3 ms·

16gb of ram for PC laptops that still have upgradeable chips costs around $30 retail. Seems pretty crazy for Apple to severely cripple such an expensive machine

by _yb2s 3y ago

16gb of ram for PC laptops that still have upgradeable chips costs around $30 retail. Seems pretty crazy for Apple to severely cripple such an expensive machine with no real savings to them.

behnamoh 3y ago
I'd probably be ok with 8GB on a MacBook Air (but I'd still nag about it). But to put 8GB on a "Pro" model...
josephcsible 3y ago
It's not "pretty crazy": it's price discrimination. By making their base model almost unusably underspecced, even with almost zero cost savings, they make sure that nobody who can afford a really expensive one will buy a "cheap" one.
- _yb2s 3y ago
  I don’t see how that could work in practice. Most people I know are confused about the difference between ram and storage… they are going to trust that “pro” means it will be fast for normal “non computer nerd” use cases, and when it isn’t they won’t buy from Apple next time. Many single apps used by non technical people like Adobe Photoshop require 16gb nowadays.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  The iMac shows this off in so many ways. First there's no 27 inch option because Tim Apple wants to sell Studio Displays. But then the specs. Base model has 2 USB ports, no Ethernet, and a 256GB SSD. Given that I can go buy a pretty excellent 512GB PCIe 3.0 for $25, it just seems insulting to start so low. And then look at the frigging price of upgrade! It's $200 to upgrade to 512GB! Holy shit, I could go get a great 4TB Crucial P3 Plus for that. Ditto for $200 for 8GB->16GB. It's just wild what this company does.
- seec 3y ago
  Well at least that is the theory. They are losing sales from people who could reason around compromising performance (speed mostly) but making the effort to get a "better" made computer with a system they like, but absolutely cannot work around the low storage and ram that are just handicapping for many workloads. Someone who just runs graphic software (either adobe or affinity) with a few other things will get severely limited by 8GB. And it is not a "pro" use case, enough to spend so much money on a computer. So, they get a 1K laptop that has all those things standard and will forget about Apple... Add to that the unhappy ones about their experience with the base model and the long term is not looking good. My cousin routinely tells me he is so upset about the 1.8k he had to spend on a base iMac that is extremely limited and terribly slow for many things because Apple was stingy about the SSD (stupid fusion drive with exceptionally low amount of actual SSD). When he needed a computer for video production (the irony) to cover sports competitions he went with a PC and a cheap video card. Even though the Mac Mini would be a good fit for that I doubt he would even consider it. Right now, what makes him angry is that he has all the data and software on Apple land and the switching cost is tremendous (especially time he does not necessarily have). But when his iMac becomes obsolete, maybe he will try when he sees the base price and remember his unfortunate experience... Apple has loyal fans more than ever, but it is not rosy at all ; the experience of common people does not match what the geeks are saying...

by _yb2s 3y ago

16gb of ram for PC laptops that still have upgradeable chips costs around $30 retail. Seems pretty crazy for Apple to severely cripple such an expensive machine with no real savings to them.

behnamoh 3y ago

I'd probably be ok with 8GB on a MacBook Air (but I'd still nag about it). But to put 8GB on a "Pro" model...

josephcsible 3y ago

It's not "pretty crazy": it's price discrimination. By making their base model almost unusably underspecced, even with almost zero cost savings, they make sure that nobody who can afford a really expensive one will buy a "cheap" one.

_yb2s 3y ago
I don’t see how that could work in practice. Most people I know are confused about the difference between ram and storage… they are going to trust that “pro” means it will be fast for normal “non computer nerd” use cases, and when it isn’t they won’t buy from Apple next time. Many single apps used by non technical people like Adobe Photoshop require 16gb nowadays.
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
The iMac shows this off in so many ways. First there's no 27 inch option because Tim Apple wants to sell Studio Displays. But then the specs. Base model has 2 USB ports, no Ethernet, and a 256GB SSD. Given that I can go buy a pretty excellent 512GB PCIe 3.0 for $25, it just seems insulting to start so low. And then look at the frigging price of upgrade! It's $200 to upgrade to 512GB! Holy shit, I could go get a great 4TB Crucial P3 Plus for that. Ditto for $200 for 8GB->16GB. It's just wild what this company does.
seec 3y ago
Well at least that is the theory. They are losing sales from people who could reason around compromising performance (speed mostly) but making the effort to get a "better" made computer with a system they like, but absolutely cannot work around the low storage and ram that are just handicapping for many workloads. Someone who just runs graphic software (either adobe or affinity) with a few other things will get severely limited by 8GB. And it is not a "pro" use case, enough to spend so much money on a computer. So, they get a 1K laptop that has all those things standard and will forget about Apple... Add to that the unhappy ones about their experience with the base model and the long term is not looking good. My cousin routinely tells me he is so upset about the 1.8k he had to spend on a base iMac that is extremely limited and terribly slow for many things because Apple was stingy about the SSD (stupid fusion drive with exceptionally low amount of actual SSD). When he needed a computer for video production (the irony) to cover sports competitions he went with a PC and a cheap video card. Even though the Mac Mini would be a good fit for that I doubt he would even consider it. Right now, what makes him angry is that he has all the data and software on Apple land and the switching cost is tremendous (especially time he does not necessarily have). But when his iMac becomes obsolete, maybe he will try when he sees the base price and remember his unfortunate experience... Apple has loyal fans more than ever, but it is not rosy at all ; the experience of common people does not match what the geeks are saying...