New Laptop

Don't plan on going back there for quite some time, nor do I maintain an American CC.
Although ordering from the US would be doable, but I'm not certain if Chinese Union Pay works over seas.

It does if you use Paypal.

Can one link paypal to a standard Union Pay card?

Yep, but not your whereveryoucamefrom Paypal account. You need to register a new Paypal Global account, and they can't be merged.
https://www.paypal.com/cn/webapps/mpp/home

Bumping up this thread and my trusty old Asus eeepc is dying and I need a new laptop before I return to the Middle Kingdom. I really would like a new Asus since I was happy with them.Most important considerations - 1.weight (can't carry anything heavy as I am only a very small creature) 2.space 3.not complicated don't care for a lot of bells /whistles 4.will run Chrome well - I heard there is some horrid version of Windows (RT?) that doesn't allow one to install said browser. 5.Of course not horribly expensive after all I am a retired teacher (nuff said) thanks in advance all.

I haven't bought new in a while, but fwiw:

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/top-laptops-25-best-laptops-in-the-world-706673


I recently acquired an mSATA SSD instead. That'll replace the old spinning disk HDD in my Lenovo Ideapad y470p and make everything super fast again.

Was forced to buy a new laptop and following tradition opted for an acer aspire E1. They are getting lighter and has excellent battery life. The only thing I dont like is that I have to download everything all over again to replace the files on my old acer and it has this windows 8.1 on it and i have to learn a completely new OS. Still of mixed feelings on it as I just got it and am starting to play now.

My old Macbook all but died. I got a Toshiba Satellite, around 40% of the price with a nice big screen. Lighter than the Mac.

I picked up a gaming laptop for cheapish on taobao. Was a refurbished unit, but the build quality and generally high quality components won me over.