I am lucky to have a brother and few cousins and friends in the U.S as I can easily order my electronics from there, because to be honest, you have to be either crazy or desperate to buy them from Lebanon.
There are few decent shops in Lebanon or sales people who can get you good deals on laptops and other electronics, but most of the time, you have a high chance of getting ripped off.
I was looking for a new laptop to replace my dying Toshiba, and the price range I was looking at was between 600-800$. After some thorough research, I had to choose between a 17-inch HP laptop and a 15-inch Lenovo Thinkpad E520.
I opted for the Lenovo as it was 200$ cheaper, is more reliable and had everything I needed in a laptop. It’s a core i5 2.4 GHZ 4GB DDR3 500GB HDD for only 617$.
When comparing the prices of laptops in Lebanon, there was at least a 200 to 300$ difference between most laptops I found online and the ones I found in shops. I understand there’s shipment fees and customs and taxes but that’s a bit too much.
I have to ask here why doesn’t the government lower its taxes on electronics in general and let Lebanese retail shops be more competitive and sell more? Most people I know want to buy their electronics from the U.S because they think products are either over-priced or not good in Lebanon.