Apple rip off – again!
My much loved but well used Mid 2010 27-inch iMac needs replacing, so off I trot to the Apple website, select the buy button and start to configure the machine that I want. All is well until I get to the memory section. The machine comes with 8GB as standard. However, this comes in the form of 2 x 4GB modules. I have worked out that I can afford to load the machine to 32GB if I buy the memory from a third party and this is where Apple get sneaky. They won’t sell it with 1 x 8GB.
So, if I still want to head in the direction of 32GB, I can do one of two things. Buy the machine and flog the RAM on eBay and buy all the RAM from Crucial or Kingston. The other road is to buy the machine with 16GB RAM which comes with….You guessed it - 2x8GB at £180 extra. If you take away the 8GB that comes as standard you are left with an 8GB RAM module at £180 which equates to £22.50/GB. This price per GB holds all the way through their memory offerings.
Equivalent RAM modules from Crucial & Kingston cost £8.70 & £9.85/GB with slight variations as the modules get bigger, and Kingston’s are sold via third parties. My current iMac has 12GB RAM, 8GB of which was bought from Crucial in 2010 and are still going strong. No wonder Apple are the richest company in the world when they rip off the little people. by Mike Wilson
Graham says…
Apple’s RAM prices have been this way since as long as we can remember (and we can remember quite far back) and we really can’t find a way of justifying them either Mike. Bear in mind that only the current range of 27-inch iMacs have RAM you can actually upgrade yourself, whilst the current 21-inch iMac can only be upgraded by an Authorised Service Provider.