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Apple Doubles the Price of RAM Upgrade on Entry-Level 13-Inch MacBook Pro
- lucalee33 6y agoThe price increase is actually a price correction, Apple told. The price to upgrade RAM from 8GB to 16GB is $200 on other Macs, including the iMac and MacBook Air, and this change is meant to keep the fee consistent. Apple says it will honor the earlier pricing for those who purchased the cheaper RAM upgrade before the price change went into effect. The 13-inch MacBook Pro was refreshed last month. Though the entry-level design remains largely unchanged, it now includes Apple’s Magic Keyboard, which replaces the maligned butterfly keys found on previous MacBook models. i also purchase a used mackbook pro 15 inch https://www.asan.com.pk/ad/79849/macbook-pro-15-inch-early-2011 https://www.asan.com.pk/ad/79849/macbook-pro-15-inch-early-2... 4gb ram, with installed graphic card AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256 MB, 2 GHz Intel Core i7
- edhelas 6y agoHopefully you can do your RAM upgrade by yourself. In the end it's a "Pro" machine no ?
- timw4mail 6y agoNope. Only the Mac Pro has upgradable RAM at this point. Edit: The Mac Mini does as well, but apple doesn't consider it 'user-upgradable'.
- koolba 6y agoDoes Apple let you upgrade anything in their laptops anymore? I thought everything was soldered to the main board for years now.
- manaskarekar 6y agoThe last partially upgradable machines were the 2015 Macbook Pros and Airs. You could upgrade the nvme ssd. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-mac...
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Hopefully you can do your RAM upgrade by yourself. No unfortunately this isn't a user-replaceable part in most modern MacBooks. > In the end it's a "Pro" machine no ? Not sure what that has to do with it? Most professionals don't want to be changing their RAM.
- jonplackett 6y agoI think it's just that most professionals have given up expecting to be able to change their RAM.
- mopsi 6y agoMost professionals aren't using Apple in the first place. The world runs on Windows desktop PCs, and business-oriented models from major vendors like HP are really easy to work on: can replace RAM, HDD or power supply in a minute or two and without any tools. Instruction manuals are simple, clear and well illustrated. if you can tie shoelaces, you can replace RAM.
- saagarjha 6y ago> Most professionals aren't using Apple in the first place. Depends on the field and location.
- jonplackett 6y agoI work in an ad agency with 200 people. Every single professional has a Mac. Basically creative fields prefer macs.
- nsomaru 6y agoNah. Unscrewing a cover and popping up some ram is not a “professional” task. It’s something anyone with passing familiarity could achieve. Shove your ram in some obscure place so the owner can’t access it, now you need a professional if simply to offset the risk something goes wrong while you’re fiddling. User serviceable parts are just not an Apple priority.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y agoLOL! You haven't seen the insides of recent Macs (read: since 2010), have you? Everything is soldered to the motherboard, the battery is glued to the case, etc. They're the pinnacle of non-repairability.
- syshum 6y agoIt always makes me laugh when Apple (and their fans) talk about how Environmentally Friendly Apple is... Reduce and Reuse is the best way to help pollution, yet Apple is known, famous for Planned Obsolescence and non-repairability you can not be Environmentally Friendly and maintain the only solution to any problem is to just toss it and buy a new one
- Bud 6y agoThere is no "planned obsolescence" from Apple, and btw, that phrase is not capitalized in English. There is a popular myth among the lazy-minded about this, but the fact is that Apple's hardware lasts a lot longer, and is intentionally supported for a lot longer, than competing hardware. This is true for Macs as well as iOS devices. If Apple is "planning" for anything, it's for their stuff to last a lot longer than others' stuff, not the opposite.
- gambiting 6y agoNot everything has to be black and white. Apple can be supporting old hardware for very long time, much longer than any other manufacturer, and yet simulatiously be shit at making sure their hardware is actually repairable if it does break down. Luis Rossman had a very good series of videos on this, consider this for instance - a chip that controls USB-C charging used to be just a regular chip made by some chinese company, you could order them by yourself for like $0.10 each, a tray full of chips would cost you few dollars at most. So as he runs a repair business, and those chips fail relatively frequently for <reasons>, he could repair a dead macbook for like $50-100(practically charging just for his time to take the chip out and put a new one in). But Apple doesn't like that - so they went to that manufacturer and specifially asked for that chip to be modified, so that it only works with their machines, and asked that they are the only buyer of that chip. So now if your macbook dies because this chip failed, you cannot replace it with a new $0.10 chip - you need to buy a whole new $1000 motherboard from Apple. This is not planned obsolescence - this is going out of your way to make the repairs harder. I can understand when certain decisions are made for engineering reasons(like say, having the ram soldered on), but this kind of thing when Apple goes to the manufacturer and asks for a version specific only to them so that no one else can buy it, ever - that's just anti-consumer, and I hope the hand of the law will come on them super hard due to this.
- grishka 6y agoBack when you could upgrade the RAM yourself, everyone did just that. I bought a Mac Mini with 2 GB in 2011 and maxed it out to 8 for what felt like pocket change. Apparently, Apple didn't quite like people bypassing its ridiculous markups altogether.
- akerro 6y agoI had iMac in ~2009 had to do virtualisation work, so tried to upgrade RAM, ordered a few RAMs and none of them worked, iMac refused to boot. Gave up on this, never used Apple products again... too much hassle and too much lockdown from manufacturer.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoI think you can still do that with the current Mac Mini although it is a fiddly job.
- asdff 6y agoibook g4 could do it with your fingernails.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoYes but it weighed twice as much as the current model.
- grishka 6y agoI'd be okay with a 2 kg laptop if that would mean I could upgrade most of its components.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoJudging by what people buy it seems you are in a minority.
- michaelcampbell 6y agoNo. "Pro" to Apple means expensive and showy, not upgradeable.
- bluedino 6y agoThe majority of thin/light laptops sold today have soldered memory, it's not just Apple.
- freehunter 6y agoCan we be done with this “real professionals” meme? It’s been beating a dead horse for years and at this point it’s starting to sound like trolling.
- chongli 6y agoHave you seen the motherboard of a recent MacBook/Pro? They’re tiny. Having user replaceable RAM would make them far larger which would require compromises in other areas. Judging by the popularity of MacBooks, people don’t want those compromises.
- andr 6y ago8GB of LPDDR3 costs about $30 retail. So they went from a 330% markup to a 660% markup. Nice.
- chrisseaton 6y ago230% to markup to 560% markup.
- tpmx 6y agoThis is why it makes more sense to say "3.3x vs 6.6x more expensive". It's better aligned with how people actually think.
- chrisseaton 6y agoAlso see benchmarking - 'times as fast' vs 'times faster' vs 'times slower' etc etc etc eternally confusing.
- tpmx 6y agoWhat? I have never seen that as a problem, and I've probably consumed thousands of benchmarking articles over the years. Benchmarks either use the (in my pov stupid) "X percentage units faster" or x faster/slower method. The latter is obvious, the former is not. As to 'times as fast' vs 'times faster' vs 'times slower': I don't see how there could be any confusion.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> What? I have never seen that as a problem, and I've probably consumed thousands of benchmarking articles over the years. Possibly you gloss over the words as you're used to them, but don't stop to think what each paper really means? I didn't either until one day I stopped and did. I wrote a blog post about this, but unfortunately never got around to posting it because I think it came across as rather pedantic. I surveyed the language used to express speedup in systems papers using benchmarking in top conferences and produced this table: https://twitter.com/ChrisGSeaton/status/1253654667579531265/photo/1 https://twitter.com/ChrisGSeaton/status/1253654667579531265/... Each row is a different way to talk about the same thing, then the English way to say it, then each column is what this looks like for a different example value, then the actual mathematical expression. Just to emphasise this - each column is the same empirical result, and then each row in the column is a different way to express that same result, that I've seen in a paper. > The latter is obvious, the former is not. I'm afraid it isn't as obvious to everyone, and other people may think it's obviously something different to you. You'll notice that some English phrases can be interpreted in multiple reasonable ways. Is running in half the time '1 times faster' or '2 times faster'? You'll see both in the wild. > As to 'times as fast' vs 'times faster' vs 'times slower': I don't see how there could be any confusion. Is '2 times as fast' the same as '2 times faster'? Some papers think so, others not. Have you read the root comment of this thread... that's an example of real-world confusion right there! Just with markup not speedup. It's the same maths and the same confusion.
- Havoc 6y agoWell I guess they were right. They do have a lot of courage
- bitlax 6y agoYou'll pay it.
- snemvalts 6y agoProbably too many people went for base + 16gb. There's not too big of a difference between base 8th gen and upgraded 10th gen except for graphics.
- jonplackett 6y agoWhen the new Macbook's came out, I did think they were priced a bit too reasonably. Apple must have thought so too...
- pedrogpimenta 6y agoI have been a faithful Apple/macOS since 2002. Always very happy and proud. I have now switched to Windows on my Macbook Pro and I'm liking it. It's not as polished as macOS still, but I think (and hope) it's getting there. I don't think I'll ever buy another Apple machine. Windows has turned around since those times, I recommend you give it a try if you're thinking about it or you're unhappy with how Apple has become nowadays. I almost feel free to choose whatever machine I want next and not pay a hefty price for it. Or pay it, if I want to, but it will be my choice, not imposed.
- VonGuard 6y agoI did this 4 years ago, with a move to Linux after well over 20 years of being a diehard Mac Fanboy. What did it for me was the fact that Apple hardware cannot be fixed except by Apple. I used to take apart Powerbook Duos, which were a huge pain and not made to be easy to take apart, but at least, Apple didn't actively work against you taking it apart.... LIke the Power Mac 8500, it was a really tight, difficult to get into design, but you could still do it.... Now, you open an Imac and it's broken by opening it. Permanently. On the motherboard.
- yryan 6y agoWhich model iMac breaks the motherboard by opening?
- VonGuard 6y agomine was a 2013. You pull the monitor forward and it breaks the cable mount that connects it to the motherboard . The tollerance diference between opening it and breaking it is like 1 millimeter, i swear. It is unopenable without a special tool.
- sjwright 6y agoSure, if you don’t avail yourself of freely available disassembly guides before opening your iMac, you’ll probably break it. Bad Apple.
- 6y ago
- bluedino 6y agoFor comparison: Lenovo charges $149 (regularly $170) for the same upgrade in the X1 Microsoft charges $200 for the same upgrade in the Surface Pro 7 It sucks that they raised the price (and I'd love to hear the story behind it), but it's on par with everyone else.
- MonaroVXR 6y agoWasn't it because of this? https://www.tomshardware.com/news/coronavirus-update-ram-resistor-prices-effects https://www.tomshardware.com/news/coronavirus-update-ram-res... https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nand-ssd-prices-2020-going-up https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nand-ssd-prices-2020-going...
- cptskippy 6y agoYeah, I was going to say these sorts of price hikes are like a canary in a coal mine for the industry.
- NotSammyHagar 6y agoYet the demand must be way down, I'd guess demand could be down at least 25% just based on the economy and people buying less stuff, following through to phones and computers.
- Shorel 6y agoDemand for cars and other big price things is down. If anything many people are investing in new computers, or cameras or video games than ever before. At least in my country, lockdown is just starting and I got a new laptop last week.
- Exmoor 6y agoI realize I'm responding to speculation with anecdotal evidence, but I've seen lots of mentions of people having issues acquiring PC parts and full laptops. A lot of workplaces suddenly needed to purchase a lot of laptops for remote workers. A lot of parents needed to purchase computers for their children who now need to do school remote. A lot of gamers seem to have decided that they might as well build a new PC if they're going to be stuck at home.
- jasonv 6y agoI’m still running a 2014 MacBook Air. It’s fast enough, but I do want a more powerful machine for video editing. Is there a Windows based machine that’s likely to still feel as new and solid after 6+ years as an aluminum bodied MacBook?
- formercoder 6y agoI think Lenovo has the best chassis build quality but still doesn’t quite compare to Apple
- jeffbee 6y agoI have a working, unblemished thinkpad X61 and I’ve never seen a metal MacBook that hasn’t been dropped and dented. Dropping a MacBook on its corner basically ruins it. Plastic is the right material for a laptop.
- vladvasiliu 6y agoI don't know about that. My old MacBook Pro (non-retina unibody) was dropped on a corner and the most annoying consequence was that in order to change the SSD I would have to angle it just right. My current 2013 model does have its share of scratches and two small dents but it works as well as 6 years ago. I'd much rather have a dented metal case that stays together than a cracked plastic one.
- jeffbee 6y agoThe only cracked laptop I ever had was the titanium powerbook. Dropping a macbook on its corner tends to dent it in such a way that the lid can't completely close, which sucks a lot.
- zitterbewegung 6y agoMacbooks are pretty well known to have very little deck flex and general rigidity. Probably the closest you are going to get are Microsoft Surface Books but then the problem is the trackpad won't be as good at all.
- Yetanfou 6y agoBy now this amounts to stating that Luis Vuitton doubles the price of the shiny lacquer upgrade on its entry range of handbags, i.e. more or less irrelevant since there is no direct relation between the cost and the imagined value of the object. Some will pay since to them the imagined value of the product justifies the price, others won't since they consider some factors to be less important, others to be more important in deciding the imagined value. Those who will pay the price tend to defend the rationale behind the price increase while those won't tend to do the opposite, i.e. the decision does not much to move the dividing line between those who are willing to pay and those who are not since those who value the brand will continue to do so.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y ago> there is no direct relation between the cost and the imagined value of the object Try looking for an equivalent to this: Apple MacBook Pro 16" silber, Core i7-9750H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB, 3500€ Similarly specced models are either not available at all or be priced around 3000€ (eg HP ZBook Studio G5). So yes the MBP will cost a little more, but not outrageously so, and some of it can be explained by better components.
- Matthias247 6y agoWow. After >= 5 years of having a 8GB base model and expensive upgrades to 16GB (which are imho totally necessary today) i thought they finally improved a bit with the 2020 model by at least reducing the upgrade cost. Seems like they are back to 2015 again.
- fulafel 6y agoAnyone know if this soldered Mac RAM upgrade receipe was genuine and if it's become harder since? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTsEJ49LLsQ&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTsEJ49LLsQ&feature=youtu.be
- jrochkind1 6y agoDammit, that's always the main upgrade I'd recommend to everyone. I think I had previously noticed it was already $200 to go from 8 to 16 on entry level new MacBook Air -- at any rate, it is now too.
- sjwright 6y agoI agree, though with ultra high speed NVMe SSDs, not having enough RAM isn’t the performance penalty it used to be for casual computer use.
- zrm 6y agoThe danger now without enough memory is that you're using the SSD for swap. I've seen web browsers eat 16GB of memory by themselves. If you only have 8GB, it might not be that slow anymore, but then you're going to wear out your SSD.
- sjwright 6y agoIs that a realistic concern for typical usage patterns?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dis-sys 6y agoIntel wants you to only have 4 cores Apple wants you to only have 8G RAM what a huge surprise!
- jhack 6y agoDoes that mean the new 2020 Macbook Pro I bought with 16GB just became $100 more valuable?
- js2 6y agoI don't really understand who's buying the two-port 13" MBP with its 8th generation CPU over the MBA or the four-port MBP, both with 10th gen CPUs. Now I really don't understand it. Maybe Apple is trying to guide people toward one of those other two models. You're at $1500 by the time you've upgrade it to 16GB. The four-port which comes with 16GB starts at $1800, but gets you a current generation CPU which is faster (2.0 Ghz vs 1.4 Ghz), has double the CPU, double the Thunderbolt ports, and double the memory. Seems like a no-brainer for $300 more. I personally just purchased a maxed-out MBA. I went with the MBA because I prefer the form-factor and don't want the touch bar. If I'd been willing to accept those, I would've gone with the four-port MBP. At no point did the two-port MBP make any sense to me. Edit: it's $200 to upgrade the RAM in the MBA as well. I wonder why the MBP was only $100 in the first place.
- suddencoma 6y agoCould you please explain why you would choose an Apple anything over a much more reasonably priced and specwise better PC? Not trying to be a dick, I'm a sysadmin genuinely trying to wrap my head around it.
- stevewodil 6y agomacOS, and great hardware. I love the MacBook touchpad, no other laptop really compares in that regard. The screen is also amazing on the MacBook Pro. I don't like Windows, and Linux is hard to get completely stable on a laptop (battery life, standby, webcam, touchpad gestures, etc.). Thus, macOS is the best alternative for me. Not everything is about price to performance ratios for me. It's about the overall experience I have when interacting with the device. Plus, the 15" MacBook pro I have is more than powerful enough.
- macintux 6y agoI agree with all of the above, but would also like to add the ecosystem to your list. With my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro I get some really nice integration of Keychain, Handoff, Continuity, etc.
- knodi 6y agoStop pushing me away Apple.
- danbr 6y agoIn no way am I arguing Apple is right here, but could this have anything to do with a possible shortage in RAM due to supplychain/COVID-19?
- vmchale 6y agoWeird, I'd think you'd want 16GB at least to make it last. I've actually upgraded my desktop to 64GB when I had the need (data analysis and compilers).
- tobyhinloopen 6y agoThey can double the price of the laptops and I’d still buy them. macOS is just ahead of the competition.
- Sangeppato 6y agoThey're probably selling more 8th gen models with 16GB of RAM than 10th gen models and they don't like it, as simple as that
- pyrophane 6y agoThe fact that RAM cannot be upgraded, even on the 16" MBP, will keep me away from buying another Mac laptop. It is so nice just not having to worry about whether or not I have enough when I buy the machine. I do wonder why so many manufacturers are moving away from user-upgradable RAM. Perhaps the failure rate is lower or it is easier from a manufacturing standpoint. It can't all just be to save space or to make more money by selling marked up RAM, can it?
- Ductapemaster 6y agoSize, cost, and integration. Size: SODIMM slots are huge. That space can be much more efficiently utilized when put onto the main circuit board. This potentially leaves more space for the battery, or making the laptop thinner/more aesthetic. Cost: Supply chain optimizations drive down cost. The DDR chips they are using are likely similar to the ones they use in other hardware (think phones). This increases total volume, and decreases cost. Also chips aren't a finished good, so they are saving on the cost incurred in making RAM DIMMs in the first place. Integration: They only have to make sure their hardware, firmware, and software works with the RAM they supply. Decreases the testing burden. No lookup tables to see what is compatible, and no guessing when you buy RAM that causes the BIOS to panic. It just works, and is highly optimized for the use case.
- sys_64738 6y agomacOS needs that extra 8GB due to all the bloat nowadays.