listen to anyone - especially the bug retailers on the net such as Total PDA who say otherwise.

DavidW · Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2004 8:26 pm Post subject:

I would urge people to read the thread carefully. In some cases, HP have indicated that Far Eastern iPAQs do not have the same warranties as UK specification machines. As I've explained, there are sometimes some differences in what's in the box, as well as the Wi-Fi setup if the iPAQ is one with built in Wi-Fi.

David

chrisnel · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:37 pm Post subject: Wi-Fi Issues

I have just received a HP IPAQ hx4700 from an internet-based supplier and discovered it is a Malaysian (#ARE) model. It remains unopened in its original box while I decide what to do with it.

I have read with interest (and alarm) all the information on this and associated threads about grey imports and have a couple of questions.

I understand one of the issues to be over the radio channels supported (i.e. 1 - 11 instead of 1- 13). But what does this mean in practical terms to a non-technical person such as I am? My primary intended use for the device is for in-car navigation using a bluetooth GPS (not yet purchased) and to pick up traffic information using a GPRS link to my mobile phone. Is this likely to be affected by not having a full UK spec machine.

As an aside. I note that the barcode/serial number label on the outside of the box has had a strip removed from the bottom. Is this the bit that would normally say not for sale within europe?

As far as warranty goes I have spoken to HP Technical Support who tell me that the device would be covered under HP worldwide warranty and in providing the Model and Serial Numbers they confirm it has a 2-year warranty cover. Trouble is that the proof of a valid warranty only really can be proven when you make your first demand on it - regardless of what you are told prior on the phone.

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