If you live in the UK, do not buy a gold Apple Watch. At least, not here.
On April 24, Apple will release the Apple Watch, its first foray into a new product category in five years. The high-end 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition will retail for as much as £11,500 ($17,000) in the US — £2,000 ($2,959) cheaper than the retail price of the same watch in the UK. Here it will cost £13,500, or roughly $20,000.
The price difference is so significant that it is actually cheaper for bling-craving Brits to fly from London to New York to buy the watch with enough cash left over to hang around for the entire weekend, go shopping, and pop into a Broadway show before shooting back home Monday.
Here are some examples of what Brits can afford to do in New York instead of shelling out £13,500 for the watch alone:
- Buy a round-trip ticket from London to New York, going out on April 23 ahead of the launch, and returning on Monday, April 26: £588
- Stay in a spacious Airbnb apartment in Brooklyn for the four days: £252
- See "The Book of Mormon" on Broadway on Saturday night: £154
- Have spending money for four days: £400
- Buy the Apple Watch Edition: £11,500
- Grab a bonus iPhone 6 on the way out: £438
And this still comes out as £170 cheaper than the Apple Watch Edition would be in the UK.
The issue of tech pricing has always been a sore spot for Brits. The same technology products will go on sale for considerably more in Britain than in the US, with absolutely no discernible difference. For example, an iPhone 6 off-contract starts at £539 ($797) in the UK, compared with a bargain £438 ($649) in the States.
Tech companies sometimes blame this disparity on slightly higher UK taxes and a higher cost of doing business in Britain, according to Which.
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