Chile Forum

I have not done it recently, but I don't think it would be big problem. Half the time they will not even open a notebook bag.

A couple of years ago on this thread I had mentioned that one could ask for a customs sticker for a laptop on the way out of the country, to avoid any questions on the way back. I know there's already a consensus here that customs are disinterested in computers nowadays, but here it is from the horse's mouth: I stopped by the Aduana booth in the international departure area tonight to ask for another sticker for my new work laptop (I was killing time anyway) and was just told "nada de computadores". So apparently they don't even claim to be interested now.

Off to get my flight...

Cheers,

James.

When traveling back to Chile from the US in recent years I usually carry two newish laptops on each trip. On one trip I brought in four. Nobody at the airport blinked.

jehturner wrote:A couple of years ago on this thread I had mentioned that one could ask for a customs sticker for a laptop on the way out of the country, to avoid any questions on the way back. I know there's already a consensus here that customs are disinterested in computers nowadays, but here it is from the horse's mouth: I stopped by the Aduana booth in the international departure area tonight to ask for another sticker for my new work laptop (I was killing time anyway) and was just told "nada de computadores". So apparently they don't even claim to be interested now.

Good to have it officially, but really in Chile I never had problems with customs regarding laptops (Argentina is a very different matter, if anyone's interested, a customs sticker there is a very good investment). Until last year I regularly traveled between Chile and the US with mostly 2 (and once 3, one was a present for my son) laptops, one mine and one belonging to my then employer.

The airline may be a very different matter, LAN enforce the 8kg hand-baggage limit strictly these days, and a hard-shell roller-case with even one laptop is at the limit, let alone two. Even though LAN never lost anything for me, I don't want to check a laptop

BTW, with the rampant paranoia up there these days, you might want to consider uploading any sensitive data to somewhere safe on the internet, wiping it off your laptop, and downloading it once you get to the US. Also, Truecrypt offers "hose-pipe deniability" if you need or prefer to leave stuff on your laptop.

Indeed.

As someone mentioned previously, most of the laptops round here come with the Latin American keyboard. If you need a UK/US keyboard I would guess it will cost more, if you can find one, that is. Although you can change the input language to,for example UK English, the labels on the keys will be wrong.
Here's a place with pretty typical prices:
http://www.pcfactory.cl/

fraggle092 wrote:As someone mentioned previously, most of the laptops round here come with the Latin American keyboard. If you need a UK/US keyboard I would guess it will cost more, if you can find one, that is. Although you can change the input language to,for example UK English, the labels on the keys will be wrong.
Here's a place with pretty typical prices:
http://www.pcfactory.cl/

If you are fanatical about having a UK/North American keyboard on a laptop, on many models the hardware changeover is relatively easy (small screwdriver and 10 minutes is all that is usually required). And if it's a mainstream model series, replacements are often reasonably priced. I switched over a keyboard on an IBM Thinkpad for about USD25 for the parts found on ebay. On some laptop keyboards the keys themselves actually snap out very easily and so a switchover strategy could involve just replacing a few of the keys -- again via either ebay or some other supplier. In the case of the Thinkpad it's not as easy as on other keyboards but somebody did a little tutorial for doing it the hard way. When I had to replace a fallen-out Thinkpad key it was much easier than this. http://rashbre2.blogspot.com/2007/11/re ... g-key.html

i did the maths the other day,

i can get a better value for money notebook with higher performance buying from dell.com shipping to miami, using http://www.eshopex.com to bring it to chile, paying the $US 25 for the customs agent (if im over $1000, the laptop i wanted was FOB miami $998), and the IVA and import duties, and change the keyboard, still works out cheap than i can buy the same or inferior model from dell.cl....

laptops in chile are limited to low quality, and are over priced...

the site below sells spanish keyboards for most makes and models its not the cheapest company, but has the most complete set of keyboards for all makes and models:

http://spdigital.cl/display/category/118

I recently brought back two laptops as well, and nobody blinked, and I often bring a laptop and a netbook and no one has said anything.

every time I have come in or gone out of the airport / Chile in the last few years, I have had 2 laptops with me and digital camera - and yep no one has ever said anything