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

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

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.

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

[The-Blue-Clown]

Can anyone besides me remember back when IBM clones took off while Apple was charging 100% markup? Jobs/Apple has become what is used to condemn. A bloated company focused on ringing money from it's customers.

Re:Apple

[Orange Crush]

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.

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?

200% cooler

[Anonymous Coward]

They cost 200% more because owning an apple makes you 200% cooler.

Desktops too

[fyngyrz]

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.

Re:Desktops too

[SeanMon]

You must take into account, though, that the Mac Pro takes Fully-Buffered DDR2 DIMMs at 800MHz. Newegg.com doesn't even offer 4GB FB-DIMMs at 800MHz...

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)

Of course

[Just Some Guy]

In other news: radio upgrades cost more on a BMW than on a Hyundai. With that or with RAM upgrades, you can either do it yourself (or hire someone), or you can let the dealer do it. Guess which is always more expensive?

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

That would literally hurt.

quality of components isn't the only cost factor

[Lazy Jones]

There's a lot more that determines pricing apart from "quality" (you mean cost) of components and greed. First and foremost, there is cost of labor (although I doubt that Apple employs expensive US/European people for assembling their stuff). Also don't underestimate the cost benefit of having efficient logistics / infrastructure for assembly.

Also, compared to most smaller market players, both Apple and Dell are outrageously overpriced in this regard.

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I think we could figure it out. But we would of course insult you endlessly for buying a Mac and investing into the rape that comes with it.

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[kannibal_klown]

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.

Re:200% more?

[fyngyrz]

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

Re:my personal experience...

[silentrob]

my personal experience is that the Apple hardware is far superior and requires less upgrades and that is why the cost is much more.

Right... because Apple's memory comes from a *completely* different part of Tiawan than Dell's.

Literally Ripping What Off Consumers?

[greenskin]

If Apple is literally ripping off consumers, I think you forgot your direct object. Maybe Apple is quite literally ripping the arms off those who aren't able to upgrade hardware themselves? Why isn't this bigger news?

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

This is news?

[noewun]

Three rules for owning Macs:

1) Do not talk about Fight Club.

2) Never buy the first generation of hardware.

3) Never order RAM or drives from Apple.

Seriously, this is old news. Buy the machine bare bones, order the stuff thuird party and install it yourself. As a bonus, it gives you an excuse to buy a set of Torx drivers!

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.

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[John_Booty]

I upgraded the hard drive and memory on my MacBook Pro and had no problems with getting my machine serviced by AppleCare on two occasions. And those were full logic board replacements, not cursory looks at the battery or anything.

(It was the first-gen MacBook Pro. Lots of issues with those, although Apple did take care of me.)

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[LWATCDR]

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.

Re:my personal experience...

[SL1200MKII]

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.

Let me fix that for you

[GameboyRMH]

Fashionable vendor charges more for service than mass-market vendor.

Film at 11.

There fixed it for you :)

Apple computers have their uses to professionals, but to the average Joe on the street it's just a more fashionable (and perhaps reliable) computer - and those are the people who are getting fleeced because they don't know how to swap out some computer parts.

Re:my personal experience...

[gEvil (beta)]

Drink much kool aid?

OH YEAH!!!

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.

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[Spazmania]

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.

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[Savage-Rabbit]

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"...

Re:Neighborhood friendly computer geek

[Gewalt]

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.

Re:XServes Too..

[Firehed]

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.

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.

Re:And this is wrong because?

[DrgnDancer]

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.