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."

Comments

Apple

[adpsimpson]

Top end vendor charges more for service than mass-market vendor.

Film at 11.

Re:Apple

[michael_cain]

To me that sounds a lot like what antitrust is designed to thwart.

Sorry, antitrust is designed to thwart that kind of tying only if one has a dominant market position, and is using the tying to extend that dominance into a different market. With 5% or so market share, Apple is small enough to be free to do what they like in the way of bundling and tying.

Re:Apple

[interstellar_donkey]

Customer service is a service, and it's part of a larger package. Apple has its own business plan. They do not market towards the tech savvy. They provide a product that works for people who are scared to death to open their computer cases and, say, replace a video card.

Think of them as being in more of the boutique computer business. If they can get more money by providing easy-to-use (though not as adaptable) products with a slick design, then what's the problem?

Re:Apple

[DinDaddy]

So it should be redesigned to stop any company from doing something some consumers don't like?

Re:Apple

[MidnightBrewer]

Antitrust should definitely not be for punishing companies just because they do something that, while we don't like it, we're not actually being forced into taking part in. This is more like one of those "vote with your dollar" scenarios.

Re:Apple

[gnasher719]

Not really. We just need to enforce our existing antitrust laws. Apple gets away with this sort of stuff because the market is so broken. If there were multiple, practical alternatives for desktop OS's with fast paced innovation driven by competition, Apple would not even be able to bundle their OS and hardware without losing money. The only way they get away with charging as much as they do for some of their upgrades is by leveraging OS X. Fix the market and they'll unbundle those products out of economic necessity.

Now that is nonsense. You are absolutely free to buy memory and hard drives wherever you want, and they are easy enough to install yourself. Some models make it a bit harder, but you can buy different models. You can attach and monitor you want, and if you are looking for a graphics card and don't find what you want, complain to the graphics card manufacturers.

Re:Apple

[sterno]

Indeed. Apple, just like Dell, or any other company is charging "what the market will bear". If they can get away with charging twice as much for a component, then they will. Dell would do the same thing if they could.

Re:Apple

[Araxen]

So it should be redesigned to stop any company from doing something some consumers don't like?

If you don't like it don't buy from them. There are plenty of other computer manufacturers....it just won't be a Mac.

Re:Apple

[richmaine]

Indeed, it apparently would shock interstellar donkey to know that tech-savy people sometimes have criteria other than the cheapest box they can find. For example, they are often well paid and would prefer not to have to waste a lot of their time fiddling with system-level things of their desktop computer.

I personally sysadmined and otherwise managed multiple computers, including the main central ones at a NASA center. I designed several of the major systems there. I think I count as tech savy, and I know quite a lot of other people who are. We also had a technical Apple sales representative (one who could actually "speak Unix") specifically marketting Apple stuff to us, so I'm a bit puzzled where he came from if Apple doesn't do the kinds of things he was doing, as interstellar donkey appears to claim.

Sure, I could put together my own boxes; I've done that. I've also bought boxes from Dell. My time happens to be more valuable than any price difference involved. Last time I checked, the hardware cost of a box was almost negligible compared to the cost of keeping one supported in our environment. I'd expect anyone who had actually worked in a professional environment full of technical people to know this. Or is Donkey's notion of "tech savy" restricted to hobyists?

It costs a lot to be trendy:

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter if it's trendy clothing, a trendy car or anything else, it's going to be more expensive if it's the 'cool' thing to do.

Duh?

[MBCook]

I like Apple. I've got my MacBook Pro next to me. At home we have another MBP, a MacBook, and an iMac. In the past we've owned numerous other Macs (all the way back to an LC II).

So let me say... duh. It is very well known that Apple does this. Read any thread on Macs here on /. Someone says Macs are great computers. Someone replies "but look what they charge for RAM!". The someone else says "well yeah, Apple is like that, buy the RAM separately."

This OLD. This is STALE. This is well known by anyone who watches this stuff. It's stupid, but Apple is allowed to price gouge if they want. This is just some "journalist" writing about a "discovery" to get page-views.

Just don't buy your upgrades from Apple.

And don't give this guy the hits he doesn't deserve.

Re:Duh?

[BasharTeg]

I would like to also declare along these lines that the following subjects are also OLD and STALE:

Microsoft abused their monopoly power to destroy old competitors such as Netscape and others.

Pointing out that IE6 and IE7 are horribly not web standard compliant.

Pointing out that older versions of Microsoft products (XP SP1, IIS 5, IE6) had massive security problems.

See, because it's Apple, Apple fanbois think that once their problems have been discussed (and minimized, rationalized, and written off as not problems at all) that even if these problems are never addressed they should never be discussed again. But we don't afford any other vendor that courtesy. We don't say "Oh, everyone knows Microsoft's browsers aren't very standards compliant, lets not discuss that again."

It's comments like this, trying to knock people who are pointing out that this problem STILL exists, and the legion of fanbois posting on this story coming up with 20 different reasons why Apple has to charge this much and why it makes sense, or posts like yours saying this isn't news that's just how Apple is, stop talking about it, that make the best response in the whole set of threads: "Kool aid much?"

Yes, Apple can price gouge if they want. Yes, we can and will talk about it.

And yes, I own a Macintosh, an Apple TV, an iPod nano, and I have about $2,000 into iTunes store so far. --- (Apple fanboi street cred)

Steak

[greyhueofdoubt]

"Can you believe it? When I go to the local steakhouse, they charge me more than twice what the meat itself actually cost! I can grill porterhouses for the whole family for half of the cost of going to the restaurant, and then there's the cost of gas! WTF! Restaurants suck!"

And yet you keep going to them.

Geek squad, car mechanics, roomba accessories, batteries for power tools, printer ink cartridges, etc... the list is long of transactions that grossly favor the seller. This is business. Things are not priced according to their material cost, they are priced based on their market value. They cost what they are worth to the target market.

You could sit all day making little beaded merkins with fur trim and I won't pay you a damned cent because I don't want your damned merkins. You get paid what you're worth. Apple gets paid what their products are worth on the market. They have done the math and figured that they make more money by charging X dollars and losing a few customers than charging X to more customers.

I hate it too and when I do buy apple hardware I downgrade the memory as far as I can in order to save money by buying it elsewhere.

Think of it this way: Buying RAM at newegg or wherever is cheaper than buying it from apple, but it's also cheaper than buying it from dell. So skipping the RAM from both companies saves you money. Right?

Maybe you feel like people are getting ripped off, but that's just because you're sensitive to this area of the market. I think people are getting ripped off whenever they pay a premium for something made out of 'aircraft grade aluminum' or titanium or whatever. I work with those materials all the time and the phrase 'aircraft grade aluminum' is as useless as saying mil-spec or heavy duty. There are mil-specs for shitty things, too. 'Heavy duty' batteries are among the worst. And aircraft aluminum ranges in strength from steel down to something you can rip with your hands.

So screw people who can't open the memory access panel on their computers. Apple has free and detailed instructions on how to do that for all of their hardware. If you're paying that much for RAM, then you're also probably the kind of person who pays $45 for someone to do their oil change or $6 for someone to make their coffee for them.

Again: Market value.

-b

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[gnasher719]

Your NFCG is about 10 times more competent with a PC or PC laptop than with an Apple. Most of them would be lost if you asked them to upgrade your MacBook. You can pay the NFCG now and pay extra to fix their mistakes later or you can pay Apple service now.

Adding memory or replacing the hard drive on a MacBook is trivial (as long as you have a size 0 phillips screwdriver). Anyone who can hold a screwdriver and is not legally blind can do it.

Apple's prices are Completely Justified

[aapold]

Why? Because people are willing to pay it. If they weren't, then they would lower their prices until they were.

It has nothing to do with the technology or anything else other than a business decision, aimed at making more money.

Watching this stuff

[tepples]

This OLD. This is STALE. This is well known by anyone who watches this stuff.

The point of the article could be to get more people to watch this stuff.

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[MrNaz]

"By paying extra, we get to avoid the ignorant twit who thinks that computer brands are a religion."

Err... you're saying you avoid that by going *to* the Apple store?

And this is wrong because?

[pvera]

Apple doesn't forbid you from providing your own upgrades. Anyone that has been around Macs for more than a few months knows where to order the exact memory sticks that they use for each model, at a fraction of the cost.

The 3GB upgrade for my Mac Book Pro was $99 including shipping, Apple wanted $300 or so for the upgrade. This is not an equivalent upgrade, this is the exact memory stick model that Apple was trying to sell me. And it is a customer allowed upgrade, so it does not affect my warranty coverage.

In the past it was not possible to upgrade the hard drives for Apple laptops, nowadays the cases are designed so the hard disk is easy to remove.

It is not a ripoff, Apple is not in the business of selling at cut throat margins by selling volume. They are in the business of selling premium items at a steep markup. It is just one of thousands of businesses in this country that operates the same way.

Go to your local Target and see how some 19" HDTVs are $400 while others cost twice as much. Price can't be the only criteria. There's a reason why a Sony HDTV costs a hell of a lot more than an Olevia.