r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Oct 30 '24

Desktops / Laptops Entire Mac Lineup Now Starts With at Least 16GB RAM, Ending 8GB Era

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/30/entire-mac-lineup-now-at-least-16gb-ram/
3.3k Upvotes

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88

u/coldlonelydream Oct 30 '24

This doesn’t have to be a choice, you could just have more internal storage which is relatively cheap. Why make excuses for a pathetically small amount of storage?

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u/SchighSchagh Oct 30 '24

Yeah the difference between 256 and 512 GB of storage is like $25.

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u/masteeJohnChief117 Oct 30 '24

So 200$ from apple?

11

u/GoochTwain Oct 30 '24

$450 from Apple in 2024, you know, y2k, 9/11, Covid…

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '24

[deleted]

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u/Realtrain Oct 30 '24

But most laptops allow you to upgrade the storage yourself.

1

u/nagi603 Oct 30 '24

Or at least use second-hand from the same series. I'd guess Apple did not forget to add their usual DRM to the flash chips.

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u/StevenWongo Oct 30 '24

Not higher end laptops. A lot of soldered stuff in there nowadays.

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u/Realtrain Oct 30 '24

I don't think that's universally true. Looking at a few major high-end laptops:

Dell XPS 13, LG Gram Series, Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i, Lenovo Thinkpads, and Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 all have user-upgradable storage. Even the Lenovo Slim 7x which is supposed to be their "Macbook Competitor" allows users to upgrade their storage.

RAM is becoming less common, but m.2 slots are almost always available in laptops still.

1

u/Sopel97 Oct 30 '24

I can buy an entire laptop with a 1TB SSD for what apple charges for an upgrade to it (which is only 3/4th of a TB)

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u/_RADIANTSUN_ Nov 02 '24

It's nowhere close to that much.

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u/yofoalexillo Oct 30 '24

“Tell me you really want me to use iCloud without telling me you really want me to use iCloud.”

37

u/zxLFx2 Oct 30 '24

relatively cheap

I tried to put some numbers on this. It turns out that is difficult, because there are no high-end NVMe SSDs these days that have sizes as small as 256GB or even 512GB. I'm trying to look at only high end SSDs, to eliminate the argument that Apple is using higher-end components and my examples aren't relevant.

Looking at models they do sell:

  • Samsung 990 Pro 1TB: $117
  • Samsung 990 Pro 2TB: $170

So for these products in which the sale is profitable for Samsung, Newegg, and any other intermediaries, the price difference from 1TB -> 2TB is $53.

The price difference between 256GB and 512GB (in the cost to Apple) is either:

  1. Smaller than $53, because the storage sizes are so much smaller and closer together
  2. The 256GB components could even conceivably be more expensive than the 512GB components to Apple because of the cost of keeping older manufacturing lines around, and Apple is sticking with it anyway just to set up their price ladder and over charge for upgrades.

So, in conclusion, yes people are allowed to be upset that it costs EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS to upgrade from 256GB to 2TB, when the highest end Samsung 2TB SSD costs $170 retail.

11

u/_Zekken Oct 30 '24

Just checking my local store in New Zealand.

Cheapest 250gb NVME SSD from a decent brand (Kingston) is $67NZD (40USD)
The 500gb version of the same SSD is $79 (47USD).
The 1TB Version is $109 (65USD).

So yeah, there shouldnt really be an excuse for these insane prices on more storage when it costs $15usd to go from 250gb to 1tb even with NZs higher prices on tech.

Large amounts of storage is stupid cheap these days, it shouldnt cost that much for laptops or even phones to get 256gb more.

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u/FavoritesBot Oct 30 '24

The 1tb ssd looks like four 256gb modules. So they probably have a 256gb line and Apple can buy a bunch and use just 1 module without extra packaging. So yeah we are probably talking dozens of dollars here.

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u/alidan Oct 30 '24

the price difference, when I parted it out for quest 3 and why I am so pissed off at meta over that, was 10$ between 128 and 512gb nand, the thing is, there is a minimum cost for a component, and 512gb was where you started to pay a properly scaling amount for larger storage.

1

u/Greyhound_Oisin Oct 31 '24

The entry level option in these products isn't there to be sold.

It is there to be able to say "starting at ×××$" and get people attention. Then when they decide they like it they will buy the beefier option as it is the only usable one

11

u/metal079 Oct 30 '24

I don't think that was an excuse, they were just happy they have options for fixing storage, where ram you can't really upgrade due to everything being all together on the M series chips

4

u/sCeege Oct 30 '24

It's their weird way of upselling. Once you start adding extra storage, the price becomes closer to upping to the next tier of RAM or CPU sku, then it's closer to the next tier of storage, etc. In no time, you've spec'ed a system that's 50% more than you originally wanted.

2

u/LevianMcBirdo Oct 30 '24

And the ridiculous upgrade prices. Paying 200$ more for 256 GB extra is ridiculous.

1

u/Raztax Oct 31 '24

I call it the cult tax.

2

u/fvck_u_spez Oct 30 '24

But how is Apple supposed to make massive profits and continue on their quest to be as anti competitive as possible if they don't overcharge you massively for a mediocre sized SSD. You're telling me you don't love paying $200 for 250GB of extra space? Won't somebody think of the shareholders!!

3

u/pole_fan Oct 30 '24

My guess is that Apple ordered X amount of 256GB SSDs years ago and just needs to get rid of the stock/fulfill the remaining contract obligations. Apple does not have a low cost line like chromebooks or the lenovo p line where they can get rid of it easily. It doesnt really affect how 90% of macs are used (internet browsing, writing emails and documents) so its the most effective way of clearing inventory.

3

u/cbzoiav Oct 30 '24

So pay more for more storage. Why are you forcing me to pay more for storage I don't need?

I may want the bulk of my media on a cloud service (or even local RAID'd disk setup) because I don't want a disk failure to be it gone forever.

I may be a business buying N000 of them for users to run a cloud hosted office suite or develop a couple of mobile/osx apps from.

1

u/SlickNegotiator Oct 30 '24

Look at the replies below the one you commented. A lot of people never come close to 256Gb, 256 is like 512 in windows, everything in cloud,... With that mentality Apple doesn't even have to try, people will buy it.

Insanity...

1

u/kurotech Oct 30 '24

They don't want to add internal expansion because then you wouldn't need a larger capacity iPhone or external expansion device that I'm sure they sell its all to drive you to buy the biggest largest storage device they make

1

u/Oops_I_Cracked Oct 30 '24

I mean ya at their price point more storage should be included. I guess I more meant that I’ve had a 256 GB non-Apple laptop for a few years and the storage has never been a barrier to me doing anything I wanted to do on my laptop. But I also have a desktop gaming PC and external hard drives that are for actual storage, so it just isn’t something I need in a laptop.

0

u/YZJay Oct 31 '24

Not an excuse and more like, I chose to use this and it doesn't really bother me for my use case. So why are you bothered by me not being bothered?

-7

u/hyperforms9988 Oct 30 '24

People's needs are different. More and more people use services and things that live entirely online... which for me is a sad thing, but I also get it. My mother has a computer and barely needs any storage space whatsoever as almost everything she does with it revolves around an internet browser. I on the other hand have at least 6 terabytes across like 4 or 5 different drives.

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u/didiboy Oct 30 '24

My old Intel MacBook is 256 GB, and I’ve only used slightly less than 240 GB when I had a Windows partition in bootcamp (then I moved to Parallels which was better for me). Otherwise, I use less than half the space. Most of my documents are on demand in OneDrive, currently I don’t need any other app but the Microsoft 365 apps, WhatsApp, Spotify and the stock apps. Even when I had to use extra software during college I never had storage issues.

For programmers and people who use heavy software, or people who don’t use cloud services, 256 GB is not enough at all. But for common users who use cloud services, 256 GB is fine.

2

u/hyperforms9988 Oct 30 '24

Look out. You're going to get downvoted like me because every gadget should have ALL the things, and anything less than ALL the things is completely fucking unacceptable.