I sold my N900 a while ago, moved onto a more supported device, loved it but Nokia ruined it for me. This site allowed me to keep the phone a lot longer than I intended to, thanks for that, but I just needed more consumer friendly features, along with greating tweaking ability. Anyway, I was on Apple.com comparing a MacBook Pro with a Dell XPS 15 with a friend. I dislike Apple due to their image and cost, same specs, MBP ($2091), Dell ($1344). Anyway, I noticed when building "Your MBP" that upgrading the RAM from 4GB to 8GB added on $200.

What the hell? Where did that come from? I can go out and buy 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz for about $40 to $80, and yet innocent people who believe macs are easier to use are getting ripped the fux off by Apple.

What's your take on this, anyone?

haha well u c! thats just the scam they are using! in th real world :-( we the power enthusiasts r the minority and Apple is using this to their advantage, they r using the general public to leur in all the money.... Example! When i switched to the iPhone 4, i liked it at the begining but after a while i found myself slowly coming back to the N900... i just couldn't handle the fact that i needed an app for everything! some small things set the differences for me! but thats just me.........

That's just Apple being Apple, move on guys.
Personally, I think the only things coming out of Apple that aren't massively overpriced would be the iPods (incl. iPod Touch.)

Apple = higher prices, nonstandard EFI, last generation's hardware, Foxconn internals, you getting burnt due to the aluminum casing, overapplied thermal paste, bad cooling leading to the thing dying prematurely and a lack of ports just to make the outside smoother.

That is something you need to watch when buying a Mac. Often you can save money by upgrading the harddrive and RAM yourself after it arrives. Sometimes though, it's cheaper buy the upgrades from Apple.

The new iMacs with the custom harddrives force the decision, unfortunately. That's a far greater concern to me than overpriced upgrades.

Doesn't make it right though. Special hard drive adapters are pretty effing stupid, totally unnecessary. I just don't like that even after the computer leaves the store, Apple still feels the need to dominate all control over it. I'd never buy an Apple for that reason. That, and the fact that they're not better at really anything over Windows and Linux. I mean, do they do what they do? Sure. Garage Band? FL Studio, LMMS. Photoshop? That's on Windows and can be Wine'd or the GIMP is a great alternative for 99% of the stuff. The internet? Opera, Firefox, Chrome, etc etc. Safari isn't even that great anyway. Easy to use? Windows and Linux aren't that hard.

Don't get me wrong, they're great at what they do, but better than everyone else? No way. Worth the money, hell no.

Good luck making 'right' in the world.

Vote with your cash.
Fight with information.
Plan for the future through education.

I've got 2 macbook pros, a macbook air, a mac mini, ipad2, ipad1, iphone4, etc.... and i never once bought 'memory upgrade' from apple.com

Doesn't make them wrong though.

Nor does the number of times I've seen Windows box manufacturers pull the same tricks. They all try to make an extra buck somewhere. Overpriced RAM. Extra charge to not install bloatware. Overpriced accessories such as flash drives, routers, and printers. Extra, optional games and programs. Extra charges to tweak performance settings.

Sometimes you can save money by purchasing unfinished furniture too, but not everyone wants to stain and seal their own end table. So, you can save a few bucks and do the work yourself or pay someone else to do it and spend your time in activities more important to you.

You'll get no argument from me on that. You want to pad your RAM and drive upgrade charges a bit? Fine, as a consumer I can decide whether the extra cost is worth me not doing the upgrade myself. Don't take the choice away though.

Apple killed much of my enthusiasm for their computers with non-removable batteries in their notebook computers. Special hard drive connections are even worse.

The pro apps are quite nice. Yes, there are alternatives, but the price/performance point they hit makes them enticing.

Branded hardware = bad.
I've seen cases where they make slots/connectors intentionally incompatible to force people buy overpriced products from them.
Ever seen a mirrored motherboard? If I'm not mistaken it was Dell

Not that it's right, however... when was the last time you ordered a soda at a restaurant? It costs them pennies, but they charge a good $2 or $3. Like @sjgadsby said, they have to make a buck somewhere.

lol. Long time Apple users always buy RAM online. No big deal.
The new battery issue is a problem though. I do not like the idea that my next Macbook will likely have a battery I cannot replace myself