Are we paying more than we should (image courtesy of Sam Savine

I’ve reviewed both Pogoplug hardware and software over the last year and have found both products to be excellent.

However, after recently buying their Pogoplug Pro hardware myself, I am perturbed by their “rip off” pricing for the UK.

Their Pogoplug Pro costs $99.99, with cheapest postage at $12.95. For some reason, when buying from the US they automatically add to your shopping cart (even though you didn’t ask for it) a copy of their premium software ($29) and their “Extended Download Service¹“  at $5.99. Thankfully, both can be removed. Take into account US taxes and that $99.99 is probably more around $110. Convert that to sterling and you get approx. £68.

However, buy for the UK and it’s… £99.99. The cheapest delivery is £10. That’s £109.99 compared to the US equivalent of £68 – a £42 increase. Take UK VAT into account and that decreases the difference to £20.

The Euro Zone doesn’t get off any lighter, however, as the Euro Pogoplug costs, yes you guessed it, €99.99. That converts to about $70.

Pogoplug isn’t the only company to do this kind of thing – Adobe and Apple spring to mind – but it’s still disappointing.

The usual excuse given by businesses is the cost to convert the product to each country. However, there is no software included, the box is a universal design and the included leaflets are multi-lingual. Interestingly still, where a lot of localisation would be required – software – they charge the same. Their premium software is $29 and they simply convert this price to your own currency “on the fly” (and accurately too). So a conversion to UK rates, will get you the software at £18.16 today. So, they don’t charge any more for the software – something for which (particularly in non-English speaking countries) language conversion is going to be costly, but do for hardware which needs no change.

So, I contacted Pogoplug and spoke to Jeff Fochtman, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cloud Engines, Inc (who make Pogoplug). His answer was to the point…

We are in business to make some profit and at this point in time it simply costs us more to deliver and support products in the UK and EMEA and to run our business there so we have to charge a bit more

He added 3 points that he believes explains the differences further²…

• We have a cost of doing business in the UK and EU that is much higher than our cost of doing business in UK/EMEA
• Many smaller companies simply do not go through logistics, packaging, certification and manpower that goes into setting up business overseas.  Our ‘profit’ per unit is the similar across all regions because of the cost of doing business at a much smaller volume…we feel we are doing the right thing by adding server support, customer service, operations support in your region but it comes at a higher cost per unit.
• Indeed the shift in rates affects differential in pricing between geographies using different currencies.  It has shifted balance to be a higher delta from when we set the price, however we cannot be constantly changing price with retail partners having a set MSRP.

He concluded our conversation but pointing out that a number of retailers are selling Pogoplug for as little as £49. However, this is the original bright pink Pogoplug (non “pro” version) which is unavailable to buy from their website.

So his answer is that it’s more costly to sell it outside of the US so they charge more. And we should maybe be thankful that we pay as little as we do as the exchange rates has changed since. Maybe it’s just me that thinks that maybe the way to sell more outside the US, however, is to charge fair prices – I’m sure they’d sell a lot more if the unit cost £80 which would be the true equivalent to the US price.

But he says we’re paying extra because, for instance, we get local servers and support. Interestingly their site only makes mention of their US office , their site isn’t country specific and their is no telephone support – just anonymous email support. Does that require localised support? When I recently ordered my Pogoplug it was sent from Germany, so at least that was within Europe. Now, I’m not saying they don’t provide local support – there’s just no evidence of it from their site and, from what I can tell, no reason for it. You can’t even view their site in any language other than English (until you sign into MyPogoplug to view your shared files).

Indeed, the only time you specify your country is when purchasing hardware from them. How do they offer local support? The ticket system that customers can use to request support makes no mention of the country of origin and my user profile doesn’t specify this either.

Whether they’re using localised servers for Pogoplug I can’t tell.

So, is that a good excuse or are we being ripped off once again?

I didn’t respond back with any further questions to Mr Fochtman but if I do hear anything I’ll update this post.

1. essentially they will backup the software you download for easy access in future [↩]
2. this is an exact cut and paste quote from Mr Fochtman [↩]

Now I have a sparkly new laptop replete with built-in Bluetooth, I thought it was time to move away from my wired mouse (especially as I never bother to connect it up) and invest in a Bluetooth solution.

However, when it comes to Bluetooth mice the choice is somewhat narrow – although still leaving me with choices from my usual suspects, Microsoft and Logitech. The Logitech mouse was, well, blue. Bright shiny blue. Didn’t like it. The Microsoft version was white (which would look odd with a black and red laptop) but it’s main problem was its steep price. Lenovo sell their own but, again, the price was high.

On Amazon, though, I found a £15 version from Trust. And very good it looked too. Unfortunately, Trust doesn’t have the greatest reputation for producing the greatest quality products but, now I have it, I can say that it really is a nice piece of kit.

It’s light, very rubbery (a thin rubber coat all over and a thicker coat on the left where your thumb rests) and very well put together. On the left hand side are 2 buttons – usually assigned to forward and back. On the top, behind the rubber and chrome scroll wheel is a DPI button, allowing to quickly switch between 500 and 1000 dpi – extremely handy!  On the underside is a power switch.

It comes in the type of sealed plastic packaging that you need scissors for (hate that!) and, other than an instructions sheet and a battery, nothing else is included with the mouse (as it uses your existing Bluetooth it doesn’t need drivers). To pair with your PC you simple add it as new device after pushing in a button on the bottom of the mouse for 5 seconds.

And after using it for a number of weeks now I don’t have any real issues. It sometimes looses it’s link but I think that’s more down to the laptop and Bluetooth in general rather than the mouse – a quick wiggle of the mouse and it soon comes back on.

Otherwise it’s comfortable in use and, as I said before, very well built.

Summary of Trust ComfortLine Bluetooth Mini Mouse

Comfortable, well built and cheap. A bargain from Trust.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 18th June 2011.

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A few years ago I bought a netbook – an Acer Aspire One, which I considered the best netbook at the time. It’s worked brilliantly and its only limitations were those imposed on netbooks in general – small resolution screen, limited memory, performance, etc.

However, I’ve since realised that I need a bit more… erm… umph! More speed and a higher screen resolution to be more precise. However, I still didn’t want anything large. Hence, an “ultraportable” was what I needed – a full blown laptop but in a compact size. What I never understand is how these ultraportables cost more than their larger counterparts – they sport smaller screens, often lack optical drives and ports, have less powerful processors, etc, but cost more simply for the privilege of them being “shrunk” in size. However, there are some exceptions to this rule and the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge is one such device.

It has scrabble-tile keys and a glossy red case, but the Edge is still considered to be business “offerings”. None-the-less, that’s what I’ve now gone and bought thanks to its combination of features and price (and generally positive reviews).

As the name suggests it has an 11″ screen (11.6″ to be more precise) which is (mumble, mumble) glossy but is LCD and has a good resolution of 1366 × 768. Indeed, all the Edge laptops, up to 15″, have the same resolution screen. It doesn’t have an optical drive, but that’s no unusual for this size of laptop.

So, let’s look at some of the stats…

• It’s just 1.1 inches thick and weighs 3.3 pounds.
• Input is via a touchpad or Touchpoint
• It has both Bluetooth 2 and Wireless N connectivity
• Ports include a 5-in-1 card reader, 3 USB ports (1 always on), LAN, HDMI and headphone socket
• It has a built-in microphone and webcam above the screen
• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit is the installed operating system

The model I have has an Intel i3 U380 processor, 4GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive.

Ok, so what is it like? The keyboard is excellent – the little-used Function keys have become 2nd function to system and  media keys (i.e. instead of having to press Fn and then an F key to access system options, it now works the other way around). Both input methods – touchpad and Touchpoint – are easy to use (i usually use the latter).

The screen isn’t quite up to Lenovo standards as the viewing angles aren’t brilliant, but it’s still pretty good. Power wise, it’s exactly what I wanted – the i3 kicks out enough performance to keep me happy, although I’m hardly editing videos on it

The Edge 11 has a 6-cell battery which sticks out of the back of the laptop – this isn’t an issue for me at all and provides quite a few hours of usage (sitting on my desk at work it will quite happily run for 6+ hours).

It comes with Lenovo’s own software – the majority of which I don’t use but it’s driver update software is particularly useful.

The box that the laptop comes in is unusually small – but that’s mainly because there’s so little in it. Only the laptop itself is protected with everything else “rattling around” inside – this is to minimise packaging and caused no issues for me. Other than the laptop, power supply and brief leaflets there’s nothing else. If you don’t have a bag or laptop sleeve, you’ll need to get something.

The Edge has some lovely touches that make it a pleasure to use..

• The chrome coloured trim around the screen and keyboard look very nice.
• The build quality is excellent – sturdy metal hinges and no flex in the screen
• The power light is is the dot above the “i” in “ThinkPad” – this lights up both on the wrist rest but also on the back of the lid.

Criticisms? I have some, but none of them are major…

• The aforementioned poor screen viewing angles
• It’s supposed to have some enhancements to improve boot times but, I have to say, I’ve not seen any differences.
• It has no hard disk activity light. Okay, it doesn’t have any keyboard lights (num lock, etc) either, but I can live without those. The lack of a hard drive light is quite an annoyance.
• The Edge 11 came out last year and, although only a year old, it’s already showing it’s age – older processors, no USB 3, etc. A refresh of the range must be due soon.

Now, just for fun, and no criticism of Lenovo, I thought I’d share the details of the delivery of my laptop, and a soft case that I also bought for it. Upon ordering they’re despatched from Hong Kong and China and go all round the world. Below are the details – click on a thumbnail to zoom in. The fun one is the 2nd – the delivery of my laptop. Yes it really did come to the UK and then fly out again only to be returned again

I have to say I got a bit of a bargain – Lenovo had a special offer at the time, and I used Quidco for cashback so ended up getting it for quite a lot below £500. Currently the same spec model is £621 – I didn’t get that much discount, so I think the model has had a recent price hike.

You can reduce this cost with a 2GB memory version and, in the past, they’ve had variations with AMD processors – however from reading reviews of laptops with these processors in them they run a lot hotter and therefore you get a lot of fan noise. However, AMD models of the Edge 11 are not currently available.

Indeed, the Edge 13 is not available at all and the Edge 15 is only available as an AMD version – this would suggest to me that Lenovo are discontinuing these products. This was why I thought they were running the recent money off – the fact this has ended and they’ve actually increased the price of the models is therefore puzzling.

Summary of Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 11

An excellent mini laptop which looks gorgeous and runs smoothly. Why Lenovo consider this to be a business model I don’t know – it would make a great consume model.

I’d give it a full 5 stars if it wasn’t for the current price level – as it is, it loses one mark. However, if you can get the 4GB Intel model for less than £500, it’s well worth it.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 17th June 2011.

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