Malcolm Owen
Apple has made it more expensive for customers to upgrade the memory on the 13-inch MacBook Pro, with the price of the option doubled on the entry-level model as part of a change quietly made on Saturday.
On Friday, buyers of the entry-level model of the refreshed 13-inch MacBook Pro were able to upgrade the memory on the device from 8 gigabytes to 16 gigabytes for $100. In an update first spotted by Reddit users on Saturday, the cost of the upgrade has gone up to $200.
The change in pricing is not just limited to standard customers in the United States, as the Education Store pricing for the same upgrade has also increased from $90 to $180. Customers in other countries are also affected, with UK customers now paying 200 for the upgrade instead of 100, and in Canada the same upgrade has increased to $250.
Apple has previously made adjustments to pricing of its products and upgrade options, altering them based on fluctuations in exchange rates and of the components themselves. The pricing can go down as well as up, such as in the SSD upgrade price drops observed in July 2019.
At this time, it seems that only the entry-level model of Apple's MacBook Pro is being affected by price changes. Given it uses different memory from the unaffected higher-specification variants, it is probable that Apple is altering the price due to the high demand for that particular type of memory.
For the best MacBook Pro deals, be sure to visit the AppleInsider Mac Price Guide where shoppers can save up to $250 on the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro, plus $70 off AppleCare.
Update: In a statement to The Verge on June 1, Apple claimed that the price change is actually a price "correction" meant to bring RAM upgrades on the 13-inch MacBook Pro in-line with those on other Macs. The company added that it will honor pricing for customers who purchased RAM upgrades prior to the change.
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16 Comments
Get your ram @ crucial.com. I have been getting mine thru them for years.
A "stick" of 8GB DDR3 RAM is $45. 16GB is $100. Both retail, Apple will be paying at most half of that. I guess someone realised they weren't nickel and diming enough on this model so had to double the cost of something, or they were selling too many base models vs the "better" tier. Pretty brazen and frankly, pretty stupid, especially since 8GB is pretty measly these days. MacBooks have had 8GB as standard since 2013, really is about time they made 16gb standard across the board. I frequently have Safari alone using 8+gb, and right now the WindowServer is using 1.5gb.