iFixit dings new 21.5-inch iMac for low repairability as shipping times increase - Page 4

I would say most, if not all, benefit Apple but it's hard to see how none of them benefit the consumer.

1) There is no "should." This is a free market. They break no laws by making their 21.5" iMac the way they do. Because it's free market if we, the consumer, don't like what they offer we don't have to buy. If this hurts sales then they will likely focus on changing that in order to regain those sales.

2) From what I recall from Google's tests HDDs tend to break down almost immediately (well within the warranty) or work for a long time and there was no single brand that better or worse overall.

3) If Apple's goal was simply to keep you buying new Macs every couple years then why so few options? Why so few updates? Why offer BTO options that will increase the life of your Mac considerably? Why try to make Mac OS X more efficient with each revision? And why allow the 27" iMac to have access to upgrade the RAM -and- give it 4 slots instead of just 2?

I don't buy RAM based solely on a brand name. A brand name you have had experience can give you peace of mind on quality, warranted or not, but there are other aspects that need to be considered. For instance, the RAM I'll be buying for my iMac will cost me $300. Sure, I can it at half that price if I want the cheapest but I want the RAM with the lowest latency.

With 2x4GB RAM used in the iFixit breakdown they aren't using the RAM with the lowest latency (but are using low voltage, and halogen and lead free RAM) but that doesn't mean that the for RAM upgrades they aren't using higher performing RAM. But if they aren't, it's not an issue because that's their choice to charge the customer what they want for upgrades. Again, free market. They have a right to set the prices for a product they have to test, install and warranty just as you have the right to not buy it.

What would you rather they do start each Mac base model $200 more per unit and then charge you sell RAM upgrades at wholesale prices? Either way they have figured out what they produce and what they can sell at a certain price point. There is science behind all these prices.


PS: I think the focus was on the 27" iMac with the 21.5" following suit but with extra limitations do to the much smaller internal space for component placement. At least we got an iMac update which is apparently a big deal since I keep hearing Apple doesn't care about Macs anymore and yet the Mac has never been better.

 

I don't agree with blanket statements like "these changes benefit Apple;" If a Mac needs to be repaired under warranty, the presumed extra cost of repair will be passed on to Apple. Product recalls outside of warranty would also cost them more.

 

If failure happens out of warranty, there's no guarantee the repair will be done by Apple: there are non-factory-authorized repair shops the owner could take it to. If the owner decides the junk the computer, there's no guarantee they'll buy another Mac.

 

As for the "keep the one you have in working condition" comment, I still have a perfectly working 12" iBook 500Mhz G3, 384MB of RAM, 30GB HDD. It's completely obsolete. Adding RAM and HDD might buy some time, but in the end, the benefits are limited, because you can't replace the CPU or graphics card. I've got PCs I can replace the CPU in, and even that is limited by BIOS support, so most of the time, all I can do is minor speed bump, which is almost never worth the cost. I can't turn an old Pentium 4 machine into a Core i7 machine with some processor upgrade.

 

Apple repairs or replacements are also done with warranties.

 

Ridiculous comment IMO.   iFixit did not ask Apple to consult them.   Sites like this one legitimately have criticisms of Apple's and other products.   It's perfectly legitimate to criticize Apple's products and how easy it is to upgrade or repair them when it's warranted.   If you disagree with the conclusion, argue the point rationally.    But if your argument is "like Apple's products no matter what or go buy something else" then any review site should just shut down because they serve no purpose.

 

While I care far less about repairability than upgradability, I think Apple has made a bad tradeoff for consumers.   I have upgraded, over time, virtually all of my Apple computers at one point or another.    I had a G4 tower and I upgraded the memory, changed out the hard disk twice and converted the original read-only CD drive to a read/write drive.    I now have a late 2008 MacBook pro and I was able to quite easily switch out the hard disk for a larger unit when I ran out of storage space.   I purchased the machine with upgraded memory, but it's nice to know that I can still upgrade it myself with more memory and that I don't have to buy that memory from Apple.

 

Apple is now forcing consumers to make memory and hard disk decisions up front and not letting them upgrade (for the most part) after the fact.   If you run out of disk space, tough, you either have to buy an external drive or buy a new computer.      I don't consider that very friendly.     IMO, we're giving away too much because of Apple's obsession with thinness.   Thinness is great, but not at the cost of not being able to upgrade a machine.     

 

I also happen to be a long-time Nikon camera user.   But Nikon recently changed their repair policy in that they no longer sell parts to third parties, not even simple user-replacable parts like a battery door.   They've also substantially increased their own repair prices AND they have a big backlog, so if you send them a camera or lens, it make take months to get it back.    I consider that to be very consumer unfriendly as well. 

 

It's perfectly legitimate to criticize this.    

 

Wait a minute…

 

The iMac has never had a hard drive that was easy to get to. As for RAM, I think of it more that Apple is forcing themselves to make memory decisions up front. Once their entire line goes to unmodifiable RAM chips, they'll know exactly how many of their users have how much RAM, and they can write software around those numbers. 

 

Can't write something that hogs 6GB of RAM when a majority of your userbase only has 8, yeah? Boom; stuff's made slimmer.

 

This is going to be seen as an archaic mindset very soon, and Steve will finally get his first really unfulfilled wish.

 

 

Crap. Maybe I should go find a replacement door for my CoolPix right now, then… Or maybe buy from a company that doesn't use battery doors, and therefore doesn't have battery doors that break all the dang time under normal use. Thanks for the tip, though!

Because people are already doing that - out of frustration perhaps.

You missed the pic in step 6:



And I missed the sticker: "copied in South Korea"

Which manual would that be? The Service Manual; only for Authorized Personnel Only? Or did you get a written service manual with your Mini?

Those who need access get a Mac Pro, because of that very fact.

 

That's the display panel only.

Ah, ok. Well, that's a good thing for patriotic Americans then!

edit: Tim also mentioned this at AllThingD about the iPhone "some parts are made in the USA". I am looking forward to next weeks' interview.

Again we have the classic battle between the techie tinkerers and the normal users. I notice, however, that the naysayers have changed their tunes a bit. They used to come into threads like this one predicting the product D.O.A. or Epic Fail. Then they of course had to slink away when whatever it was sold like there was no tomorrow (think iPhone 4 and original iPad). They still rant and rave of course but there are no more doomsday predictions, just lamentations that only stupid people buy Apple and that the iSheep will buy anything.

 

That stupendously ugly piece of trash posted by Tallest Skil is right up their alley however.

 

You're starting to sound like an Apple apologist. Installing? Seriously? We're paying double for them to INSTALL it? While they're assembling the machine anyway? They are MAKING it a cost of convenience by making it really really really really inconvenient for me or anyone else to do it.

 

As for the 30 day warranty, read what I wrote. Crucial offers a LIFETIME warranty and still comes in at half of what Apple's upgrade costs.

 

 

 

 

But that's the point of this whole discussion! Apple is making it damn near impossible for the user to open their machines, so while the option does technically exist, in real-life terms it's NOT a genuine option. I do not have the means to remove the glued-on face of an iMac, and I'm a handy type.

 

 

 

 

Okay, I guess that's not completely fair. One CAN get top-line configurations from Apple, but only at prices much higher than other sources for EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

I never said that it was double to install it. I stated multiple reasons why a vendor would charge more for RAM upgrades than it costs them to buy at wholesale. You don't have to like it but you have to accept it.

And how exactly does that warranty work? I make a claim that the RAM is bad and Crucial will send me a box to ship my 27" iMac to them on their dime? Of course not!

Surely you understand how these companies that sell components with lifetime warranties work.

Looks pretty damn easy on the 27" iMac.

You have no means of getting a guitar pick and rolling it around the seam?

That's a completely different discussion and your opinion on that matter is a valid one. However, this isn't Apple's first push in this direction and yet their Macs seem to be even more and more popular. And let's not forget that notebooks have always been less upgradable than desktops yet are more popular with customers than desktops, and iDevices are considerably more popular than them and yet have nothing the user can service themselves.

The fact is your wishes for a wildly upgradable CE just isn't what drives the market so I'd say that your fears of a declining stock price are unfounded. That is not to say your wishes are unreasonable but your expectations are.

No, you can't get exactly the same thing from other vendors. It's impossible. You can pair components to create a reasonable comparison along many aspects but it's not EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

We seems to see less of it these days as Apple has gotten even farther ahead in the "PC" market but we used to see many claims that this of that WinPC was better but cheaper than some Mac. These comparisons never looked at the display quality or battery life or build quality or any other relevant factor that makes me a returning Mac customer. I guess the focus has changed to say things like "Android phones have had LTE for years now" which is a great example of the poster not understanding the difference between LTE in the iPhone 5 and LTE chips in obsolete Android phones.
Edited by SolipsismX - 12/2/12 at 3:22pm

 

You have been incredibly lucky. Of the seven Macs our family has owned since we switched at the end of 2007, six have had a fault that required a repair: four MacBook Pros, one Mini, and one Pro tower. Worn out hard drives, bad RAM, fan failure, ALL of the optical drives... nothing particularly remarkable or unusual -- mostly mechanical parts -- but not the kind of invulnerability you've enjoyed.

 

Sorry to hear that. I don't think he's "lucky". Rather, statistically, you are unlucky. My experience:

iBook G3 - 2001 - still operational, no repairs needed

PowerBook G4 - 2006 - still operational, no repairs needed

MacBook Pro 2008 - still operational, no repairs needed

MacBook Air 2010 - still operational, no repairs needed

 

On the PC side, I've owned various BYO Windows machines over the 15 years with just two that blew capacitors, two that had RAM chips fail, and one statistically very unlucky Pentium 4-based PC that had a string of failures, including a ball bearing that failed on a cooling fan, bad RAM, bad DVD-drive. But these failures are still in the minority. My brand-named office PCs are similar: just one DELL workstation out of 5 PCs failed (blow capacitor) in the last decade.

 

I guess I have been incredibly lucky too. The only problem I ever had was the power supply on my Power Mac 8100 and I have been an Apple customer since 1982. From my perspective YOU are the unlucky one and I am the norm.

 

I'm able to decide what's reasonable to me, and I think it's pretty safe to generalize about DOUBLE the going rate being considered unreasonable by most sensible shoppers. If the car rental company charged you TWICE the rate at the pumps to fill up the car when you return it, and glued on the gas cap, would you not feel comfortable calling that "unreasonable?" I would, and I think most people would. If you wouldn't, you are either the most easy-going person on Earth or lacking in value perception.

 

 

 

You think so, huh? The consensus here appears to be that people are NOT paying those prices, which is why they're upset about now being forced to.

 

Of course, the only way to know for sure is to consult sales stats for BTO RAM and storage upgrades, which I don't think you or I will ever see.

 

I have no idea how you have managed that. I have never, ever, kept a machine in use for more than three years without a hard drive replacement. Never. Maybe my use patterns are more drive intensive than yours?

I say I haven't used a desktop PC for personal use in almost 15 years but that's entire accurate. I bought a 1GHz iMac back in the day — the ones with the round base and swivel flatscreen — for my niece and nephew. They've since outgrown and I was able to get it back. No keyboard or mouse connected by SSH was enabled so I was able to find enough Terminal commands to get screen sharing enabled. I now have it on my desk awaiting my 27" iMac to take its place. It's only use now is to connect to a Cisco router in my rack (one that connects to the rest of my Cisco equipment via an 8 port async cable), but I digress.

Anyway, it's still the original configuration with no mods and it's working fine despite about a decade of use. I think your history is very atypical.


PS: I'd like to mod this beautiful machine with Mac mini internals and a new display but I think to do it right would be too much trouble. It would be easy to place a Mac mini inside but I want ports to line up, I want a Time Capsule inside (with the Mac mini connected via GigE), I want the display to be IPS and higher resolution, and hopefully larger but in a casing that matches the exterior.

Professional mac user = 20 years
Macs owned (inc employees) = 50
Current personal macs = 9
Hardware failure/repairs = 2
upgrades (MacPros only) = 2

repairability care factor = bwaahhhaa

Its just not relevant

I wouldn't say that it's typical to replace hard drives every 3 years in a Mac but replacing them is a lot more common than some people would have you believe. My v.2 G5 iMac went through 2 hard drives in 4 years. I gave up after the 3rd one gave up the ghost after 16 months... and it had been replaced by Apple. I think there was a heat issue in that particular version of the G5.

 

Otherwise I haven't had any other problems with drives... but then again, when it was easy to service them I would buy my own drives, so maybe the quality was better.

 

The only other fault I've had is with my Intel mid 2007 iMac. Apparently there were a few that went out the door with bad graphics cards. Won't let me upgrade beyond 10.6.2. By the time I found out about the problem it was too late and Apple wanted nothing to do with it. Couldn't sell it, couldn't upgrade the OS... so I've just kept it running... and, of course, it will probably run for the next 15 years. 

 

[I've owned over 20 macs in the last 24 years]

Edited by island hermit - 12/2/12 at 5:26pm

 

Fair enough. Point taken.

 

 

 

Hm, so what you're saying is that not everyone has the same expectations I do? Are you sure? It certainly seems to ME that they SHOULD. I'll have to give that some thought...

 

(wanders away mumbling and confused...)

 

 

 

 

I totally get that, and that's why I paid almost $4000 for my last MBP after AppleCare and tax rather than the roughly $3000-$3500ish it would have cost for the Asus hotrod I was considering as an alternative. My feeling is that they're getting their pound of flesh (454g in Canada) and then some on the purchase price -- no other computer makes comes CLOSE to the margins Apple manages to persuade us to let them enjoy -- and punching us in the nuts over upgrades is just... well, greedy. Again, I'm NOT asking for parts at cost, but even just similar margins to what they make on their machines: 30-35 points over cost, which would make the end user price roughly 25% more than third-party alternatives. THAT would be in the range that calling it a "convenience fee" would reasonable, and I'd be less upset about Apple sealing up the chassis.

Let me cite an example. I switched a PC owning friend over to an iMac a few years back. I think he bought one just to shut me up. Anyways, it was his first Mac ever. He bought the top of the line iMac which I believe was a core 2 duo. It was about 3 or 4 years ago so not sure exactly which one. About a year ago he complained it was a bit slow. He told me how much RAM was installed and I suggested he double the RAM. This guy is about as far from a techie as you can get. I pointed him to a site where he could buy the RAM and they also had an installation video. He managed to do it by himself in less than 5 minutes and it solved the problem. What would he do now if faced with that situation a few years later? I should also mention his hard drive failed, but luckily he had Applecare and about 2 months left. No Apple store within 100 miles so he had to send it off. Unless he wanted to pay an extra $600 upfront to maximize the RAM he would be SOL.  I have never owned an iMac and never plan to as long as they keep making a Mac Pro. I love being able to add/replace hard drives, graphics cards, RAM, or a new interface like USB3 for example even though my machine didn't come with it when purchased. Not to mention having my own monitors not tied to the computer. The imac is just not my cup of tea, but I still think Apple is making a mistake by not allowing easy RAM and hard drive upgrades just for their quest to make it as thin as possible which isn't even that important on a desktop machine that will likely never be moved. 

 

I've been a Mac owner since the 1st one in 1984. The iMac G5s were not Apple's shining moment. Luckily, when we upgraded, we were saddled with only a few of those hot, temperamental machines. Remember those loud fans? And the bulging capacitors. And the freezing from the extreme heat generated. And the wonky, vibrating superdrive.

 

That was my one machine that failed utterly and completely. One day, went to the office, hit the power button, and sat there in disbelief. Too much heat.

 

That was the one model that got away from Apple in terms of quality control.

Quote:

"To our dismay, we're forced to break out our heat gun"

 

Quote:

"You'll have to masterfully peel off the old double-sided sticky tape and apply new tape in order to reseal this iMac into original condition".

Edited by hentaiboy - 12/2/12 at 6:21pm

"should have"? Says who?

And don't give me that crap about there being no consumer benefit. Just a few off the top of my head:

1. Higher reliability. A system where components can be easily replaced is subject to things coming loose during shipping or picking up dust later. Apple's products consistently get extremely high quality and reliability ratings.

2. Lighter and thinner. While YOU may not think it's a benefit, lots of consumers obviously do - which is shown by the rapid sale of Apple's products.

3. Environmentally more benign - which ultimately benefits everyone.

Apple made a tradeoff- they are offering an appliance-like computer which is built for reliability and size rather than making it easy for consumers to fiddle around inside. If you really must have that, I understand that Dell is still selling computers. They can help you. Meanwhile, people who are not interested in playing around inside their computers are still buying Macs.

See below. You're wrong on both the specs and the price.

Who gets to say what's 'reasonable'? You?

Apple's upgrade costs are easily in line with the rest of the industry. Why should they cut their margin even more?

Furthermore, you have no idea what Apple pays. First, you don't have the specs - and Apple has traditionally chosen the best RAM available. Second, in a spot market like RAM, it is not uncommon for RAM prices to the consumer to be lower than the contract price. An OEM has to pay a premium to guarantee availability and then what's left over gets sold on the spot market. If there's a glut, the spot price is often below the contract price.

Why don't you show us EXACTLY the same RAM at 1/2 Apple's price. Same manufacturing process, same environmental status, same latency, same quality, same reliability, etc. Everyone always talks about "exactly the same thing" but it rarely turns out to be true.

But you can't look at an individual BTO options and compare it to some off the shelf component.

For starters, it can have the exact same branding right down to the part number but that doesn't mean it's the same. We see this more with CPUs where there are power envelopes and performance variances that favour chips cut form the very same wafer. The Hynix RAM Apple used in that iFixit teardown is 1.35V whereas most I've seen is 1.5V. It's also lead and halogen free yet I haven't seen a single reseller state that for 3rd-party RAM; note that being environmentally friendly should matter to every buyer but it's something Apple does look it because they can market it. That does cost extra as well as likely testing the RAM they get more thoroughly before putting it in their machines because of the excessive mindshare Apple has on them. Hynix can sell Crucial perfectly usable RAM that didn't make the cut for Apple's machines (perhaps that's why there is a voltage difference) and it's not an issue because outside of a spattering of tech forums no one even knows the that Hynix exists.

But that's the least of the reasons you shouldn't compare a BTO options to some off the shelf component from some website. The biggest reason is that Apple doesn't set a magic base unit price that gets their intended profit margin with everything else being gravy. They consider the number of sales for the product with predicted BTO options across the board when they set their goals. You're coming at this as if the base model is some ideal price for Apple and then they bait-and-switch-then-rape you to get you into a "usable" machine (yes, that's intended hyperbole). That simply isn't the case. It's much more likely the base model is below their intended profit margin so they can have a lower starting point with the BTO options intended to bring it back up their sweet spot.

Their sweet spot. Not yours. We all want to pay less but that's life. If a product is popular the company can demand more money for it, especially if it's hard to get. Apple has a great deal of experience with demand exceeding their ability to supply enough units thus they can ask for more money. If you want a company to profit less there are plenty that are struggling with razor thin profits but remember a great deal of Apple's prowess in their respective markets is in their efficiency.

I feel I'll get more value from a $2600 27" iMac than I would from any other PC vendor's product (or any of Apple's other Mac configurations) so that is what I'm getting. It's unlikely I will be regretful of my decision.

OWC has a video of them removing the display quickly by rolling a guitar pick.
Edited by SolipsismX - 12/2/12 at 6:50pm

No charity here. Apple news attracts visitors. If iFixit stopped talking about Apple just because Apple makes tough to tear apart products, their site would be less relevant by a mile!

Well ... one main issue with the previous iMac was that you could easily get dust between the glass and the panel when reassembling it. This problem is gone now. Unfortunately Apple decided not to go with magnets anymore, which makes disassembly a little harder ...

 

I forgot that Macs use SuperSelect MagicRAM fortified with iron, niacin and nine essential vitamins, hand-made from the finest organically grown fair-trade silicon wafers and individually selected and inspected by an ordained member of the Appleminati clergy.

 

It would be irresponsible, nay, BLASPHEMOUS to install mere top-of-the-dirty-corrupt-line Crucial or Samsung RAM. Can you imagine the system corruption that would wreak?

 

There is absolutely no question in my mind that the RAM Apple uses is SOOOO superior to the comparative dreck that is available to lowly peons like me that it is clearly, obviously and unquestionably worth TWICE as much. At least.

 

Sorry for the good-natured ribbing, but seriously, I just don't believe that Apple is using parts so special they cost oodles more than even the really good stuff from reputable suppliers.

 

And to answer one of your questions, yes, I do think it's fair for me to make a judgement about what constitutes a "reasonable" price for upgrades. ANYONE can compare alternatives and see that Apple is simply gouging, period. In case you missed it, I presented Tallest with an analogy: You rent a car and when you go to fill it up before returning it, you find the gas cap is glued on. You can either find a way to pry it off, hire a mechanic, or pay the car rental company twice the price at the pumps across the street. Would you not consider that unreasonable? How is what we're discussing any different?

Wow, what a lame post, v5v. Sorry, my opinion - ignore it as it's just someone's opinion.

Personally I think some components in Apple gear are more expensive that the competition is due to the fact that they have better after sales service, which isn't always included with the competition. Hence the markup in price. But this is just in addition to the (in my opinion valid) statements made by SolipsismX and jragosta previously.

 

Yeah, but I value your opinion, so...

 

Lame as in "not funny" or "clearly operating at below accepted tolerances?"

 

FWIW, Solipsism and jr are also people I consider to be sharper than your average razor blade, so I don't mean any disrespect. I just don't think using fancy RAM (if they even do) is enough to account for the rather large premium Apple is asking. The last thing I did before logging in here was read several posts on http://27bslash6.com so I may have been channelling a little bit of David Thorne in my comments!

 

I'd like to think we can disagree without prejudice, and be able to dislike some of Apple's practices and products while still quite liking others. Sometimes it seems like around here "yer either with us or agin' us."

Sorry, as in not funny. Again, to me (this is important).

Haven't heard that one before (I'm not American) but eh, good one!

No disrespect experienced. Their premium is indeed rather large. With a Mac Pro I always buy the minimum RAM from Apple and buy my Kingston or whatever elsewhere. I did once experienced bad RAM, couldn;t return it so I was the fool. With laptops, I just max out while ordering.

That site is too funny. Even without reading it, go figure!

Yeah some folks here are indeed strong advocates. Personally I'm quite biased, but always keep my mind open. To Apple competitors, and others' opinions.

 

I've put an SSD into my MacBook and am awaiting delivery of RAM upgrades for the same MacBook and two iMacs. One motivation: knowing that the newer Macs are even harder to open and upgrade. Ironically the fact that Apple is making newer models even harder to take apart is increasing my tendency to upgrade rather than buy a newer faster model and sell the older ones to less demanding users.

I would strongly suggest that you take a course in critical thinking so that you could learn to discuss things rationally rather than your inane whining comments.

There are a number of differences that Apple RAM can have - without resorting to the garbage in your first paragraph. Historically, there is precedent for Apple having done all of the following:

1. Environmental compliance. Apple uses more environmentally benign processes.
2. Lower latency. Much of the cheapo RAM is very high latency.
3. Tighter tolerances. This one is especially true on things like capacitors, but also applies to RAM.
4. Higher levels of testing.

There are a number of cases where use of third party RAM has caused problems while using Apple RAM does not. Unfortunately, the people who have those problems often blame Apple, anyway.

You make a personal choice. Either you want to install a crappy oil filter in your Lexus or you install quality parts. Similarly, you can use RAM which meets all of Apple's specs (which is more expensive) or buy cheap RAM and suffer the consequences. No one is stopping you from doing the latter, although Apple isn't making it easy for you.

Apple's upgrade prices are very reasonable. Quality RAM (ignoring the real cheap junk) would cost $100-150 instead of the $200 Apple is charging - and even that may not meet all of Apple's specs. That's similar to what everyone else charges for RAM upgrades.

It may be in other cases, in this case it's not true. PC3 12800 is available in CL 9, 10 and 11. CL 10 and 11 are readily available. This batch of iMacs have CL11 installed.

The bottom line is this is all about money and nothing else.  If users are willing to spend $200 on 8GB of RAM, then why shouldn't apple earn as much as possible? No one is forcing you to buy an iMac.

 

Right, and you can either buy an iMac… or not buy an iMac.

 

 

You can buy RAM identical to that which Apple uses for half that price? Any links?

 

 

Is completely and utterly meaningless, as you well know, due to the inherent skew in this argument.

 

 

And, obviously, they ARE, given that, you know, Apple still charges them.

 

 

Or you could look at the prices and note that the prices are the prices, and they're the prices because people are paying those prices. If they weren't, they wouldn't be.

 

The last time I changed memory I swapped out apple supplied crucial ram for crucial supplied crucial ram of higher density.  Same timings, part number family (just bigger), etc.

 

Are you claiming some magic pixie dust version of these commodity parts?  For the 5200 RPM drive?  For the RAM?  Really?  You can buy the same RAM found in the iFixit teardown across the net.  It's the same Hynix RAM with the same timings, part number, etc.

 

Apple doesn't choose the best XXX available.  It chooses the most efficient XXX available for the build and that's different.  Hence the 5200 RPM travelstar in the base iMac build.  It leads performance per watt but trails in overall performance.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive-review,3270-3.html

 

 

The fact is that losing the ability to install your own RAM and replace the HDD is a significant negative to anyone with semi-competent family technical support.  I'm reasonably competent and I have no desire to install RAM into the new 21" iMac.  

 

For a semi-future proof iMac you need to get the 2.9Ghz Core i5 and upgrade to 16GB + Fusion.  That's $1,950.

If the RAM is user upgradable, how would Apple ever know how often RAM is upgraded? Sure, they sell RAM on their site, but anyone with enough on the ball to do it themselves will be buying memory at Crucial or OWC. Does every mac secretly phone home when it's configuration changes?

You do realize that he was wishing for the tidal wave of money to get larger, not for some promised land of computing goodness, don't you?