Importing m1330 from Japan

I have been thinking about importing a m1330 from Japan for two reasons.
(1) Price - $1400 after rate conversion (dell.co.jp) compared to $2400 US for the same configuration (dell.com)
(2) Keyboard - I wanted my next laptop to have a Japanese/QWERTY keyboard

How would I go about this? I know of Dynamism, but I don't know what their fees are like, if they do custom orders, how reliable they are, etc. Secondly, can anyone verify whether the Japanese keyboards have QWERTY characters as well? I have not seen a Japanese keyboard without them, but I want to make sure. The foreign OS is no problem, I get Vista free from my University. What about tech support. Does dell have worldwide support?

Any other comments or suggestions would be much appreciated. I'm not really set on the idea, just considering it as an option.

 

well, you know what, it's better if you just sit back, relax, relax again, until mid-august, when the M1210 stock clears, and you buy your M1330

 

Well I think regarding (1), you are going to be dinged with massive VAT/duty taxes, so it ends up being the same price as ordering in the US. The way to really save money would be to go to Japan and take receipt of the notebook there.

 

I don’t think DELL JP will ship it directly to you. Best way to import is ask someone in Japan to buy one for you and ship it as a gift or something.... If you buy the next business day warranty that will carry international warranty (can be transferred to a US warranty later).

By QWERTY characters if you mean English characters, then Yes, all Japanese keyboards have English characters. However there are some extra keys and the layout is little bit different for few keys (@,”,/’, etc.). The option of ordering with an English keyboard is also available at their site (if you want).