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I'd have usually said buy from Bintel, as neither telescope shop or Andrews are official distributors, and if anything goes wrong, you're in for a world of hurt, at least from what I've heard from others.
Interestingly, Bintel is carrying the NEQ6PRO, @ $2349. As little as Six weeks ago they had the older EQ6PRO for $1999, which was very favourable against Andrews, and carries a full Australian warranty. I'm not sure why the NEQ6PRO is more expensive, since by all accounts it's the same as the older mount version, and the Aussie dollar is now stronger against both the US $ and Japanese Yen. Very odd this $400 price rise is. I think the local distributor is getting greedy and has jacked the price up.
My personal thoughts are that governments should legislate that manufacturers must repair their products under warranty, irrespective of whether it's went through an official distributor or not. This would kill deliberate price fixing by local distributors, which is rampant imho. A point in example is a Canon 500mm f4 IS lens - I can get this from B&H Photo for US $5800. Even after paying cartage, import duty & GST, it's still 3-4k cheaper than buying it from within Australia, from a reseller that has sourced the goods from Canon Australia. And, the B&H sourced Canon lens comes with a worldwide warranty, which Canon Australia will honour. Doesn't that really make you wonder? I've had several retailers all advise me not to buy any of Canon's longer lenses from Australian sources, but to buy from B&H as they cannot compete with the price, as Canon Australia has set the RRP so high.
Dave
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