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Apple Laptop Upgrades Costing 200% More Than Dells
An anonymous reader writes "C|net is highlighting the astonishing cost of Apple laptop hardware upgrades, compared to Dell — in some instances, Apple is charging 200% more for upgraded components, such as memory and hard disks. Either there's a serious difference in the quality of components being used, or Apple is quite literally ripping off those who aren't able to upgrade hardware themselves."
This is also true of Apple desktops.
Simple check: Go to the Apple store, and price a Mac Pro 8-core with the basic amenities; 2 GB ram, the recommended HD. Then price it maxed out; one HD of the largest size (1/2 TB last I looked) and 32 GB of RAM. Finally, take the original price and add 32 GB of RAM in 4 GB sticks (the Mac Pro can take 8 sticks) from a reputable online store. The difference is astonishing.
I have a recent Mac Pro, and I expanded it the sensible way; the amount of money I saved by doing that is staggering. I've had absolutely no problems.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You can up the memory without voiding the warranty, at least on the MacBook Pros; I'd imagine on most systems too.
As for the Hard-drives, I don't know.
An 8-headed display Mac Pro is $3239. To which you add four 1TB drives, and RAM, both from elsewhere. You chuck out (or sell, it's very good hardware) the 2 GB stick of RAM and the HD it comes with.
RAM is $699 per 8GB (as pairs of 4GB sticks @ memorysuppliers.com); so you need $2800 for 32 GB; a 1 Tb drive is $190 (WD Caviar GP WD10EACS Hard Drive @ buy.com), so you need $760 for four drives. Total:
$3239 - macpro w/wifi, 8 display outputs (4x ATI 2600 XT 256MB), 2.8 GHz
$2800 - ram
$ 760 - drives
---------
$6799...
Same configuration (32 GB, 4x1 TB drives) from the Apple store:
$13,989.00
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Golly sir those Macs must run on fairy dust and Unicorn poop...
Give me a break it isn't some magical device people. Apple uses off the shelf parts. Apple even provides instructions on how to do it!
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1270
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf
If your local computer guy can READ and use the internet this is a piece of cake.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Sorry to burst your bubble but I just took apart 2 macbook pros over the weekend, to see exactly what the hype over the hardware is all about. Besides the well engineered layout of the mobo, there is nothing special about the components that apple uses. They use the same Samsung/Micron DDR2 memory module as Dell, Lenovo and other vendors. They use the same Hitachi hard drives, which from my experience is inferior compared to Seagate drives (Thought I have heard that some macbooks do come with seagate drives). The processor is the same Intel processor as everyone else. So while the Macbook pro as a whole is a good laptop, I would have to disagree that its hardware components are far superior compared to Dell or other PC counter parts - it's the same hardware after all.
The last time I checked (Consumer Reports), the only thing Apple has over other vendors is better customer service: not technology.
What? Consumer Reports showed them as having a very significantly lower failure rate during the first year than any other vendor (as of early 2007). That was the last real study I saw them publish on the subject.
You were modded down because just about everyone knows that it's unlawful to void warranties merely because service wasn't performed by an authorized vendor.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty.shtm
"Tie-In Sales" Provisions
Generally, tie-in sales provisions are not allowed. Such a provision would require a purchaser of the warranted product to buy an item or service from a particular company to use with the warranted product in order to be eligible to receive a remedy under the warranty. The following are examples of prohibited tie-in sales provisions.
In order to keep your new Plenum Brand Vacuum Cleaner warranty in effect, you must use genuine Plenum Brand Filter Bags.
Failure to have scheduled maintenance performed, at your expense, by the Great American Maintenance Company, Inc., voids this warranty.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
If your local computer guy can READ and use the internet this is a piece of cake.
I am a FNCG and I don't do HD upgrades on my MacBook Pro myself largely due to warranty issues. If I screw up something up during the installation I'm stuck with the damage but if Apple does they have to replace the machine. Upgrading desktop boxes is, of course, a different story. I don't buy parts from Apple. I can source laptop hard drives for example, from third part suppliers at about 50% of the price my local Apple dealer sells them at. Apple has yet to refuse to install the components I hand them. The last time I upgraded the HD in my MacBook Pro I wanted a 320G disk which the guy in the Apple repair workshop said they wasn't available. I came back like 45 Minutes later after finding one single computer shop in town that sold 320G laptop drives and asked they guy I talked to previously to install it. He wanted to know where I got it from but I just told him it was from another supplier in the city and that it was way cheaper than Apple's upgrade parts and that he should let me know if he could figure out where I got it. When I got the MacBook back from the shop later that day they had installed the drive and OS X but they renamed the drive after the shop where I bought it instead of the default name "Macinstoh HD"...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
replace hdd on macbook pro: You were thinking of a macbook pro, not a macbook. I know, I know, its stupid of apple to make two dissimilar models of the same basename, but they did it anyways. SO uh, the "pro" version of the mbp is much harder to replace the hdd than the non-pro. A T6 is an absolute must have tool. I just did this a couple of weeks ago. It was easy for anyone who's ever been inside a laptop before.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Yeah the Xserves are insane. I called them up asking whether I can upgrade the drives myself and they said that you have to buy at least the 80GB units to get the drive trays. A $3000 machine and it comes with one 80GB drive and two useless blanking plates (and only a single quad-core xeon to boot)? Screw that. I just pieced together an 8-core/2GB/2x80GB 1U from Dell for $1700; even if you add $1000 to that for the OS X Server Unlimited-users version, you're still $700 cheaper in specs.
I'm willing to pay a premium to get a better product that works right the first time, but Apple is REALLY milking it on the pro-oriented hardware.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
There are also plenty of other Apple-certified service shops who can upgrade memory and whatnot without voiding an Apple warranty for those who can't do it themselves, so even if you buy a Mac, you've still got choices with regards to upgrades.
Actually, I'm willing to forgive it because it doesn't affect me. I just bought a MacBook. I like it. I had three options: for $1100 I could have a 2.1 Ghz Core Duo, 1 GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, and a CD Burner. For $1300 I could upgrade to a 2.4 Ghz Core Duo CPU, double the RAM, add 40 GB to the HDD, and get a DVD burner. For $1500 I could get a 250 GB HDD and a black case (otherwise it was identical to the $1300 version). I did the math real quick and decided that the $200 for the middle option was a good deal, but the extra $200 more for 90GB more HDD was not (Oh, and a black case... can't forget that). I now own a laptop whose features compare favorably with similar Dell offerings; had I spent the extra I'd have been either foolish or not done my research. If Apple can convince people to part with an extra $200 for a case color, I say power to 'em. I'm just not one of those people. I may even drop $100 for a 250GB HDD and upgrade the silly thing if it becomes a problem... but right now I'm not even filling half the drive.
Apple's gear is perfectly reasonable if you pay attention to what you are actually buying; but just like anyone else they'll charge premiums when they think they can get away with it.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.