HN Explorer

Tell HN: Apple Price Gouging

6 points by kingkongjaffa ↗ HN
I went looking for the latest line of apple computers I noticed they force you into the higher CPU's in order to get the higher amounts of unified memory.

So not only are they content charging +$400 or +$600 for RAM which in itself ludicrously overpriced, they force you to upgrade +$1000-2000 on the top CPU's.

Its impossible to spec a macbook pro or a mac mini with a base CPU and a decent amount of RAM. Total scam since they know people want the RAM to use with local LLMs.

This was not always the case - When I specced out my macbook pro M1 16gb it was entirely possible to get 32 and 64gb without any tie-in to CPU upgrades.

I was ready to drop a few grand on a new macbook pro M5 or M4 pro with a decent amount of RAM but it's currently set up to be an insane price gouge.

To get 32GB of RAM it's an M5 chip price $1999.

To get 64GB of RAM you are forced to to grab the M4 max CPU, and it's $3,899 on apple right now. What a scam.

6 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 26.2 ms ] thread
mpcsb
For the life of me, I can't get the fetish with apple machines. I mean, I get they are built very well, and it's all top tier, but the return on dollar spent is very dubious
u1hcw9nx
Price gouging is a wrong term to use for Apple laptops. You can call it price gouging or profiteering when someone increases the price of basic necessities after a natural disaster or a similar crisis. Then it's often wrong and harmful.

There is no duopoly or monopoly in the laptop market. Apple computers are not "must-haves," and there are many cheaper alternatives. They are high-priced products—closer to luxury goods than essentials. Ultimately products are priced based on demand (what people are willing to pay) rather than just their production costs.

hooch
It's just how the memory controllers work in Apple Silicon's unified memory architecture.

You also get much higher memory bandwidth as you move up the scale, from 153GB/s at the bottom end to 546GB/s at the top end.