News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

February 28, 2008

hardware

Apple RAM, cheaper, but still 4 times markup

Posted Feb. 28, ’08, 5:40 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Hardware

OWC RAM Reader Carlos wrote in to note that RAM prices on the newly released MacBook and MacBook Pro were much better than they used to be. That seems to be the case, but I still personally recommend against upgrading your RAM through them. You will encounter overly loyal fans that will not put a stick of RAM into their Mac unless it’s been kissed by someone at Apple.

To upgrade your MacBook with 4 GB of RAM through Apple, it costs $400. That’s better than the $700 more it used to cost. However, Other World Computing is now offering 4 GB upgrade kits for $95.99. That’s a quarter of the cost and they don’t have the profit of the machine itself to defray cost.

To make things even better for you as a customer, they offer a trade-in program. Assuming you don’t want to try to sell those two now useless 1 GB sticks of MacBook yourself, you can send the RAM to them and get a $20 rebate off your order. You can upgrade the RAM for less than $80. That’s a fifth of Apple’s option cost. Now you know. Don’t let your friends overspend on RAM upgrades.


6 Comments

fletcher Author Profile Page said:

I bought RAM from OWC for my Xeon Xserve and it never worked properly. I went through three sets and got a steady report of ECC errors. OWC was willing to trade the RAM for more bad RAM, but is unwilling to trade it for anything else. A couple hundred bucks down the toilet and the last thing I will ever buy from OWC.

So, yeah, you can buy cheap RAM, but that might also be the later cause of kernel panics and data loss.

Crucual seems to sell RAM from the same manufacturer as Apple. We ended up with RAM modules from them that are identical to the Apple-provided RAM, save for the stickers. And, they seem to be working fine.

February 28, 2008 7:58 AM
wesg Author Profile Page said:

I definitely agree with you, Derik. Apple has always charged more for RAM than your friendly neighbourhood computer store, and with most Macs using standard PC RAM, it's never been easier to upgrade.

Having said that, getting Apple to upgrade my MacBook while I waited for 15 minutes was very convenient.

February 28, 2008 8:00 AM
mikelite Author Profile Page said:

everyone has their favorites. I've been using 18004Memory for years. They're fantastic. The one time I had a problem, they did an exchange and fixed the problem.

February 28, 2008 8:27 AM
sf said:

I have used OWC RAM for all my macs and have had no issues in any of the machines, from MacPro, iMac, MacBook and Macbook Pro.

February 28, 2008 10:19 AM
PM7500-G5 said:

I've been buying from OWC for years since my PowerMac 7500 days. Never had a problem.

February 28, 2008 5:05 PM
Roy G. said:

I purchased memory from his site a the recommendation of this post and it got here quickly and has not had any problems.


Thanks.

March 11, 2008 1:48 PM

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