Apple Doubles the Price of RAM Upgrade on Entry-Level 13-Inch MacBook Pro

[[AUT] Thomas]

Selling a PRO device with 8GB base memory is a joke in first place, but 250€ for outdated and inferior 8GB of memory... lol.. no...

 

[Mitsjke]

I think the 10th gen sales weren't as high apple was hoping for...

 

[servenvolley]

I gotta sell my 2017 pro. Its almost out of Apple Care and has needed $3600 (Canadian) in repairs over the time I have owned it (if I had to actually pay for them). keyboard (H key not working), screen (bad flex cable), logicboard (died entirely), then logicboard and ssd (on a complete replacement laptop they gave me after those first three failures), now keyboard again as my S key fell off. This was in a 4 year period because when they replaced the entire computer (after replacing the keyboard, screen, and logic board all within one year) the warranty renewed because it was a new unit.

I feel for the person that buys this used computer!🙄

 

[Macaholic868]

I just quadrupled my savings by not buying one!!!

 

[Canada420]

This is called gouging.

 

[Roadstar]

Hard to get rid of the iPhone right now until dual-SIM for Android isn't garbage.

Care to elaborate a bit on how dual-SIM for Android is garbage? I’ve used it on both platforns and found Android’s implementation more flexible and with fewer surprises.

 

[JagRunner]

But you'll still be here 12 years from now complaining about Apple.

Not for me. I currently have a 2017 MBP and I’m going to keep it until it needs replacing. But it won’t be another Apple computer even though I’ve used Macs since 2007.

 

[Henk Poley]

This is what you get from Apple hiring retail management from Burberry. Luxury pricing, decoupled from actual manufacturing cost.

 

[TorontoSS]

This is called gouging.

No it’s not. This is reacting to supply constraints and / or nudging you to a different product.

 

[fbr$]

My guess is the 14" MBP will replace only the $1799 13" MBP.

And both the MBA and the $1299 13" MBP will be replaced by a 13" ARM MB at same time.

Apple will want the 13" ARM MB to be at least 50% faster than both models being replaced, this explains why Apple didn't improve the cooling system on the MBA and also explains why the $1299 13" MBP still uses old processor and old RAM: the slower both models being replaced are, the faster the 13" ARM MB will be compared to them.

 

[JSRinUK]

At UK£1299 / US$1600 for the Entry Level MacBook Pro, I think I need an Entry Level version of the Entry Level model before I'm in any danger of buying one...

 

[Altherekho]

LOL Apple, why don’t they just remove the 8th gen MBP 13. If you want more power from your Air, get a 10th gen MBP 13. With 16GB RAM.

Pity the price jump to 10th gen is so huge!

Because 8th gen has an heatpipe while Air doesn’t.
[automerge]1590935046[/automerge]

If Apple would stop soldering the RAM and SSD to the MB, then the repairs would not cost so much. More modular Windows options are just as fast, so this is strictly a marketing decision.

Can you,out of warranty,unsolder and upgrade?If T2 is not letting you do that i think we should make something for our rights to repair !

 

[imnotthewalrus]

You’re leaving Apple because of $100? I mean yeah, the “doubled” clickbait article sounds scary but it’s really not that bad in the long run. If you’re getting a computer to last years, you won’t be getting a baseline computer anyways. Get the $1799 model.

I agree. My first Mac was the 2006 Black MacBook. 512Mb RAM. 80GB 5400 HDD. 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Price (in February, 2007): $1499.00

 

[Spectrum]

It’s worse than that...

Upgrading the 1.4/8/512 to an i7 and 16GB is now $200 MORE than the stock 10th gen i5/2.0/16/512.

The CPU performance will probably be very close, but it has slower RAM, fewer ports, 1 fan, slower GPU, and worse speakers.

The prices of upgrades on the 8th gen simply make no sense.

Others have said the re-alignment merely brings the price back into line with with published 8Gb to 16Gb BTO upgrades. Any other price matrix calculations merely makes that upgrade uneconomical for the upper SKU 15w MBP and rightly drives the user towards the basic 28w MBP with or without the CPU bump.

You can be sure that a stock $1799 28w MBP (2.0GHz i5) would beat a 1.7GHz i7 upgraded 15w MBP in benchmarks, and then the 28w MBP finishes the contest with the aforementioned faster graphics and RAM, speakers, and additional cooling. All for an extra $100 uplift.

This effectively makes bumped RAM a non starter if you already needed the 512Gb SSD storage space in a 13" MacBook Pro.

Adding too many BTO options to a Mac isn't really a cost effective move anyway, I'd always gravitate towards the SKU that requires the least add-ons to get to the spec you need.

Therefore I can't really get too distressed by the apparent price uplift - congratulations to the people who managed to get the RAM upgraded before the price went up.

 

[Altherekho]

My guess is the 14" MBP will replace only the $1799 13" MBP.

And both the MBA and the $1299 13" MBP will be replaced by a 13" ARM MB at same time.

Apple will want the 13" ARM MB to be at least 50% faster than both models being replaced, this explains why Apple didn't improve the cooling system on the MBA and also explains why the $1299 13" MBP still uses old processor and old RAM: the slower both models being replaced are, the faster the 13" ARM MB will be compared to them.

So the 2020 Pro will be the entry Macbook pro ?
Why they don’t just put an heatpipe to the i5 Air and call it Air Pro?

Air , core i3 no heat pipe
Air pro , core i5 with heatpipe
Macbook pro 13 10Th gen , Thunderbolt 3 and 2 fans/heatpipe
Macbook pro 14 11 th gen , Thunderbolt “4” / Usb4 aka Usbolt4
Macbook pro 16 11th gen and all the bells and whistle

In Italy here the Air i5 with 16 GB had the same price of the entry level 13” MacBook pro, so it was already differentiated.

 

[fbr$]

So the 2020 Pro will be the entry Macbook pro ?

My guess is the 2021 14" MBP for $1799 will be the entry Pro model in 2021.

And Apple will replace both the Air and the $1299 Pro with the new ARM model.

 

[Wokis]

I think they expected more people would order with the base amount of RAM than how it actually turned out. Now they might have a surplus of base boards that they want to sell off and rather than lowering price on those, this was a more business-savy solution.

Funny to think that my old 2012 Air has as much RAM as a brand new Pro in 2020.

 

[powerslave12r]

Enjoying 16 gigs on my 2015 MBP.

Cannot imagine paying over $1000 for a machine with 8 GB today. Mac OS is optimized and all that, but 8GB at these prices is a rip off.

 

[makarama]

Guys relax. They did that because they are planning to upgrade the entry level model in July like they did last year when they updated the 2-core to 4-core cpu

 

[pmau]

Price increases before updates hide the margin so nicely ...

 

[coffeeplease]

Consumers: Why are you doubling the price of RAM all of a sudden?
Apple:

 

[cmaier]

Selling a PRO device with 8GB base memory is a joke in first place, but 250€ for outdated and inferior 8GB of memory... lol.. no...

You think anyone thinks the base model 13” is for “Pros,” vs. say, that everyone understands that “pro” just means “more powerful than machines without ‘pro’ in the name?”

 

[imnotthewalrus]

Enjoying 16 gigs on my 2015 MBP.

Cannot imagine paying over $1000 for a machine with 8 GB today. Mac OS is optimized and all that, but 8GB at these prices is a rip off.

Me too. Maxed out 😃. I hope it lasts a great while longer. 🤞

 

[az431]

"suggesting an unexpected increase in Apple's costs being passed along to consumers."

That is complete nonsense.

RAM prices have not moved, they want to maximize profit and adjusted due to price elasticity which they were able to evaluate after the first sales statistics.

Awesome that you have access to Apple’s contracts with its suppliers, and are able to share that information with us.

Contrary to your baseless opinion, RAM prices have in fact increased, see for example

DDR4 RAM rises 20% in price, and will continue to rise - Optocrypto

Due to the epidemic situation, the global economic environment is not good and the demand for smartphones and computers is declining, but the storage market is still big business, and demand increased in April. The point is that with all this, the price of DDR4 RAM is rising by 20% and as far as...

optocrypto.com

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I am in the same boat. But I think Apple as a corporation does not like this. They feel that people rocking their computer for 10+ years are hurting new sales.

I believe Steve Jobs said that the vast majority of people never upgraded their systems anyway, so it was seen as something that could go with little impact. It remains to be seen if 2016 systems will still be going strong in 2026, but we’ll know in six years!

What I want to know is why a "Pro" machine is even starting with 8GB of RAM in 2020? My old 15" MacBook Pro from 2011 had 16GB of RAM nine years ago!

The base configuration was 4 GB nine years ago.

It should be forbidden to make soldered things, proprietary or whatever preventing users to upgrade themselves.

If you don’t solder the components of a MB to the MB, you’ll have a serious reliability problem. And phones would be practically impossible in their current state if companies couldn’t solder things.

He wanted to see sales slump to demonstrate we do not want Macs.

The folks here want Macs, the general public wants iPads such that they’re selling FAR more of those than any Mac. It’s even outpacing unit sales of a lot of the mobile PC lines.

Also an engineering decision - higher reliability by soldering parts to the motherboard - plus allows thinner enclosure (I said the t* word!).

Although yes, the cost of replacement of motherboard technically higher when it does go wrong Apple are also preventing users from accidentally breaking their expansion ports when 'upgrading' but stuff won't work loose during the working lifetime of the unit.

Plus, LPDDR modules HAVE to be soldered anyway.