Crazy Crucial Prices

[theSeaHawk]

Why did I buy from Crucial twice?

Because of their banner ad that frequents the top pages of macrumors.com

If this thread was pinned, chances are I would have brought my business elsewhere... maybe I can phone cancel the order...

 

[DesignerOnMac]

Matched pairs are always better

Quick newby question for you experts. I've still got my finger on the trigger to buy a new MBP, but am awaiting the new chip. I intend to buy extra memory from one of the online vendors mentioned in this thread to bump the memory on the MBP up to 2 gb. I see the MBP comes with 1 stick of 1gb. Does that mean I just need to buy 1 more stick of 1 gb ram? I keep reading about "matched pairs" and wondered whether I need to buy 2 new sticks of 1 gb ram? Sorry for my confusion, but thanks for humoring me and thanks in advance for your answers.

Raleigh1208
--a Mac newby coming over from the dark side

Buy 2 GBs from OWC and trade in your 'old' RAM back to OWC for cash!

 

[Mindflux]

I've been using Crucial for years. I buy when their memory is competitively priced, which happens. Their warranty support is second to none, I can call and say I have a dead module and they'll ship me a new one stat. I ship the old back and the process is done.

FWIW the OWC ram is Micron(Crucial) for the iMac, but is currently 170, versus Crucial's 199 for 4GB of PC2-5300.

I like dealing with Mushkin too, same great warranty policies. Their ram, however is pricier 99% of the time.

 

[Karvel]

Can anyone recommend any alternatives to Crucial for the UK?

 

[weckart]

Can anyone recommend any alternatives to Crucial for the UK?

You can try the following: Dabs.com Ebuyer.com lambda-tek.com aria.co.uk scan.co.uk offtek.co.uk memory-express.co.uk

From these, offtek and memory-express are the only memory specialists and none is consistently cheaper than the rest. You really will need to froogle on a daily basis to find out which has the best prices. It is quite often www.crucial.com/uk , however.

 

[vm7118]

it's interesting that this thread has re-appeared. i just found out about crucial's sometimes strange pricing schemes this past week, and i figured it was an anomaly. i guess i was wrong.

i bought a SR MBP with 2 gb in september, and i decided to get my girlfriend 2gb for her old yonah macbook. i bought it from crucial (always trusted their RAM... and still do, regardless of what comes next), but returned it, realizing i could give her my 2gb of ram and get myself a new 4gb

so i put in my laptop info into crucial.com just for the heck of it, and it gave me a HUGE price for the 4gb kit! it was stated as containing 2x2gb sticks, but right there on the same page (listed all compatible RAM for my system) the single 2gb stick was less than half their 4gb upgrade kit.

to make matters worse, when i googled the product numbers to see if they were different, i came to see that the EXACT same crucial RAM can have completely different model numbers based on the retailer (even a completely different naming scheme...).

so after all this, i stuck to what i've been doing the last ~8 years, and bought from newegg. 2x2gb sticks of crucial ram for something like 150 bucks (before tax/shipping). got it the next day since i live in NJ, where newegg has a warehouse. automatic next day delivery for any method by paying sales tax

 

[superleccy]

Can anyone recommend any alternatives to Crucial for the UK?

Do Crucial actually use dynamic pricing in the UK any more?

A quick test looking for 4GB for my MBP shows £115.14 going thru their advisor, and £112.79 thru doing a manual seach. A difference of just £2.35, but in the past I've noticed greater differences. I suppose in theory they are within their rights to charge a little bit more for the "guarantee" that the memory they advise will work in you machine.

But I've never seen any evidence of them adapting their prices based on your browsing/seacrhing history, or based on what computer or browser you're using. Based on these threads, I don't doubt it's happening in the US, but in the UK I'm sure it would be illegal... and I've not seen any evidence that it's going on.

Thoughts? Experience?

Cheers
SL

 

[weckart]

Do Crucial actually use dynamic pricing in the UK any more?.... Based on these threads, there's I don't doubt it's happening in the US, but in the UK I'm sure it would be illegal... and I've not seen any evidence that it's going on.
Cheers
SL

I doubt that it would be illegal, as any site has the right to raise its or lower its prices anytime - even between individual customer orders. However, if it could be proved that specific groups of people, say women or ethnic minorities, were targetted for differential pricing, then you could have recourse to the law under current anti-discrimination legislation.

 

[OwlsAndApples]

On Crucial UK, the prices for my iMac's RAM upgrades are the same in the Safari 3 and Firefox 2 (Mac OSX). Seems like it's not happening here then ... I hope.