[chemmail]

Japan is really behind in PC/Laptop. I was just there last week and the big PC and electronic stores only stock up to Geforce. Asus also has a big presence there now, but the prices are a lot more than US pricing for the same stuff. Not much innovation in the computer space. Home eletronics and appliances are amazing though. Their high end electrolux style vacuum stick cleaners easily clear $800 USD and are really awesome. The rice cookers can hit $600-$800 and can make the perfect rice you normally only get in Japan. The mcirowaves have built in toast oven in one unit, and it works amazingly well. Coming home, its kinda sad some of the convinces we dont have like the toilets, bathroom, kitchen, and even video doorbells (out current "smart" stuff are still rubbish).

[themodelplumber]

> The mcirowaves have built in toast oven in one unit, and it works amazingly well

I had one in my apartment outside Nagoya in 1996. Still can't believe I have never seen one in the states. I wonder if they just can't justify the potential marketing friction.

[dom0]

We've got a Samsung with that, it's pretty old (90s-ish). (Germany... maybe we have a thing with the Japanese... but then again Samsung "is" Korean?!)

[jcrawfordor]

These are on sale at WalMart in the US. Indo think they're rather new there though.

[chemmail]

Will have to look out for it! Also stationary is amazing in Japan. They have Pilot Friction erasable pens that erase perfectly and writes amazing. Its been popular there over 10 years and barely a blip here in the US. You can actually find them at depotmax.

[Freak_NL]

Absolutely, Japan is great for stationary. I love the KuruToga mechanical pencils; these rotate the pencil lead some 30 degrees each time you lift the pencil from the paper. This means you always end up with a perfectly round tip and lines of equal thickness instead of the chisel tip you end up with normally.

I used to rotate my simpler mechanical pencils myself before I found these. Never going back.

[imglorp]

It's the same reason we still have 2 piece washer/dryers: so they can sell two appliances instead of one. Until our market demands a combo mike/toast, we won't have one.

[randallsquared]

Maybe they're much better now, but 15 years ago, I used a machine that washed and dried in the same drum, and it was pretty bad at both. A full cycle for one load on minimum settings took an hour and a half or two hours, and the load was tiny in comparison to any other washer or dryer I've ever used. Even if it had taken slightly less time than separate units, and even if the load size had been realistic, I would have had to use two of them to get the usual throughput I'm used to, where I can do a week of laundry in about 5 hours (two people's clothes, bath and kitchen, bedding). If I had to use that machine currently, it would be running for a few hours every day.

[legulere]

The problem with combined washers/dryers is that dryers need to be more empty than washing machines. That means you can either only wash a rather small amount of clothes or you have to take out some clothes after washing and before drying.

[VLM]

My Grandmother had a combo oven / microwave in the 80s. Sears model, I think. It was a full size oven and I believe it ran the microwave part off the 220 connection. The control panel was pretty complicated looking.

It suffered the inevitable result of TV/VCR or TV/DVD combo units where I don't remember which half burned out first but once one half broke it was time to buy two separated devices.

[narag]

Asus also has a big presence there now, but the prices are a lot more than US pricing for the same stuff.

The same Asus stuff or other brands?

I live in Spain and although I haven't looked recently, Asus was the best quality-price relation here. In particular, batteries duration similar to macs, for half the money. If I needed a laptop now, I would see their offer first for sure.

Time ago, I read that Asus doesn't sell in the USA, what explained how little comments I saw in specialized webs about their laptops.