In the latest example of Apple charging a premium for its products, an 8 GB RAM upgrade option has been released on Apple’s site. The price tag – $1,200. That’s enough to buy another MacBook! Seriously, I’m hoping our friends in Cupertino are just pulling an early April Fool’s joke, because that’s ridiculous.
Unless you’re a hardcore user who requires the additional RAM for virtualization, graphics-intensive apps, etc, it’s a useless upgrade. But for those select few who are in need of the upgrade, you may or may not be aware of the savings you’ll reap by purchasing the RAM from a third party vendor. A quick search at the online store where I purchased my 4 GB upgrade has the 8 GB upgrade (2 x 4 GB) for ~$500 cheaper than Apple’s site. That’s almost cutting the price of the upgrade in half! I’m sure if you search a bit more, you’ll find an even cheaper upgrade kit.
If you do happen to purchase memory from Other World Computing, I can personally vouch for its quality. I’ve been running the 4 GB upgrade on my BlackBook for over ten months with no problems whatsoever. 🙂
Also, if you’re worried about the installation process, a quick YouTube search will bring up several videos showing the upgrade step-by-step. So you’ve got two choices – spend the $1,200 on Apple’s memory and be forced to refinance your mortgage or cut the cost in half and enjoy the same performance gains. 😀
