The great memory rip-off: Apple and Google ‘ripping off customers’ over extra storage - Polidicks

[QUOTE]Shoppers who stump up for tablets with extra storage space are being ripped off by the likes of Google and Apple, a watchdog has claimed. Some techies are forced to pay 1,200 per cent more for additional memory than it costs at market price. A 32GB Apple iPad Air costs £80 more than the 16GB version. However, Which? has accused the tablet giant of fleecing customers, as it only costs it £5.85 to include the extra 16GB in the device. The consumer group claimed that Google also charged an extra £70 – or a mark-up of 1,000 per cent – for a 32GB Nexus 10 over its 16GB model. Which? described the charges as ‘scandalous’ and said its report had revealed ‘shocking levels of profiteering by manufacturers over something as simple as a chunk of extra memory’. Its editor, Richard Headland, said: ‘With tablets in demand this Christmas, buyers will be shocked to discover what a raw deal they’re getting on built-in memory.’ He has advised shoppers to buy a tablet with an SD or microSD slot, such as the Microsoft Surface RT, then to add a memory card ‘for a fraction of the cost’. Unlike PCs, tablet storage is often difficult to upgrade. Most devices have a sealed design, which makes adding new hardware near impossible. To compound the problem, the true amount of storage space on a new tablet is rarely the same as advertised on the packaging. On a 16GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, only 10GB is left for a user’s files because operating systems and built-in apps take up space. Apple, Amazon and Google made no comment over the allegations. But Samsung told Which?: ‘Prices are generally determined by retail channels, market situation and the product’s life cycle. ‘It is Samsung policy to provide the most reasonable market price to customers.’ [/QUOTE] [url]http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/20/the-great-memory-rip-off-apple-and-google-ripping-off-customers-over-extra-storage-4193464/[/url]

I want a decent sized mp3 player and I hate this.

You think that's bad, build a custom mac pro on the apple website and add 8gb of ram. The charge is like $150 per stick.

Basically figured this forever, it's ridiculous that memory has improved so much and gotten so much cheaper to produce but it's actually gotten MORE expensive to get it in your mobile devices.

[Quote]On a 16GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, only 10GB is left for a user’s files because operating systems and built-in apps take up space.[/quote] How the [I]actual [B]fuck[/B][/I] did they manage to bloat android that badly That can't be true. That's ridiculous.

[QUOTE=frozensoda;42922938]You think that's bad, build a custom mac pro on the apple website and add 8gb of ram. The charge is like $150 per stick.[/QUOTE] And this shit. [img]http://imgkk.com/i/xvcm.png[/img] [img]http://imgkk.com/i/k485.png[/img] Literally the main reason I didn't buy the Vita, fuck you Sony.

Having two memory versions gives them an excuse to split the virtually same product into two price ranges, low end which is as about much as the less spendy people are willing to shell out, as much as they can afford to mark up without people starting to fall off, and high end which the wealthier customers don't mind giving money for even when the thing is pretty much the same sans some marginal difference. It's just another example of how fucked up the pricing in free market gets. The cost of electronics has very little to do with it's value determined by the resources put into it's production [B]OR[/B] it's actual functionality, it's only about what are people willing to pay.

Almost every peripheral maker has been doing this since the big kerfuffle with hynix and samsung almost a decade ago. Even nVidia and AMD are doing it. You're basically paying for last years tsunami prices on memory even though the shortage is over. For Green you're paying about 100 smackers a gig, and on Red you're paying about 70/80 or even up to 120 on Toxic/Sapphire. Both companies and their subs are paying between 15 and 20 per gig, 30 for large high througput modules. Consumers are getting reamed and will continue to until someone smacks said companies back into line again. This is like the fifth time this has happened in the last twenty years. (In fact a Euro trade commission fined both nVidia and AMD about five-six years ago for colluding on prices). Nothing new really.

[quote]He has advised shoppers to buy a tablet with an SD or microSD slot, [b]such as the Microsoft Surface RT[/b][/quote] Haha, no.

Should of recommended the Surface Pro tbh

So Google, 'bout those MicroSD card slots you hate?

[QUOTE=RandomGamer342;42922953]How the [I]actual [B]fuck[/B][/I] did they manage to bloat android that badly That can't be true. That's ridiculous.[/QUOTE] It's true. I own a Note 2 and I have roughly 10gb of space. Although after using custom ROMs, it still shows 10gb so the other 6 must be allocated to the system or something. (I don't know anything about reallocating space or if that's even possible)

Here in France we have a "tax for private copy" on storage, per GB, so that markup is SLIGHTLY justified... but still. Do other countries have that?

[QUOTE=ManiacKiller;42923130]It's true. I own a Note 2 and I have roughly 10gb of space. Although after using custom ROMs, it still shows 10gb so the other 6 must be allocated to the system or something. (I don't know anything about reallocating space or if that's even possible)[/QUOTE] AFAIK it's possible to repartition it, although there's a risk of bricking the device in some cases

Meh, sort of knew this when buying the N5 16gb but tbf I'll never use that up, let alone 32gb.. but I agree this is pretty bad and I know businesses have been doing this for a while.. aresholes really.

Where are they getting the £70 markup on the Nexus 10 it's only £40 that's still too much though.

[QUOTE=Sivics;42923476]Where are they getting the £70 markup on the Nexus 10 it's only £40 that's still too much though.[/QUOTE] [url]https://play.google.com/store/device...=nexus_10_16gb[/url] - £319 [url]https://play.google.com/store/device...=nexus_10_32gb[/url] - £389

The reason I haven't updated from my current phone is because the latest HTCs don't have the microSD card slots.

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;42923133]Here in France we have a "tax for private copy" on storage, per GB, so that markup is SLIGHTLY justified... but still. Do other countries have that?[/QUOTE] We have that bullshit here too. It makes all these stuff more expensive between 5€ and 50€.

Here's my beef, why are we suddenly limited to 16 or 32 gigs of storage to begin with? iPods alone used to have upwards of 160 gigs of storage, but now suddenly "Ohhh nooo, you don't need [I]that[/I] much space, here use this much instead"

[QUOTE=S31-Syntax;42924706]Here's my beef, why are we suddenly limited to 16 or 32 gigs of storage to begin with? iPods alone used to have upwards of 160 gigs of storage, but now suddenly "Ohhh nooo, you don't need [I]that[/I] much space, here use this much instead"[/QUOTE] iPod classics used hard drives which costs peanuts compared to flash memory

[QUOTE=The Baconator;42924797]iPod classics used hard drives which costs peanuts compared to flash memory[/QUOTE] I get that they were phased out because moving parts in small things is unstable, but I was really hoping microdrives would get developed more. Would have helped the harddrive industry quite a bit. But no, now we get up to 32 gigs of space, with 6 of those gigs being usually unusable, and no SD slot to add to it. We have to go way out of our way these days to get extra storage when the tech to add more storage has been around forever. But nooo, sd slots don't fit in apples philosophy for ipods and Google says they're "too complicated" -is buttmad-

Still have my Zune 80gb and it works great.

No shit, Sherlock. This is why manufacturers are all deleting the microSD slots, it's just so they can massively rip people off for extra storage. Not to mention the OS bloat that cuts into your useable space.

It's pretty annoying how there's so little memory on an Iphone. And it's not like more wouldn't be possible.

[QUOTE=Elstumpo;42922897]I want a decent sized mp3 player and I hate this.[/QUOTE] Get a Sansa Clip and buy a Micro SD card to go with it. I've heard great things about them.

We're still ripped out by any memory producer due to the whole Giga-/Gibi-, Tera-/Tebi- and so on business. Less noticeable at small scale, but as the numbers get bigger, the difference increases.

My Lumia 928 came w/ 32 GB storage, most of it is accessible, and only really store photographs on it. Much prefer to use pmp for music, as to not use phone battery. I can see how the restricted storage could be an issue of you like to have even a reasonable sized high bit rate video/music collection. The 928 doesn't have SD slot, but I have unlimited Verizon 4G, so not big deal in my use case. That said it is true, multiple storage options on phones rarely reflect the added cost of the higher NAND amount. Prices probably wont come down super fast due to the fact that it is a rare area in which you can achieve a very high markup on devices that are usually otherwise sold pretty close to cost.

what you know, corporations are mostly dicks, and want your money no matter what. :v: and you have idiots who buy something simply due to the brand, on top of it :suicide: i really hope we get modular phones eventually to end this shit.

I have a galaxy note 10.1 It's great and stuff but from the 16gb only 12 are usable. Not a big deal though since they have a micro sd card slot build in so I'm not too mad about that.