Tech Shopping Around the World - Switzerland
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,269 words · ~6 min read
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Welcome to a new segment about technology and computers around the
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world. This is obviously not something that we're going to be able to do all the time, but whenever we kind of travel
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somewhere, we'll try to pick up another episode. It's largely going to be about
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the consumer experience of living there and shopping for things within the
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country. This will obviously require different angles taken for different
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various countries. Like if we did one in Taiwan, it would be much different than
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this one which was done in Switzerland. And I believe that is natural. So
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hopefully you guys find it interesting. And without further ado, let's do
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it. Tunnel Bear is the easytouse VPN service that lets you use the web as if
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you're in 20 different countries. Learn more and try Tunnel Bear for free at the
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link in the video description. Before I even came to Switzerland, it was echoed
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over and over and over again. Buy online
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when you're looking for computer components. That's all anybody said. A
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moderator on the forum, Alpen Wasser, happens to be from Switzerland and he
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very specifically was like, "Yeah, nobody buys in stores. You just buy
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online here." And I went on forums, local forums to Switzerland, traveler
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forums for people that were visiting Switzerland and might need computer components. Everybody's saying buy
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online. Okay, interesting. But I'm stubborn, so I want to try a store. So,
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let's check it out. And what a store. It was huge. We went to Media Mart and this
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place was massive. At first, it seemed like they'd have everything you could
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have wanted. Peripherals out the butt.
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They had keyboards, mice, monitors, headphones, speakers, whatever the heck
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you wanted, and huge amounts of them on display ready to use, which is super
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cool. It's kind of a problem in North America, as far as I know, at least
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where I'm from. Like, people will ask what Cherry Switch they should use, and
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they can't go try any of them, or like what's the comparison between, say, a
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Cherry Brown and a ROR G. Well, at some place like Mediaart, you could actually
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try that. Super cool. You can also try all the mouse, headphones, whatever.
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It's awesome. Even their camera section had like really high-end nice cameras
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and studio lights, which is kind of cool to see in a consumer electronic store.
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But the computers themselves was a little bit of a let down. There was kind
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of a a semi small row of them tucked under some monitors, forgotten in a back
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corner of the store, and no components to speak of, which was a little rough.
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Also, the prices, at least compared to North America, was a little brutal, but
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that did seem to be a consistent theme throughout Switzerland. So, I'm not sure
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if that's necessarily tied directly into only computer parts. Now, for buying
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online, Switzerland isn't actually part of the EU, so there's some import costs
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and problems there, but you're probably okay. There's a website called
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topprice.ch, which is actually freaking awesome. There's a huge amount of online
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computer parts stores in Switzerland somehow and you can filter all of their
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prices through this website. And one thing that's actually really cool about
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shopping online is that shipping is basically free on everything as far as I
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could tell. Not quite everything, but the vast majority of things. And a lot
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of them, depending on where you live, are even available for stuff like one
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day shipping. So, it's not really that big of a deal that you can't go to a store to pick it up if you can just get
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it that day anyways. Now, prices are kind of hard to compare to the brick and
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mortar store because they didn't actually have the same things. But when
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comparing other various things, the margin did seem to be slightly higher
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for brick and mortar, which is kind of expected. So, that's not a huge deal.
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And one thing that's really nice about the top price website is that uh well,
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you can do a mass search for a product and find the cheapest one. So, you're
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probably going to end up getting a pretty good deal. But then again, things are kind of expensive in Switzerland, so
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it's probably still not going to be cheap. In terms of cell providers, we
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were there for under a week, so we only really had time to try out one. There
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are two or three, however, but I've heard that they're all kind of somewhat
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the same in terms of service providing and cost. We paid 10 Swiss Franks and
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were able to get coverage for the entire week with unlimited data and a bunch of
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other things included. And that's actually really cheap. Also, it was
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really easy to set up. The process was quite quick and it worked on our phones
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immediately. Actually quite satisfied in terms of that. We went everywhere from
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Geneva to Lousan to Lutern and a few
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places in between and one a little bit further and yeah, coverage everywhere,
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including when we were hiking out in the hills. So, I'm quite satisfied with the
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self service in Switzerland. Dollarshaveclub.com. They
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deliver shavers right to your door for about a third of the price of what that
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other greedy razor company charges. Both my wallet and my face finally get some
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relief from that old crappy, rusty razor that I used to have way back in the day.
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Joining Dollar Shave Club means that you get fresh blades whenever you need them
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and they feel fantastic and the smoothest shave ever when you use their
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Dr. Carver's Dollar Shave Club shave butter. It's not your average shave
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cream. It has high quality ingredients that make your skin feel soft, smooth,
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and moisturized. Your blade will gently slide across your skin, leaving you with
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luscious, amazing, touchable cheeks.
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/ Linus toshine up in the US, Canada, or
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Australia. All right, guys. Thanks for watching. I know this is a little bit
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different than kind of the standard stuff we put out there, but it's been a topic that's actually been quite
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interesting to us at the office as we travel around the world, checking out
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the different ways things are done, how hard or easy it is to buy computers,
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checking out different tech malls, all that kind of stuff. So, hopefully you
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enjoyed it. if you have ideas for different angles that I could take in the future or honestly places that I
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should visit, although we'll probably only go there if there's a computer
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show. But anyways, let me know in the comments down below or on Twitter. That
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would be super helpful. This kind of segment is still growing quite a bit.
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So, your feedback is definitely appreciated. Thanks for watching. Make
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sure to subscribe, like it if you like it, dislike if you dislike it. Uh, use
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our Amazon affiliate code to buy stuff. That's super helpful. We have shirts. You can check them out in description
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down below. Go on the forum, become a contributor. That's all great. Click up
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here to check out our tech mall kind of walkthrough tour thing from Taiwan
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almost a year ago.