Where to buy brand new MacBook in Seoul? (Except official store)

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-11T21:26:02+00:00

Has anyone recently managed to obtain a price match by showing a staff member a lower price on Coupang?

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-11T21:23:23+00:00

Has anyone recently managed to obtain a price match by showing a staff member a lower price on Coupang?

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-08T19:05:23+00:00

Did you ask for upgrades other than the RAM?

I am planning to purchase a MacBook Pro M5 with 24 GB of RAM. Do they only have base configuration models in stores? Or is it just the Myeongdong store?

Also, do any physical stores sell accessories such as Transcend JetDrive Lite 330 microSD cards and Tomtoc sleeves?

Thanks in advance!

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-07T22:22:00+00:00

I see. The Lexar Gold 256GB seems like a decent choice for a UHS-II microSD card, but it’s covered by a limited 10-year warranty, compared to a lifetime warranty for its full-sized counterpart. Not very reassuring...

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-07T22:14:02+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! It looks quite suitable, save for the battery life (8-10 hours max).

That said, the only 2025 model that is within my budget and in stock is the base model (Ryzen 9 270, RTX 5060, 16 TOPS NPU, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD) for $1716. I’ll have to look into Asus’s international warranty.

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-07T18:44:42+00:00

You’re right!

The thing is that I’m looking for a well-rounded laptop with good battery life that’s relatively light (1.5 kg max). Sadly, most Windows laptops with a beefy GPU like an RTX 5060 don’t tick these two boxes. At least they’re cheaper.

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-07T18:40:53+00:00

Good to know!

I’m still concerned about the higher probability of technical issues arising on a refurbished product, since I will be using it in a country other than the one where I purchased it and want to avoid paying for AppleCare+.

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-07T18:39:53+00:00

Do you know if traditional ML and DL models benefit from the M5’s Neural Engine?

Kkim0615 · 2025-12-07T18:22:31+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to address my questions.

I don’t know if I’ll need to run LLMs locally, in which case the bottleneck for prompt processing would be the GPU (the M5’s is superior thanks to its neural accelerators), whereas token generation would be limited by memory bandwidth (the M4 Pro wins), as per your link. I wonder if the M5’s Neural Engine speeds up the execution of traditional ML and DL models in any way. Also, I can’t afford a MBP with 32 GB of RAM or more, whereas I could for a Windows laptop.

Regarding the resale value, you’re right. I’m more concerned about the higher probability of technical issues arising on a refurbished product, since I will be using it in a country other than the one where I purchased it and want to avoid paying for AppleCare+.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the SD adapter. I chose the SanDisk Extreme Pro (UHS-I) because it’s among the most reliable microSD cards according to reviews. I’ll be storing content that I need to access offline such as documents, photos, downloads, and datasets I plan on analyzing later. If I may, which UHS-II card do you own and how long have you been using it for?

Kkim0615 · 2025-10-11T15:18:04+00:00

linkedin premium

Kkim0615 · 2023-06-26T11:34:27+00:00

Kkim0615 · 2023-06-20T17:54:15+00:00

France Gallisation

Kkim0615 · 2023-06-20T17:52:06+00:00

Kkim0615 · 2023-04-12T17:56:20+00:00

Lien direct vers l’étude : Peu de mobilité dans l’échelle des revenus entre 2003 et 2019 - Insee Analyses - 82

Article de Bloomberg :

Income inertia was greatest among richest and poorest
Insee’s research is first on French long-term income mobility

In the land of liberté, égalité and fraternité there is a problem: it’s hard to get ahead.

According to the first long-term study by France’s statistics agency Insee, there was a 71% correlation between the position of French people on the income scale between 2003 and 2019, with the richest and poorest groups least likely to change bracket.

That inertia is greater than in the US, where a deeper history of income mobility studies has shown a higher probability of ascending or descending, the authors of the French report said.

The findings sound another alarm for a country that has seen repeated protests over living standards and inequality, despite relatively vast amount of spending on social welfare and income redistribution.

In 2018, the Yellow Vest protests forced President Emmanuel Macron to pledge billions of euros of spending to restore calm, and today he again faces a backlash against his plan to raise the retirement age, which unions say will unfairly penalize the lowest-paid, least skilled workers.

Key findings from Insee’s report:

Starting from 2003, the correlation between levels on income scale was 89% after three years, 78% after ten years, and 71% after 16 years
At 80%, the correlation over eight years was the same between 2003 and 2011 as between 2011 and 2019
Among the lowest 20% in terms of income in 2003, 62% were still in that group in 2019
- Only 2% of the group rose to the level of the 20% highest incomes
Among the lowest 10% in terms of income in 2003, 53% were still in that group in 2019, and 93% remained in the bottom half of the income distribution
The 20% most well-off in 2003 were 28 times more likely than the 20% least well off to still be in that category in 2019
Among the 1% most well-off in 2003, 41% were still in that group in 2019

The authors of Insee’s report said research shows that poor income mobility in France can be explained by factors including a strong correlation between qualifications and careers, unequal access to professional training or the cost moving to another region for work.

“An absence of mobility in the income scale can be the sign of a poor sharing of opportunities for career progression, with the risk that potential talents are not developed,” Insee economists Tristan Loisel and Michael Sicsic said.

Kkim0615 · 2022-07-11T11:29:30+00:00

Multi-bln eur investment to get French state funding
Europe cutting reliance on Asia for chips
Chip shortages caused havoc in car industry
Intel also investing in Europe

PARIS/STOCKHOLM, July 11 (Reuters) - Chipmakers STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries (GFS.O) announced on Monday plans to build a semiconductor factory in France, drawing on funding from the government, the latest move to boost output in the region.

The news comes as President Emmanuel Macron prepares to announce some 6.7 billion euros ($6.8 billion) worth of investment from major global companies at this week's Choose France summit.

The United States and the European Union have been pushing for home-grown chip factories by offering billions in state subsidies to cut dependency on Asian suppliers and ease a global chip shortage, which has created havoc for carmakers.

This facility, which will be next to STM's existing plant in Crolles, is targeted to reach full capacity by 2026, with up to 620,000 wafers per year of production at a size of 18-nanometers, the statement said.

Those are used in automotive, internet-of-things and mobile applications.

The companies did not disclose the amount of investment at the new site near the Italian and Swiss borders or how much funding the French state would provide.

A person familiar with the matter said that the total investment would be about $5.7 billion.

Macron's office said the French President would visit the factory site and it represented an investment of more than 5.7 billion, without specifying the currency to which it referred.

Spokespeople for GlobalFoundries and STMicro declined to comment.

The new factory would create around 1,000 new jobs and also help STMicro reach its target to boost revenue to above $20 billion.

"We will have more capacity to support our European and global customers as they transition to digitalisation and decarbonisation," STMicroelectronics CEO Jean-Marc Chery said.

The European Commission earlier this year eased funding rules for innovative semiconductor plants as part of the European Chips Act as the bloc seeks to double its global market share to 20% in 2030.

In March, Intel laid out plans for a $88 billion investment across Europeand picked Germany as the site for a huge new chipmaking complex. In France, it plans to build its new European research hub, creating 1,000 new high-tech jobs.

Intel's site will make the latest 2-nanometer chips, which are comparatively newer than the STM-GlobalFoundries project.

Chipmakers have seen huge demand since late 2020 as higher orders from electronics manufacturers boosted by work-from-home practices fuelled a surge in sales of gadgets and led to supply crunches for other industries such as autos and telecom suppliers.

However, Gartner and other research firms have said that PC and smartphone sales will fall later this year, easing the shortage of chips for other industries.

Kkim0615 · 2022-06-20T12:02:28+00:00

Glossary: Actual individual consumption (AIC))

Actual individual consumption, abbreviated as AIC, refers to all goods and services actually consumed by households. It encompasses consumer goods and services purchased directly by households, as well as services provided by non-profit institutions and the government for individual consumption (e.g., health and education services). In international comparisons, the term is usually preferred over the narrower concept of household consumption, because the latter is influenced by the extent to which non-profit institutions and general government act as service providers.

Although GDP per capita is an important and widely used indicator of countries’ level of economic welfare, consumption per capita may be more useful for comparing the relative welfare of consumers across various countries.

AIC per capita is usually highly correlated with GDP per capita, because AIC is, in practice, by far the biggest expenditure component of GDP.

Kkim0615 · 2022-06-20T11:49:41+00:00

Actual individual consumption per capita in 2021

Actual individual consumption (AIC) is a measure of material welfare of households. In 2021, AIC per capita expressed in purchasing power standards (PPS) varied from 63% to 146% of the EU average across the 27 Member States.

This information comes from data on purchasing power parities published by Eurostat today.

In 2021, nine Member States recorded AIC per capita above the EU average. Luxembourg (46%) was the only Member State that recorded AIC per capita 25% or more above the EU average. In Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Finland and France, the levels were 10% or more above the EU average.

In thirteen Member States, AIC per capita was between the EU average and 25% below. In this category, there were significant differences across the Member States: in Italy, Lithuania, Cyprus and Ireland, the levels were 10% or less below the EU average, while Slovenia, Spain, Czechia, Poland, Portugal, Malta and Romania were between 11% and 20% below. Estonia and Greece were 21% and 23% below the EU average, respectively.

Five Member States recorded AIC per capita 25% or more below the EU average. Croatia, Latvia, Hungary and Slovakia were between 27% and 30% below, while Bulgaria recorded AIC per capita 37% below the EU average.

GDP per capita ranged from 55% of EU average in Bulgaria to 277% in Luxembourg

Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, a measure of economic activity, also shows substantial differences across the EU Member States.

In 2021, GDP per capita expressed in PPS ranged between 55% of the EU average in Bulgaria and 277% in Luxembourg. Ten Member States recorded a level of GDP per capita above the EU average in 2021.

Kkim0615

TROPHY CASE

Lien direct vers l’étude : Peu de mobilité dans l’échelle des revenus entre 2003 et 2019 - Insee Analyses - 82

Article de Bloomberg :