Buying a Laptop in Tokyo or Osaka

I'm planning to buy a laptop in Japan - I don't really care if the OS is in Japanese, I could work my way around Windows blindfolded.

However, I am worried about where to go, I couldn't find a website that listed prices for the laptops I was looking for - and for some reason, eBay.co.jp never works whenever I click a product.

Does anyone know of a really good computer store where I could start asking for prices? Somewhere in Tokyo or Osaka would be ideal.

Softmap and Amazon haven't been useful so far, sadly.

Yodobashi Camera (all types of electronics) in Osaka is best. I bought a Toshiba laptop there 4 years ago and still use it. It's in Umeda.

Yodobashi and Big are good places to shop for a laptop. Both in Tokyo and Osaka you have a so called electronic city where a lot of electronics shops are together. In Tokyo it is Akihabara. In the backstreets you have shops that sell also older/used computers. Do not forget that Japanese laptops do not only have a Japanese OS but also a Japanese keyboard layout.

The previous poster meant to recommend Yodobashi Camera and Bic Camera (rather than Big Camera). Those together with Yamada Denki make up some of the biggest electronics chains in the country. You can get an idea of their laptop prices at the following links:

http://www.yodobashi.com/ec/category/11970_500000000000000201/index.ht...
http://www.biccamera.com/bicbic/jsp/w/pc/index.jsp#win
http://www.yamada-denkiweb.com/item/list.php/special/3ct99/11101/

If you want to see things in person head to the electronics districts in Tokyo (Akihabara) and Osaka (Den Den Town) where the bigger stores will have just about everything, but you can find better deals at the smaller stores.

Akihabara:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3003.html

Den Den Town:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4001.html#denden

However, once you find what you like I'd recommend doing a price comparison on http://www.kakaku.com as their listings are often quite a bit cheaper than the large retail stores.

Also fyi, www.ebay.co.jp is rather new and not widely used. Most Japanese sellers are on yahoo auctions instead:

http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/

In fact, eBay japan closed in 2002 because i couldn't compete with yahoo auctions.

the current site appears to be a shell site encouraging sellers to register (on the US eBay site)

you might also want to look at mbok.jp

the current site appears to be a shell site encouraging sellers to register (on the US eBay site)

Not sure what you mean by a shell site, but I also just noticed that the new ebay japan page no longer has actual auctions and is rather just a Japanese portal leading to the other established ebay sites. It doesn't seem to offer anything but tutorials and corporate info.

Mercantile (Osaka) have a range of English or Bilingual PCs. English-speaking staff, also.

http://www.mcljapan.com/index.htm

@yllwsmrf

that's what i meant, it's a shell of what you expect it to be