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Working Around Apple’s Inflated Hardware Upgrade Prices

Rory Reid, writing for CNET's UK-based Crave site, last week posted a provocative comparison castigating Apple for charging grossly inflated prices for BTO upgrades like RAM and hard disks for their laptop computers,

Using the online configurator tools of both vendors, Reid detailed just how much of a bite Apple takes on what are essentially generic upgrade items. As Reid observes, "we can understand why Apple can justify charging more for its superbly designed chassis, or its excellent operating systems - they're bespoke, and you pay more for premium designs. Fine. But we can't fathom why Apple charges so much more than Dell for simple components."

Me neither.

For example, working prices up from Apple's and Dell's UK store sites, Reid found that upgrading from s 120GB 5,400 rpm drive to a 250GB 5,400 rpm unit would cost £90.01 vs. £30.01 respectively, or 200 percent higher from Apple, for what would be essentially the same quality or even identical drive from a third-party OEM supplier.

Comparing RAM upgrade prices, Reid found that buying a MacBook and switching from 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 to 4GB would cost you an extra £120 from Apple, while. doing a similar upgrade with a Dell XPS M1330 would just £40.01, with Apple again charging about 200 percent more than Dell.

Apple wasn't uncompetitive in some areas, such as CPU clock speed. where going up from a 2.1GHz to a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo sets you back £29.99 with a Dell and a very close £30.01 equivalent with a MacBook, although that figure was arrived at only through some convoluted calculation since Apple offers no straight CPU upgrade, and it's necessary to move up to the middle-model MacBook which also comes with twice the RAM and a larger hard drive than the base 2.1 GHz unit.

A 200 percent premium is pretty excessive, and it's hard to imagine what Apple U.K. is about with that. Happily, it's not nearly that bad with the U.S. and Canadian Apple Stores, but their prices for most hardware upgrades are still out of line with the competition.

Of course, the obvious alternative for savvy Apple system purchasers is to boycott Apple's grossly inflated hardware upgrade prices and get one's upgrade goodies from a third-party vendor. For example, I'm planning to get a new system fairly soon, probably a MacBook, but I'm not even considering ordering any specification upgrades from Apple except perhaps for the USB modem, and I'm going to check out modem alternatives as well.

I plan on maxing out my MacBook's memory at 4 GB, for which Apple Canada would ding me and even $200 extra, but Other World Computing will sell me a 4.0GB Upgrade Kit for the MacBook
(2.0GB Modules x 2 Matched) for $99.97. At least in Canada Apple charges "only" double the competitive rate rather than triple as in the U.K. Also, with the OWC RAM kit I'll get to keep the original RAM modules that ship with the MacBook, so that I can potentially use the 4 GB set in my next machine and still sell the older machine when the time comes with a respectable 2 GB of memory loaded up.

Turning to hard drives, Apple Canada wants $100 to upgrade from the standard 160 GB HD in the 2.4 GHz MacBook to a 250 GB drive (both 5400 RPM units), while OWC will sell me a 250GB 2.5" Western DIgital Scorpio 5400 RPM SATA Notebook Drive with 8MB Cache with a three year warranty for $85.99, although in this instance Apple Canada's price is a lot more competitive than Apple U.K.'s evidently is. Still, I would be inclined to opt for the Scorpio drive for $14.00 less and triple the warranty period, since swapping drives is extremely easy with the MacBook. However, in the case of the MacBook Pros, whose hard drives are much more difficult to swap out, it would definitely make a lot more sense to eat the slightly higher price of the Apple upgrade.

On the other hand, another advantage of going with a third-party hard drive upgrade is that it gives you a lot more latitude and flexibility. Actually, rather than getting a 250 GB 5,400 RPM unit I would be inclined to opt for a 200GB 2.5" Seagate Momentus 7200 RPM drive with 16MB Cache from OWC for $105.95.

Note also that Other World Computing isn't the lowest-price Internet reseller either, and you might be able to do even better elsewhere, but I've had excellent service buying RAM and hard drives from OWC over the years, their prices are very good, and they do offer one of the most comprehensive and eclectic selections of product on the Web.

Looking at the prices of systems themselves, you definitely do pay a premium for going Apple rather than Dell. I mean, here in Canada where the cheapest MacBook still sells for $1,149.00 with a 2.1 GHZ Core 2 Duo, 1 GB of RAM, and a combo optical drive, Dell is happy to sell you an Inspiron 1420 with a Core 2 Duo processor, a 14.1-inch display, two gigs of RAM, a 250 gigabyte hard drive, and an 8x DVD-burner for Can$899.00 Actually, if you're a real penny-pincher, right now you can get an Inspiron 1525 with a dual-core Pentium, 160 GB drive, 2 GB of RAM and a 15.4-inch display for $599.00, or just a bit more than half what the cheapest 2.1 GHz MacBook from Apple Canada would set me back.

Now the Inspiron isn't a Mac, but Dell's typically plain-vanilla styling is inoffensive, and the generic PC laptop books are mitigated considerably by the machine’s availability in your choice of eight attractive colors. Jet Black with Matte Finish, Alpine White with Gloss Finish, Expresso Brown with Microsatin Finish, Ruby Red with Microsatin Finish, Midnight Blue with Microsatin Finish , Spring Green with Microsatin Finish, Flamingo Pink with Microsatin Finish, and Sunshine Yellow with Microsatin Finish. I think the Expresso Brown one is especially classy-looking. I would be sorely tempted if I could (legally) run Leopard on one of those.

Anyway, when you tell a non Mac-cognizenti that the best Apple will do on a machine with the same processor, half as much RAM, and a smaller screen than that Core 2 Duo Inspiron is $1,150, they just roll their eyes. Dell Canada will also sell you a 17-inch display Inspiron 1720 with a dual-core Pentium chip and a 250 gigabyte hard drive for $799.00, or with a Core 2 Duo for $899.00. Apple's cheapest 17-incher sells for $2,899.00. How much better can the Mac OS be?

Well, enough better, in my estimation, to keep me in a Mac. Of course, the big distinction between the Dell and the Apple is the operating system. Both machines will run Windows; the Inspiron ships with "Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium," a dubious boast, but only the Mac will (legally) run the Mac OS. But what if you could have less expensive PC hardware and still run Leopard? Actually, you can. A day after Leopard was released last fall, a friend phoned to say that she had it up and running on her 2.6 GHz Pentium IV desktop box, and running very well too. She'd had Tiger installed for a year before that, and is able to dual-boot from either OS X or Windows XP as need be. She reports that Leopard is even faster than Tiger was on the middle-aged Pentium hardware.

This is absolutely why Apple refuses to commercially port OS X to the PC platform, and of course hacking installs on PCs is a violation of the Apple EULA. It's not something I would recommend. However, it's becoming a lot more common, although unauthorized install hacks are still enough of a hassle that Apple probably doesn't need to worry overmuch - yet.

However, if it were possible (at least without EULA-busting hacking) to run OS X on a garden-variety PC box, I would certainly be tempted myself. I mean, I love my Macs, not all PC hardware is mediocre. I continue to lust after Acer's AMD-powered Ferrari laptops, and even some of those Dell laptops are looking not so bad these days, especially at the price.

Another specification in which Dell trumps Apple is in shipping not only Blu-ray laptops, but a Blu-Ray equipped consumer machine for under $1,000. You can now pick up the Inspiron 1525 with the optional Blu-ray disk drive starting at $879.00. The Inspiron's The Blu-ray playback drive is fully backwards compatible, able to both play and burn regular DVDs and CDs. Also available is a Blu-ray burner drive, which is great for backing up and storing, well, probably all your digital data, since a single Blu-ray disk can hold up to 50 GB of data, vs. 8.5 GB for a typical DVD disc.

Apple is still selling a ton of computers and gaining market share, but if Dell can sell decent-quality laptops for 30-50 percent less with more or higher-spec. standard equipment and features and much cheaper optional upgrades, then there seems no logical reason why Apple couldn't sharpen its pencils a bit as well.


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cmoore@macopinion.com

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