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Comment by zokier | Hacker News Reader

I was taking a peek what Dell as an example has currently in market. The most ridiculous configuration maybe is this "Precision 3560" in its baseline configuration, which includes latest generation Core i5 CPU paired with 4 GB of RAM, with almost $1200 pricetag. I feel sorry for anyone who buys that..

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certif...

There are other silly examples too, like this $1400 XPS 13 that has non-configurable 8 GB of RAM together with latest gen i7:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...

I would agree that this skimping on RAM is pretty ridiculous. I can understand if some <$500 laptops still would ship with 8 GB, nobody should expect any greatness from those, but for devices costing three times more the expectations are higher.

Heck, my main PC is i5 (so mid-range) from 2015 and even it has 16 GB of RAM.

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> The most ridiculous configuration maybe is this "Precision 3560" in its baseline configuration, which includes latest generation Core i5 CPU paired with 4 GB of RAM, with almost $1200 pricetag. I feel sorry for anyone who buys that..

Or maybe they're being smart by adding RAM themselves rather than paying dell an overpriced markup?

Well, in this case, they both get to install the RAM themselves and to pay for an even more overpriced markup.

1. Better to pay a $200 markup than a $400 markup right?

2. the markup is often warranted. There's a vast difference between "business" laptops and "consumer" laptops. I can't speak for dell's precision line, but lenovo's thinkpads are leagues better (build quality, support, etc) than the consumer crap you get at best buy.

The thing that bothers me so badly is that if they just took all the resources they put into RGB-everything development and “gamer” branding and put that into tactile improvements, better trackpads, more solid hinges, less chassis flex…I bet there’s a big market for gamers who want the function over the form. It doesn’t have to be a beige box either, I just want something like a Dell XPS with TotL GPU + CPU. For some reason, that also necessarily comes with ugly chintzy obnoxious hardware design. I feel like PC HW mfgs are so out of touch with what people actually want. Look at the NVidia RTX 3080/90 FE cards and how they’re actually classy and solid, without a giant fan shroud and 6 additional cheap loud LED fans. It’s not like they had any problem selling every single one they made, just sad that it lives inside the case.

Razer is one kinda-exception that I can think of, where they have fairly solid laptops that can be more minimal, but the build quality is still not quite up to mobile workstation standards.

TL;DR I wish I could get a MBP with TOTL hardware instead of having even the highest-end config still shoot for thin-and-light.

Lenovo kind of does this with their Legion laptop brand. Those are sold for the "gamer"/"enthusiast" markets, so they don't have the premium support you get with pro ones (Though you can get an upgradee where they dispatch someone to your house for repairs. I think it costs something like 80€ (~100$) in France ?), nor the premium features (Not sure you could track the laptop if stolen, no ECC support...)

But on the other hand, they are clearly thought more as "hybrids" than other gamer laptops: - The UEFI lets you decide if you want to enable/disable the intel chipset (Useful when you want to be sure everything goes to the GPU/want to use things that don't work well with NVidia's Optimus) - Lightweight and easy to put in a bag. Not one of those 5 inches thick laptops that weight 5 kilograms - The look is made not to scream "gamer laptop !". - Wide configuration range for a single chassis.

Also not that expensive, even for consumer-grade standard. Got one with i7-9750h/RTX2060/16GB/512GB NVMe for 1100€/1350$ one year ago.

I completely agree. Did not see it was their prosumer brand. Makes more sense when one takes it into account.

lenova thinkpads are shite. They always run buggy and slow.

The Dell Precision mobile workstations have a good price when compared with other mobile workstations.

All mobile workstations, regardless of vendor, are overpriced in comparison with gaming laptops, because those who buy mobile workstations are forced to buy them for a few features that are missing in gaming laptops.

As another poster has already written, a common strategy when buying a Dell Precision mobile workstation is to buy them with the minimum RAM of 4 GB and with the minimum SSD of 128 GB, with the intention to dump the original RAM and SSD and buy something like 64 GB of ECC RAM and a fast 2 TB SSD, at much lower prices than from Dell.

The only reason for the 4 GB RAM configuration is because Dell will not sell a laptop without RAM or without a SSD or HDD.

The economy from buying yourself the RAM can easily be up to one thousand USD or even more, even after paying for the mandatory 4 GB.

Never understood why they don’t just offer RAM at closer-to-market prices instead of giving you a 4GB stick that will get tossed or sit in a drawer unused. Surely they’d rather make $20 on RAM instead of $0? It’s not like they refuse warranty service for unrelated parts because you’ve installed aftermarket RAM. I’d bet they could even get preferential pricing on qty purchases, so in theory it should be cheaper to get RAM / SSD upgrades through the mfg vs aftermarket…

Not everyone's tech savvy enough to order and install their own RAM. For every person buying 4GB of RAM to upgrade later there's probably 10 buying 16GB RAM at 100+% markup.

I'd guess most people buying mobile workstations would be savvy enough. But if your company requires the laptop is bought from and gets service from Dell why wouldn't they just pay the premium price? Having worked in a start-up where everyone 'got their way' with respect to hardware (company culture thing) it was impossible to centrally organise things like repairs - nobody but the dev knew where stuff was ordered so technical defects took up lots of dev time which costs more than just paying a few $100 extra for peace of mind.

They'd like to make some margin selling computers. The cheaper base model machines are very competitively priced between manufacturers. Much easier to make your profit on options.

Oh, sorry, did not know this was their mobile workstation line. Makes sense, then.

To be honest, considering we're talking about Dell, I must say I'm nearly surprised they did not put a DRM in the BIOS/UEFI to forbid using more than the quantity the laptop shipped from without paying a license. I assume it's that then, all the customers that do buy the cheap lines and update the RAM themselves would go to other shops ?

Like many “irrational” pricing schemes, it can be explained with price discrimination.

If you’re cost sensitive, you upgrade yourself.

If you’re paying an overworked IT department to buy laptops, you pay the premium to Dell instead of hiring an employee to deal with upgrades like this, and then hire another person to scream at multiple people (instead of one) when all the laptops start BSODing because of some Microsoft update combined with Murphy’s Law.

Dell is actually one of the best large PC OEMS in my opinion because they dont play those games (at least not on their business focused and higher end products). Their UEFI firmware is pretty good, and updated regularly even on old machines (they also support fwupd on Linux, which is a must for Windowsless systems IMO).

>can understand if some <$500 laptops still would ship with 8 GB, nobody should expect any greatness from those,

My Acer aspire from 2015 or so cost me $450. It came with 8GB of RAM the RAM is also upgradeable. I could swap them out for 16GB. Unfortunately the video card in it is trash.

Equipping the machines with a relatively small and non upgradable amount of RAM is probably the easiest way to achieve a sufficient probabiliy that these devices are thrown away by their users after some relatively short period of time that best suits the manufacturer's business model.

All enabled by the ever more RAM hungry bloatware that gets pushed to users' computers unless they're painfully selective about the software they install.

It's probably also just marketing ... having some ridiculous 4 GB equipped laptop in the store that's only few hundred bucks cheaper than the 8 GB model, makes it way easier for many people to buy the latter. Even if both are stupidly over priced.

Dell did it differently 10 years ago. Its d6420/e6430/e6440 support maximum 16G.

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