Here’s a bit of sorta good news. It seems that Villman Computers had been offering the ASUS-made Google Nexus 7 for Php18,000 over the weekend. This was reported last Saturday by the folks at YugaTech, who also captured a screenshot of the in-demand tablet being offered through their online storefront. Unfortunately, prior to writing this, I double-checked the Villman website and couldn’t find it. Most likely it is now out of stock, as there were very limited stocks to begin with anyway.
The Php18,000 selling price was alarmingly high as some people have made known on the YugaTech comment boards, however, it was due to a number of factors. First of all, it wasn’t the official release, meaning Villman had to import this themselves. So you would have to factor in shipping costs and customs taxes on top of the regular price. The units are also of the $249 16Gb variant, which is more expensive than the $199 8Gb variant. YugaTech earlier speculated that the 16Gb variant would cost about Php15k by the time it got here, and since Villman is going out of its way to secure these units to satisfy the demand of early adopters, that Php18k price tag is actually quite understandable. That doesn’t mean I’d buy it though.
Of course, all this is moot since the Nexus 7 is no longer on the Villman website anyway. Well, there’s still some hope for the early adopters out there. You can try your luck at Greenhills where some sellers may have gone the same route as Villman had taken and had some units shipped straight here to sell ahead of the August launch. Then again, you can just wait a few more weeks for the official Philippine launch and for more reasonable pricing.
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