Only in Tokyo, Part 15: Great Deals Second Hand

I was warned before I came: 'you're going to be disappointed by the prices in Japan when you get there, they're no better than in Europe, and sometimes even more expensive.'  And that's often true.  But the same friend also pointed out that in general, the Japanese are 'meticulously careful,' which means the second-hand market is incredibly developed.

And he was right!  All of the second-hand cameras that we saw looked like they were new.  Here, a camera is sold as 'damaged' if it comes without the manual (which is in Japanese anyway) or no USB cable.  As a result, the prices are incredible:


So the Canon G10, which came out at the end of 2008, is £210 here, instead of the lowest current UK price of £380.   But it was the G7, from 2006, that you can see on the left that really stood out.  16 000 yen is about £115 for an expert-level compact camera that, despite its age, is head and shoulders above anything else available in Europe at this price, and even twice that.

For £125, you have to choose between more entry-level models, but unless you have any particular needs, it's not really worth hesitating for too long.


An Ixus 850 IS (called the Ixy Digital 900 IS in Japan) from 2007 is going for £70.  If the choice is between that and a new point-and-shoot without stabilisation and dubious software and optics, going second-hand seems to be the most obvious choice.

The whole experience left us wondering why there isn't a more mature market for second-hand equipment here when so many new models appear every year ....

> Only in Tokyo, Part 14: So that's where all-in-one PCs started!

> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products