Yoga line. The ThinkPad line is the standard laptop in businesses. We can’t pick and choose lesser models because they give the config we want. The direct comparison to MacBook Pros would be the ThinkPad line.
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Apple is Robbing People with SSD Upgrade Prices...
- Thread starter jsnuff1
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Macbook isn't mil-spec like Thinkpad so it's comparable to Yoga.
It doesn’t feel unfair to charge more than the cost price of ram and storage. Kinda like how when I upsize a value meal, the extra money I pay for the added fries and drink is way more than the cost of supplying them.
As Apple moves to processors with integrated ram and storage, I wonder if the price also factors in the opportunity costs involved with stopping production to create a small quantity of differently specced chips. For example, I imagine their base M1 chip is the most popular option and it’s easier to mass produce them. Then a few people order a version that demands more ram and / or storage, and Apple has to pause their entire assembly line or dedicate a separate one just for this custom order.
That has to cost them something.
As Apple moves to processors with integrated ram and storage, I wonder if the price also factors in the opportunity costs involved with stopping production to create a small quantity of differently specced chips. For example, I imagine their base M1 chip is the most popular option and it’s easier to mass produce them. Then a few people order a version that demands more ram and / or storage, and Apple has to pause their entire assembly line or dedicate a separate one just for this custom order.
That has to cost them something.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So it's not about that. They're going to charge more regardless. Sorry to trouble you with actual facts:
Dell charges $100 to go from 8 GB LPPDR5 to 16 GB LPDDR5 in its new XPS 13 and XPS 13 Plus
Apple charges $200 to go from 8 GB LPPDR4x to 16 GB LPDDR4x in its M1 Air and M1 MBP
Apple charges $200 to go from 8 GB LPPDR5 to 16 GB LPDDR5 in its M2 Air and M2 MBP
Unfortunately, $599 for an 8/256 configuration is simply not a floor Apple is going to ever achieve or aspire to with the Mac line. It would be a feat if they actually did that, but I don’t see it happening.
Anyone complaining if Apple actually did achieve that price point for the MBA must not have an actual grasp of how much anything costs in this day and age.
these companies spend a lot of time in research, product design, CPU development, and testing...apple goes a step further since they develop their own OS that in many ways is superior to Google, Microsoft... I think their margin is low on the entry level hardware so they rely on storage/ram upgrades to pay for these indirect costs...you aren't paying an extra $700 for the Air because you get extra ram/storage..but its the connivence/additional functionality you get in their ecosystem with that extra power/storage...less time spent managing file storage, less time using dongles/cloud storage, longer shelf life of the device as apps use more ram and grow in file size... go on eBay and look at used prices of 4GB Ram MacBooks vs 8GB/16GB models... you will see a huge jump in value... same with M1 8GB vs 16GB...16GB immediately doubles your item value...CPU's have been overkill for the last decade for 90% of what users do on computers... I never pay attention to cpu specs... what I care about is screen quality, audio quality, build quality, battery life, typing experience, camera, etc.
Apple knows these are the things that all people care about so they charge the highest amount they can for this... if you want a mini led laptop display/pro-motion/good audio... you pay $2000 for a laptop for all that... if you want a portable that can store all your media that you can use for 6-10 years... you pay $1800... almost all the YouTube reviewers focus heavily on geek bench score and say buy this if you edit 4k blah blah.. if you want the best visual/audio experience on an apple laptop/a good docked laptop.. buy a 14/16 MacBook Pro... if you want maximum portability/battery life with average audio/display and don't care about running 2 monitors..buy the MacBook Air...I bought both so I can have the best in portability and best in display/audio/typing/etc.
Apple knows these are the things that all people care about so they charge the highest amount they can for this... if you want a mini led laptop display/pro-motion/good audio... you pay $2000 for a laptop for all that... if you want a portable that can store all your media that you can use for 6-10 years... you pay $1800... almost all the YouTube reviewers focus heavily on geek bench score and say buy this if you edit 4k blah blah.. if you want the best visual/audio experience on an apple laptop/a good docked laptop.. buy a 14/16 MacBook Pro... if you want maximum portability/battery life with average audio/display and don't care about running 2 monitors..buy the MacBook Air...I bought both so I can have the best in portability and best in display/audio/typing/etc.
While the pricing sucks, not all storage is created equal. Same goes for memory, mainboards, CPUs etc.
If there was only one possible choice of chip, PCB, firmware etc and all that was left for device manufactures is making variations in the amount of chips put in a metal box, either everything would be very expensive, or everything would suck because it wouldn't really be a good fit for all users everywhere.
For Apple (and Dell, and to an extent, HP), the commodity computers they sell are all just volume based profits where any and every deviation is mostly a problem in one way or another (be it something basic like unpredictable parts composition - a real problem when you need to order over a million chips, or something complicated like trying to get that R&D and marketing money back and spreading it out over the various sales).
Say you you are Apple and you need your RAM to be on the SoC interposer, you'll probably get a great deal at Samsung or Micron, but let's pretend we're buying retail. A single 8 GiB RAM chip costs about 100 USD and since you want to get a good deal, you buy a million of them. That's great, because now those chips are perhaps only 40 USD each! But now you have a problem, not everyone wants 8GiB of RAM, some people want 16 or even more! Dang, now you have to get two variations and you have to guess which one is going to get used up more, and if you made a mistake in your guess it's going to be an expensive one, because now you'll be buying those chips you don't have enough of at a higher price since you can't really go and order a million for another bad guess, you'll get 500k. Bam, price goes up to 60 USD per chip.
Meanwhile, a customer might want to buy a computer, and to make that happen the customer needs to be aware of it at the right time (availability, opportunity etc), and the computer had to be developed and researched etc. Generally, for non-cutting-edge devices, retail price is about twice the bare BOM cost. So that single RAM chip got more expensive, on top of the CTO cost of having a lower-volume device built. To make matters worse, there is only one kind of interposer for the SoC since it is extremely expensive for a manufacturer to spec those out and make reliable high-volume SoCs. So any DRAM configuration change means two chips will have to change. That 8GiB to 16GiB upgrade now means two, twice-as-expensive chips have to be used. Suddenly that ~200USD difference for what is essentially a 'simple' upgrade makes a bit more sense.
This does of course not have all the secret Apple sauce in it, and I bet they get a far better deal than the ODMs I know about, but still, high-end electronics manufacturing sucks. Most LPDDR4X RAM and M.2 NVMe SSDs aren't high-end manufacturing either, especially the ones you'll find in consumer devices like desktop computers and laptops. They might be high-end consumer items, but manufactured the same way as a SatNav...
How do others do it cheaper? Two options:
- Make smaller configurations 'worse' than bigger configurations (lower bandwidth for example, single-channel modes)
- Bigger chassis so you can use modules, with the added cost of connectors and lower QC pass rates
Modules can be much cheaper because you essentially re-use every chip many times. On top of that, you don't need to do some weird expensive SoC interposer thing, you just use a generic PCB and you can generally just leave off any memory chips on the lower capacity ones essentially doubling your profit per chip size. Because as a module vendor you're just selling entire modules as-is, you can simply keep doing the same thing over and over (well, if you are an independent vendor, a chip manufacturer who also sells modules like micron or samsung have different problems).
This entire story applies just as much to SSDs, with the difference being:
- Crappy performance due to low-end controllers and/of flash
- Crappy reliability due to QLC memory with low over-provisioning
- Lower degree of integration due to controller firmware being 'super secret' and no OS vendor having access to it
A reasonable (below-spec for high-end electronics) NAND flash storage chip, QLC, costs about 200USD per TB. But you can't just use a single chip, it would be dead after a year. Instead, you have to use multiple chips, generally at least 4. Sadly, 4 chips of 1/4th the capacity aren't also 1/4th the price each, more like ~30%. So that 1TB of capacity costs 30% more now (because you need 4/3 of the price). At Dell/Apple/HP scale you definitely get those chips cheaper, but it's not like your 1TB of high-grade NAND suddenly goes for 100USD. On top of that, higher speeds and higher endurance are achieved with more chips and better controllers. Keep in mind that SSD's are generally just RAID arrays of a bunch of NAND chips. Say you end up spending about 180USD for 1TB of storage, that's 360 USD for the customer, at least.
For most people, even the concept of making a well-balanced choice on any of this is so far beyond the realm of reasonable it's just a matter of 'bigger number, thus better' to sell them anything, no matter if it is good or bad. That brings us to the last point, or perhaps, 'problem': brand. While most brands pull weird crap just as much as Apple do, in general, you can 'buy' a good UX from a manufacturer that does it all in-house. So if you buy your Windows-device from Microsoft or your macOS-device from Apple, it's likely that it'll work fine and be good to go out of the box. That in itself has so much value that packaged products like that are really a case of "don't rock the boat" for them. Whatever they do, they'll want to keep that expectation of "it will just do the thing" for as many potential customers as possible. Anything that endangers that has to go.
Of course, everyone still makes mistakes like using fabric-like stuff and gluing it down (MS) or using flat-flex cables that can't resist the wear and tear of normal use (Apple), but so far, the general expectation of "it works" is still very much alive amongst the customer base, which is a far bigger driver than the small (but vocal) group of brand-fans. For most hobbyists, DIY, third party aftersales etc. modules are better. For everyone else it's a nearly irrelevant trade-off.
If there was only one possible choice of chip, PCB, firmware etc and all that was left for device manufactures is making variations in the amount of chips put in a metal box, either everything would be very expensive, or everything would suck because it wouldn't really be a good fit for all users everywhere.
For Apple (and Dell, and to an extent, HP), the commodity computers they sell are all just volume based profits where any and every deviation is mostly a problem in one way or another (be it something basic like unpredictable parts composition - a real problem when you need to order over a million chips, or something complicated like trying to get that R&D and marketing money back and spreading it out over the various sales).
Say you you are Apple and you need your RAM to be on the SoC interposer, you'll probably get a great deal at Samsung or Micron, but let's pretend we're buying retail. A single 8 GiB RAM chip costs about 100 USD and since you want to get a good deal, you buy a million of them. That's great, because now those chips are perhaps only 40 USD each! But now you have a problem, not everyone wants 8GiB of RAM, some people want 16 or even more! Dang, now you have to get two variations and you have to guess which one is going to get used up more, and if you made a mistake in your guess it's going to be an expensive one, because now you'll be buying those chips you don't have enough of at a higher price since you can't really go and order a million for another bad guess, you'll get 500k. Bam, price goes up to 60 USD per chip.
Meanwhile, a customer might want to buy a computer, and to make that happen the customer needs to be aware of it at the right time (availability, opportunity etc), and the computer had to be developed and researched etc. Generally, for non-cutting-edge devices, retail price is about twice the bare BOM cost. So that single RAM chip got more expensive, on top of the CTO cost of having a lower-volume device built. To make matters worse, there is only one kind of interposer for the SoC since it is extremely expensive for a manufacturer to spec those out and make reliable high-volume SoCs. So any DRAM configuration change means two chips will have to change. That 8GiB to 16GiB upgrade now means two, twice-as-expensive chips have to be used. Suddenly that ~200USD difference for what is essentially a 'simple' upgrade makes a bit more sense.
This does of course not have all the secret Apple sauce in it, and I bet they get a far better deal than the ODMs I know about, but still, high-end electronics manufacturing sucks. Most LPDDR4X RAM and M.2 NVMe SSDs aren't high-end manufacturing either, especially the ones you'll find in consumer devices like desktop computers and laptops. They might be high-end consumer items, but manufactured the same way as a SatNav...
How do others do it cheaper? Two options:
- Make smaller configurations 'worse' than bigger configurations (lower bandwidth for example, single-channel modes)
- Bigger chassis so you can use modules, with the added cost of connectors and lower QC pass rates
Modules can be much cheaper because you essentially re-use every chip many times. On top of that, you don't need to do some weird expensive SoC interposer thing, you just use a generic PCB and you can generally just leave off any memory chips on the lower capacity ones essentially doubling your profit per chip size. Because as a module vendor you're just selling entire modules as-is, you can simply keep doing the same thing over and over (well, if you are an independent vendor, a chip manufacturer who also sells modules like micron or samsung have different problems).
This entire story applies just as much to SSDs, with the difference being:
- Crappy performance due to low-end controllers and/of flash
- Crappy reliability due to QLC memory with low over-provisioning
- Lower degree of integration due to controller firmware being 'super secret' and no OS vendor having access to it
A reasonable (below-spec for high-end electronics) NAND flash storage chip, QLC, costs about 200USD per TB. But you can't just use a single chip, it would be dead after a year. Instead, you have to use multiple chips, generally at least 4. Sadly, 4 chips of 1/4th the capacity aren't also 1/4th the price each, more like ~30%. So that 1TB of capacity costs 30% more now (because you need 4/3 of the price). At Dell/Apple/HP scale you definitely get those chips cheaper, but it's not like your 1TB of high-grade NAND suddenly goes for 100USD. On top of that, higher speeds and higher endurance are achieved with more chips and better controllers. Keep in mind that SSD's are generally just RAID arrays of a bunch of NAND chips. Say you end up spending about 180USD for 1TB of storage, that's 360 USD for the customer, at least.
For most people, even the concept of making a well-balanced choice on any of this is so far beyond the realm of reasonable it's just a matter of 'bigger number, thus better' to sell them anything, no matter if it is good or bad. That brings us to the last point, or perhaps, 'problem': brand. While most brands pull weird crap just as much as Apple do, in general, you can 'buy' a good UX from a manufacturer that does it all in-house. So if you buy your Windows-device from Microsoft or your macOS-device from Apple, it's likely that it'll work fine and be good to go out of the box. That in itself has so much value that packaged products like that are really a case of "don't rock the boat" for them. Whatever they do, they'll want to keep that expectation of "it will just do the thing" for as many potential customers as possible. Anything that endangers that has to go.
Of course, everyone still makes mistakes like using fabric-like stuff and gluing it down (MS) or using flat-flex cables that can't resist the wear and tear of normal use (Apple), but so far, the general expectation of "it works" is still very much alive amongst the customer base, which is a far bigger driver than the small (but vocal) group of brand-fans. For most hobbyists, DIY, third party aftersales etc. modules are better. For everyone else it's a nearly irrelevant trade-off.
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Yeah, that was just a hypothetical calculation to show what they would need to charge for an 8/256 to be able to both keep the current $400 upgrade cost and also charge $999 for a 16/512. It wasn't meant to suggest a real-world product. For more context on my thinking about this, see my earlier post (#44):
We almost always get the X series, usually Carbons. I just got an X13 (AMD) myself this year, it really is a nice machine. (32G RAM, 1TB disk) Not quite as much as an Apple machine, but it's not cheap either.
Oh i didn’t even know that- so that easily means 512 is years away!!
That’s Apple’s trademark strategy to upsell you to the next more expensive product.
The strategy is to have the base config as bare minimum that can introduce discomfort to user experience. This will nudge many users to consider upgrades. And then price those upgrades enough so the price is barely cheaper than the more expensive (and more profitable) MacBook Pro. Some people will start thinking “if I was going to pay this much, might as well get the pro model”. And Apple just managed to up its ASP just like that.
I think I’m getting the exact same machine, got it for my boss at a steal in that config. Stock is all over the place so I’ve got to wait for mine because I’m NOT going the Intel route.
Who do you think, "mainframes" is made for? Apple's gadgets, with built-in not upgradeable data strorage, aren't a personal computers but terminals. Do to storage upgrade to bigger, you need a dataservers (NAS).
Much the same when buying a new car. Which engine would you like in it? One that will barely get the car moving or one that will thrust your eyeballs to the back of your head and drink way more petrol/gas. You know that 99.99% of the time the stock will do but.... Funny though, I don't ever recall seeing petrol/gas tank size on an options list. Guess if you want decent range on a super fast motor you have to strap a jerry can or two on the roof (External storage option).
Often the "bigger" engine is just the base engine with 10$ of extra/better parts and a different tune.
While not with petrol cars (where range is a 100% non issue unless planning a trip trough the outback) this pretty common with EV. Sometimes to the point of having the same battery size with the SW hiding parts of it on the the "smaller" version.
BTT:
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People need to not forget this fact:
Base-model 2012 iMac: 8GB Ram
Base-model 2022 iMac: 8GB Ram.
Seriously – it's been 10 years. Back then you could upgrade the Ram yourself. Now you can't, and the prices for upgrades are ridiculous.
This is clear evidence of technological regression.
Base-model 2012 iMac: 8GB Ram
Base-model 2022 iMac: 8GB Ram.
Seriously – it's been 10 years. Back then you could upgrade the Ram yourself. Now you can't, and the prices for upgrades are ridiculous.
This is clear evidence of technological regression.
I’d like to buy a fast 1TB SSD for under 100 bucks.
Could you send me a link please? 😉
You don't get me. My point is that 16 GB of memory was too low back then whilst 64 GB was more than enough for the vast majority of people, so you'd end up buying the 64 GB version even if you didn't need it because there was no 32 gig option.
Base-model 2012 iMac: $1299
Base-model 2021 iMac: $1299 (there is no such thing as a 2022 iMac)
Also:
Base-model 2012 27" iMac: $1799
So despite inflation you are getting a bigger iMac at the same price.
I was referring to the iMac you can buy in 2022.
The 2012 iMac could be upgraded later, which the M1 can't.
... and for another comparison, the 2012 iMac base model had 1tb storage. The M1 has 256gb. Even inflation won't get the M1 back to 1tb at a reasonable price.
Let me offer you a different perspective.
Entry level configuration, the 8/256 is perfect for everyday use. Probably there's very little to no profit for Apple considering the quality of the parts used in these laptops (screen, keyboard etc)
If you need more than the basic configuration it is because you are a profesional and you get paid from the work you do with these machines.
And this is like any other industry where you have to buy your own professional equipment to do your job. And 400$ you pay for the extras is nothing considering you will be benefiting 5 years of a seamless tool. Probably the profit Apple makes from these expensive upgrades is where they make the profit to keep the prices lower for the base models.
Entry level configuration, the 8/256 is perfect for everyday use. Probably there's very little to no profit for Apple considering the quality of the parts used in these laptops (screen, keyboard etc)
If you need more than the basic configuration it is because you are a profesional and you get paid from the work you do with these machines.
And this is like any other industry where you have to buy your own professional equipment to do your job. And 400$ you pay for the extras is nothing considering you will be benefiting 5 years of a seamless tool. Probably the profit Apple makes from these expensive upgrades is where they make the profit to keep the prices lower for the base models.
While you’re right, I feel like being able to upgrade components yourself is sadly becoming less and less common ☹️
I do have a Lenovo laptop here and I can replace the SSD in it which is great in case it fails for unforeseen reasons - because with the life expectancy/TBW of the average SSD I’m quite likely to want/need a new laptop before that expectancy is up.
Then again, in that case (since used Windows laptops don’t sell as well as Apple ones) I could take out that SSD and use it as an external drive 🤔
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