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

I don't think that means what you think it means

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

... Apple is quite literally ripping off those who aren't able to upgrade hardware themselves

Ouch! What are they ripping off and why would they do that to people giving them lots of money?

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[morgan_greywolf]

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.

Current Macbooks are PC laptops with a different OS and some DRM.

But anyway, I thought installing hardware in your Mac was easy because 'it just works' and you wouldn't have to pay your NFCG, right?

Re:Apple

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

It sounds like we need to redesign what antitrust is for.

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.

The real problem I see here is MS has bribed the US courts and the EU courts have been trying to be super diplomatic to MS. Top that off with all the courts being painfully slow compared to high tech industry and we see these sorts of inefficient, consumer unfriendly behaviors in dozens of markets peripheral to the desktop OS market.

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[FiloEleven]

I can confirm this. I was warned by the guy at the mac store that memory is user-upgradeable, but you absolutely will void your warranty if you try to replace the hard drive. This was for MacBook Pro; the drives might be replaceable in their desktops.