Internet trolls might call me an Apple fanboy, but I wouldn’t say I am. I am just one of the happy people who made the switch a couple of years ago, and I am well-pleased that I did. I started with the Mac Mini - which seemed like the cheapest way to find out what the switch would be like - all went well - and so have since bought a Macbook Pro. Which all went great, aside from a snafu over the definition of Apple retail versus Apple store.
Anyway, with the new stock MBP in hand, I started looking at upgrading the RAM, from 2gb to 4gb. After finding the specs, first stop was the Apple store to see their prices. You can imagine I was a little taken aback to see that 4gb (2 sticks of 2gb) was a staggering $600 - I’m well aware that Apple hardware is more expensive than most, but $600 seemed ridiculous. And indeed it is - I picked up 4gb of Kingston (a more than reputable memory manufacturer) for $125 from Amazon. I could also have got Crucial or Samsung, for a similar price. Intrigued, I decided to call the Apple store, just to find out why their RAM was so damn expensive. I mean, $200 I could undrstand, maybe $250, but a full FOUR times more expensive? No way. I didn’t really know what answer to expect, so I just went ahead:
Me: Hi, I want to upgrade the RAM in my MBP and was just wondering why the RAM on the Apple website is so much more expensive than RAM I can find elsewhere on the Internet. Is there some difference between that and your RAM that I should be aware of?
Apple Retail Wench: Well, erm, Apple makes its own RAM so you can be sure that it’s going to work OK.
Me: You make your own RAM?
ARW: Yes. Would you like me to go ahead with the order?
Me: [click]
As I said, I didn’t know what to expect, but I never expected to be told that Apple makes its own RAM. I immediately didn’t believe her - it sounded so improbable. I wasn’t 100% though (you never know with Apple) - so was thrilled to find that when I replaced the RAM, the stuff that came out was made by Hynix, one of the biggest producers of generic memory. Not Apple, Hynix.
I don’t mind Apple using generic memory. I don’t mind them charging a premium for it. I don’t mind them giving me some crap about it being tested with their systems. But don’t, for the love of God, lie to me and tell me the reason it is so expensive is because they make it themselves. That just makes them look very, very silly.
[...] / £300 ($600) from Apple store, whereas 4GB of Crucial or Kingston is just as good (if not better, Apple use Hynix), four times cheaper and you keep the RAM that comes out of your MBP to use elsewhere.) It’s [...]