January 31, 2005
Apple Mac Mini Memory Upgrade Highway Robbery?
I'm happily getting used to my 256 megabyte/1.2 ghz Mac Mini that I bought yesterday at CompUSA. If you're looking to buy a Mac Mini, I heard that there are literally only 3 units in stock in the whole country across the 98 Apple retail stores in addition to the 3-4 week online site waiting list. So if you want one, check the local CompUSA is my advice. I was able to grab the last one at mine.
After 24 hours of usage, the most pressing need is a memory upgrade. Just for kicks I called the Apple Store in San Francisco about how much it would cost to upgrade the memory in my Mac Mini. If it was really cheap, I was considering using them because I'm afraid of damaging my case with non-existent putty knife skills.
The installation fee costs $30 and will be done in 24 hours. That seemed pretty reasonable. The kicker was you have to use Apple memory and can't bring your own. So I waited on hold for 30 seconds to get the Apple memory prices.
512 megabytes - $300.
1 gigabyte - $500.
I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I asked again to confirm, and the person said those were the fees.
Let's see, Newegg charges $60 for 512MB and $150 for a 1 gigabyte stick. I think I'll do my own memory upgrade, thank you. If you were thinking of doing an after market upgrade from the Apple store, DON'T. Unfortunately for those that want more memory, but don't want to open their Mini case, you are forced to wait a month by ordering online.
Someone please confirm this, I'm praying this Apple Store quote was a mistake. I would call again to confirm, but don't want feel like a jerk calling again when I had the person check twice. Can you imagine the poor computer newbie grandmother paying these kind of upgrade prices? Eesh. [Discuss]
