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How can Apple even begin to justify their RAM prices?

AlBDamned

AlBDamned

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 14, 2005
2,641
15
Just been looking at another thread and saw that 2GB of Powerbook RAM on a built to order machine would cost a massive £579.99!

How can Apple seriously get away with charging that? It's about 300% what you can actually buy it for. Even Samsung RAM isn't anything like that expensive.

Madness.
 
Sad thing is that I know people that actually have paid that price for their RAM!!! Because as they say "it's better since its Apple"
 
It just doesn't make sense at all. If you were spending £1500 on a powerbook, why would you spend 1/3 of that again on RAM.

I doubt too many people do actually max out a PB on order but I think more would if it was a reasonable price. An extra 512MB is £100 and that's 60% more than you can buy it from crucial.
 
dornoforpyros said:
they justify it by hoping people don't shop around.
Click to expand...


Well, that's more the answer to the questin "how do they get away with it"?

But, while it is overpriced, in any business there are people willing to pay for the convenience of having everything packaged together or available at one-stop shopping. Probably particularly true with many mac purchasers. Indeed, if your upgrade is say from 512MB to 1GB, you might figure the extra $40 or so it costs from apple is worth it just to have them install it.

Obviously for an educated consumer who can install RAM themselves, it's not worth it. But Apple isn't trying to make money on volume, and never has.
 
Actually I was just thinking the same thing, I saw that for a 12" PB the 1.25GB RAM (1GB stick) costs £260 to add in.

At Crucial it costs £130. So I'm just going for the stock 512MB RAM, and am going to buy a Crucial 1GB stick, saving me £130 on RAM alone :D
 
i spent 300 on 2 512 sticks of ram for my iMac G5 but sometime like to a begin computre user ram all ready installed it nice/

i would have gotten 2gb for the price apple sold me 1gb o well!
 
I got a gig of ram for my PB for $220 CAN shipped last Dec. and now it's still $550+ from apple (plus difference of the added 256 standard). Rip off, rip off, rip off

**EDIT**
$550 to upgrade from 512 to 1.25
 
leekohler said:
I've never understood it either. I wonder how many people actually buy RAM from Apple?
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised. I had to stop my grandfather from buying 2GB from them. :eek:
 
Apple seems to be the last hold out for expensive RAM.

Our IT department added a 1GB RAM stick from IBM to my Thinkpad about 9 months ago. It cost $365. I still don't understand why they spent so much. But prices there have gond down and it now costs $255 for 1GB RAM from the IBM website but $155 from Crucial.
 
My only wish is that you could order a computer with no ram and save the cash of the sale :), now that would be nice
 
Le Big Mac said:
But, while it is overpriced, in any business there are people willing to pay for the convenience of having everything packaged together or available at one-stop shopping. Probably particularly true with many mac purchasers. Indeed, if your upgrade is say from 512MB to 1GB, you might figure the extra $40 or so it costs from apple is worth it just to have them install it.
Click to expand...
Exactly how my father and I felt when purchasing my iMac... why fuss when it can come configured as I'd like?
Le Big Mac said:
Obviously for an educated consumer who can install RAM themselves, it's not worth it. But Apple isn't trying to make money on volume, and never has.
Click to expand...
Underline emphasis is mine because I take offense to that statement... I feel that I was 'educated' in my purchase, so why did I bother to pay the extra cost? Because 1) I didn't have to deal w/ ordering the RAM from elsewhere, deal w/ installing it, deal w/ it in case it was not compatible, but most importantly, 3)it would be covered by Apple's AppleCare so that if issues ever arose, I only need to service my computer at one place... Why does that make me uneducated?

:edit: I did upgrade the RAM on my PB myself... so it's not because I am 100% incapable of doing anything to a computer that I shelled out extra $$$ for Apple RAM on my iMAc, especially because I also have friends/family willing to help out if need be.
 
rockthecasbah said:
at least your grandpa is smart enough to use a Mac. I don't know many who use computers period, let alone the blessed mac ;)
Click to expand...

What he needs with 2GB of ram I will never know. :confused:
 
barneygumble said:
My only wish is that you could order a computer with no ram and save the cash of the sale :), now that would be nice
Click to expand...

don't forget Tiger and iLife (have retails of them both from upgrading my current system) to knock a nice $250 off a $500 mini.
 
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