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Umm... sorry... *how* much for that BTO?!

D

dh2005

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2010
907
0
Hey folks,

I'm an iMac man, and happy to be one. I'm not here to troll. But I have to ask - where the Hell do Apple get the prices for their BTOs?! I'm gonna go with; they get Steve to swallow laminated cardboard numbers from 0 to 9, and the first three he craps out get posted on the website. Either that, or tarot cards and animal bones...


Looking at the current top-end iMac; it costs £160 to go to 8GB of RAM, and £120 to go to a 2TB drive.

These are upgrade prices. So, then. An additional 4GB of RAM costs £160. And an additional 1TB of drive space (this is just mental in today's market...) costs £120.


Nonsense, really. Just, outright nonsense...
 
I'm not talking about 'news'. I'm talking about absurd pricing practices.
 
dh2005 said:
I'm not talking about 'news'. I'm talking about absurd pricing practices.
Click to expand...

I don't think the new range is badly priced at all. Try to spec a machine with a Z68 chipset and a comparable IPS display, then report back here.

The only thing that is ridiculous are the memory and storage upgrades. The memory you should upgrade yourself for much less. The HDD is trickier, but can be upgraded. With TB external enclosures coming soon it's a non-issue. Anything else?
 
dh2005 said:
I'm not talking about 'news'. I'm talking about absurd pricing practices.
Click to expand...


No one is forcing a customer purchasing an iMac from Apple to upgrade to them at the point of sale. If a customer chooses to upgrade their computer through Apple and pay these, as you call them, absurd prices, that is the customer's choice.

If you are not happy with Apple's pricing for upgrades, you are welcome to perform the upgrades yourself. You can purchase things like the RAM and hard drive yourself. Then you can search the internet to find tutorials on how to perform these upgrades.
 
Apple aren't a component reseller and so they do not price their upgrades in such a way. Newegg, Amazon and their sellers, buy.com, OWC and so on are all competing in a slightly different market and against each other - margins are very thin for retailers on components like CPUs, memory, graphics cards, hard drives.

As with all their products they charge what the market will bear and recent history shows they have a good idea what that is - through market research and their sales history etc.
 
You can find examples of HP, Dell, Sony, etc. "ripping" consumers off through their upgrades. Sony charges $220 to go from an i5-2540M to an i7-2720QM, when Intel charges ~$110. Plus they charge $150 to go from a 1TB to a 2TB 5400 RPM drive, and $200 to go from 4GB to 8GB.

HP charges a $61 premium on their CPU upgrade (i5-760 to a i7-870), although their pricing of RAM and HDDs are better.

Apple figures if you need more internal storage you either buy external HDDs or move up to a Mac Pro. RAM can be upgraded easily.

I agree with you, however, that this upgrade should have brought 2TB (or even 1.5TB) across the board with 8GB standard on the higher-end.
 
I agree it's a lot.
But in defence, it's not just adding another stick of 4GB RAM in there, its taking the the 2 x 2Gb out and putting 2 x 4 GB in. so you're not paying for 4Gb, your paying for 8.

Though now i've just read that I can still see your argument. But get where I'm coming from?

Unless you're disputing the wording of "upgrade"
 
Umbongo said:
Apple aren't a component reseller and so they do not price their upgrades in such a way. Newegg, Amazon and their sellers, buy.com, OWC and so on are all competing in a slightly different market and against each other - margins are very thin for retailers on components like CPUs, memory, graphics cards, hard drives.

As with all their products they charge what the market will bear and recent history shows they have a good idea what that is - through market research and their sales history etc.
Click to expand...

Sure, everything you say is right. And nobody is forced to buy them. I didn't say they were. But the prices make no sense. "Where are the numbers coming from?", is my underlying question. Because, honestly, they look completely made-up, from here.

True, Apple are not a component reseller - but they are a major computer manufacturer, and I'm sure have good market leverage when it comes to buying computer components. If little-old-me, private consumer, can buy a 1TB drive for about £37, and a 2TB drive for £58, how on the Hell can this £21 difference be represented in a £120 BTO?


Does anybody here think it's anything other than ridiculous?
 
It's common knowledge that you never, ever, purchase RAM from Apple. It's easily upgradable by the user.

The Hard Drive upgrade is expensive, but for someone like me, who would prefer not to take off the glass of my iMac to make an upgrade, it's definitely worth it.
 
dh2005 said:
True, Apple are not a component reseller - but they are a major computer manufacturer, and I'm sure have good market leverage when it comes to buying computer components. If little-old-me, private consumer, can buy a 1TB drive for about £37, and a 2TB drive for £58, how on the Hell can this £21 difference be represented in a £120 BTO?


Does anybody here think it's anything other than ridiculous?
Click to expand...

Let me introduce you to a little concept called profit margin. Apple of course gets great leverage on its components, but if they can get people to pay the prices they list, they'll do it. If you were selling computers, wouldn't you?

Bottom line, if you don't like the prices, vote with your wallet.
 
miles01110 said:
You're not really talking about anything, to be fair. You're buying an overpriced machine to begin with. If saving money was actually an issue for you, you'd probably be buying something besides an iMac. Nobody's forcing you to buy Apple RAM anyways, so get over it.
Click to expand...

Awww, don't be a big girl's blouse! Tell me you don't agree, by all means. But don't tell me that I'm "not really talking about anything". I'm talking about absurd pricing practices - something you've already agreed that I'm talking about, no? [your second reply]


I'll give you one last chance at mature debate. Then I'll ignore you forever. You'll get over it, I expect... but not as quickly as I will.
 
dh2005 said:
Awww, don't be a big girl's blouse! Tell me you don't agree, by all means. But don't tell me that I'm "not really talking about anything". I'm talking about absurd pricing practices - something you've already agreed that I'm talking about, no? [your second reply]


I'll give you one last chance at mature debate. Then I'll ignore you forever. You'll get over it, I expect... but not as quickly as I will.
Click to expand...

What exactly are you trying to debate? You have asserted your point that BTO upgrades are expensive. So far everyone has pretty much agreed with you (even Miles).
 
DeaconGraves said:
Let me introduce you to a little concept called profit margin. Apple of course gets great leverage on its components, but if they can get people to pay the prices they list, they'll do it. If you were selling computers, wouldn't you?

Bottom line, if you don't like the prices, vote with your wallet.
Click to expand...

Please, sir. I am reasonably well-educated in economics. I can "introduce you to" other concepts that would refute what they are doing, here.

I do vote with my wallet. That's kinda the point. They don't get my money, because it's too much. Should they be allowed to make money on the upgrade? Of course they should. I don't expect them to do anything for free - particularly on the iMac, which is, on the whole, a reasonably-priced system.


It's too much, in my opinion. Far too much.
 
dh2005 said:
Hey folks,

I'm an iMac man, and happy to be one. I'm not here to troll. But I have to ask - where the Hell do Apple get the prices for their BTOs?! I'm gonna go with; they get Steve to swallow laminated cardboard numbers from 0 to 9, and the first three he craps out get posted on the website. Either that, or tarot cards and animal bones...


Looking at the current top-end iMac; it costs £160 to go to 8GB of RAM, and £120 to go to a 2TB drive.

These are upgrade prices. So, then. An additional 4GB of RAM costs £160. And an additional 1TB of drive space (this is just mental in today's market...) costs £120.


Nonsense, really. Just, outright nonsense...
Click to expand...

no half right nonsense! only a fool pays apple for extra ram. so that complaint nets you a big fat zero!

But on the hdd upgrades I give you two 100's and as much as I like apple I consider the iMac hdd/ssd system of upgrades to be a crime. The crime is against stockholders as well as consumers. The iMac sales would be far higher if you could access the hdd. Now to be fair apple is not the only seller doing this.

My Netbook ASUS eee pc 1215b lets me drop in ram with ease and the hdd is really tough to do.
 
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dh2005 said:
Please, sir. I am reasonably well-educated in economics. I can "introduce you to" other concepts that would refute what they are doing, here.

I do vote with my wallet. That's kinda the point. They don't get my money, because it's too much. Should they be allowed to make money on the upgrade? Of course they should. I don't expect them to do anything for free - particularly on the iMac, which is, on the whole, a reasonably-priced system.


It's too much, in my opinion. Far too much.
Click to expand...

I don't understand your point or what you're trying to achieve? Maybe you can start a Facebook group or something because you're whining like a teenager when people have already explained that you have alternatives. :confused:
 
DeaconGraves said:
What exactly are you trying to debate? You have asserted your point that BTO upgrades are expensive. So far everyone has pretty much agreed with you (even Miles).
Click to expand...

Well, we'll start with your point, and my reply. That 'profit margin' is determined by more than charging a ludicrous sum of money for something. Sometimes you can make more profit by cutting the price of something, and bringing more consumers into a market, for instance. There's nothing complex about that, is there...?


Beyond that, I suppose I'm looking for a recognition that the BTO pricing policy is worthy of criticism. Or, at least, a 'debate' about it. People need not agree with me - but it's cheap, and childish, to tell somebody that they're "not really talking about anything". Which was my problem with the Moderator.
 
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theSeb said:
I don't understand your point or what you're trying to achieve? Maybe you can start a Facebook group or something because you're whining like a teenager when people have already explained that you have alternatives. :confused:
Click to expand...

Dude, if you applied that scrutiny to every thread on this board, I think you'd find that a substantial number don't make a particularly concrete "point", nor are they likely to "achieve" anything.

The origin of this thread was an expression of opinion. And who knows? Maybe if enough people moan about it, the price will come down? I mean, it was only 18 months ago that I was being called a moron for complaining that the graphics systems on Macs didn't match the rest of the hardware. I was told, "Macs aren't for games... why don't you just go and buy a PC...? what is the point you're making?" - and now, the graphics systems are considerably improved, almost across the range.

I'm not taking credit for that, obviously! But I'm saying that an expression of opinion, and discussion arising from that, is not necessarily pointless.


If you think it is pointless, well, you can always leave the thread...?
 
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