I live there for 20 years, and November is the month i usually go all out! (Thanksgiving)

For previous years model Macs, one can get as much as 300-500 USD price drop but only ONLINE. You never get anything cheap from Apple store, don't waste your friend time shopping in the store.

I would check out aftermarket Mac goodies online, recommended BH, Amazon for what you need. If you fancy a Thunderbolt 3 storage, Akitio Quad is the cheaper and it works wonder, it's cheap and u won;t be able to find it here, I have the T2 version along with OWC T2 Dock. The Dock is problematic. The Power supply is heavy and huge! if you travel a lot and need to carry the dock, i won't recommended it.

The other issues have to do with Mac, if you daily chain number of thunderbolt devices, multiple high res monitors, storage and what no, the speed would drop significantly, and crippled WIFI speed to unusable speed. 0.1-0.5 MB/s It's a know issue in MAC forum, partly due to overheat, Hey, thin is not always good when you put your laptop to stress. Now, i put owc dock aside so i don;t have too many thunderbolts chained in the system.

The jury is still out if the much thinner MBP would have the same issue with newer Thunderbolt 3, i have dump too much money on my last purchase, frankly too timid to find out if the new one can sustain heavy does of thunderbolt devices. If you are not a heavy user, buy a few dongles and it should be fine.

But hey, despite getting burned, I'm still a Mac user and ready to go all out again when the new iMac or Mac Pro release, MBP? not so much, too scare of overheat.

Granted, you are limited to Mac goodies in Malaysia but if the stuffs u can get it here like in Apple store. it's much cheaper than buying in USA not just because the recent USD's hike. Remember, in addition to currency exchange premium, you have to pay Taxes in US. Unless you buy on online store like newegg and BH is still tax-free. Amazon is depend on where you purchase. Malaysian complain about 6% GST, that's not much compare to US sale tax. 8-9.5% is quite the norm there.

From experiences, US retail is not any cheaper than Malaysia, currency hike or not on electronics goodies, especially misc cables and adapters. In fact, some of them are far more expensive. But their online goodies is another story. It's the online competing war in US that drives the price down, not only that, their services and return policy would take Malaysia years to catch up.

Japan is the same deal. It's not longer cheaper to buy electronics stuff there due to RM shrinkage despite the tourist tax incentive.