GUTEST4@BLEKUL11.BITNET (Pottie Karl) (05/09/90)
BUYING CHEAP THIRD PARTY MEMORY
###############################
This is addressed to all people who are interested in cheep memory upgrades,
and especially those living in Europe. Detailed here are our experiences
with buying memory from USA as well as the opinions held by other people
about a range of memory supplying companies.
Our experiences
===============
When living in Europe there are several things to consider when buying
memory. Two important things are 1) the price and 2) the time between
ordering and receiving.
Since people obviously are not going to make phone calls to America
when money is a relevant issue, a potential vendor should ideally
be reachable by telefax. When all communication has to be done through
physical mail it might take a very long time before the upgrade arrives.
We decided to go with the Chip Merchant for three reasons: 1) they provide
the cheapest SIMMs ($66/megabyte), 2) in general they seem to deliver very
quickly and 3) lots of people had already ordered from them and none of
them had any complaints to speak of.
The people at Chip Merchant were very friendly and in most cases they
replied to a telefax within a day, providing all relevant information. We
were also promptly informed of the receipt of money and shipping of the
chips.
Because cash-on-delivery is not possible outside the USA, all merchandise
must be prepaid. Unfortunately they don't accept credit cards or personal
cheques (like Euro-cheques). We wired the money, which normally takes
6 to 10 days when it goes through the main offices of the banks concerned.
Quicker, but more expensive is to wire directly to Chip Merchant's bank.
The chips were transported by normal air mail and the costs were only $10
for 4 one-megabyte SIMMs. A more expensive solution is Federal Express,
which takes less than a week and if you are in a real big hurry it can be
sent by a carrier service, which would roughly cost $75. Of course even the
most expensive solution is far cheaper than a memory upgrade from Apple.
Both our orders arrived on the same day. In one case this was 15 days
after transfer of money, but in the other case it took 30 days. There can
be two reasons for this: 1) it is well known that it can take quite some
time to get such merchandise cleared by customs (we did not have to pay any
tax, but one should realize that e.g. Germany typically charges 15% import
tax for semi-conductor materials) and 2) the chips might not be in stock
all the time. Anyway, the time lapsed between the first contact and the
final delivery was 40 days. If we wanted to order the same again (having
more knowledge and experience now), we guess it would take 15 to 40 days
from the first contact till the arrival of the chips.
The chips that we finally received are produced by Samsung (known to be
cheap and good). They were installed without problems. One of us (K.P.)
found an official Apple dealer quite willing to install the new memory,
although it was third-party memory and not even bought from/through this
dealer. The upgraded MacPluses now run smoothly for 14, respectively 9 days.
Noteworthy, however, is that it takes a MacPlus roughly half a minute on
startup to perform a memory check when it has 4 MB of memory.
*** The take home message is that it is easy and inexpensive to buy
memory from USA, but that (if ordered from Europe) it takes much time
for the merchandise to arrive. ***
Karl Pottie, Catholic University Leuven, Belgium
bitnet: ghgaqba@blekul11
Pieter Stouten, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, West Germany
binet: stouten@embl
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annotated List of Memory Vendors and Some General Notes (from responders)
=========================================================================
Below you find the information we received from others about their
experiences (additions in square brackets are ours). Thanks to all who
made the effort to share their experiences. Some of the info arrived
before, some after we placed our orders (roughly in the period between
november 1989 and april 1990). Prices are of course continuously changing,
a rough comparison is possible. We just compiled the list and removed
some redundant information. We are not responsible for its contents.
Nor do we have any connection with one or more companies mentioned in
this article. We are just satisfied customers (of the Chip Merchant).
******************************************************
-> You'll save a bundle getting RAM from a 3rd party [not Apple],
especially if you install it yourself.
-> Shipping to Europe would cost around 50 cents an ounce through regular
mail. I don't think there would be any taxes on it [?].
-> Go through the ads in the back of MacWeek, call all the 800 numbers
listed for SIMMs, and go for the cheapest one.
[-> Most companies advertising in MacUser don't mention prices, but ask
you to phone for the most recent prices. Prices mentioned vary from $95
to $169 a Megabyte.]
[from other people who posted requests for information on buying memory:]
-> The most recommended companies? Technology Works, MET, MacConnection had
the most praise. Everybody who had ordered from them had been happy with
their interactions with the company, except one person wasn't too thrilled.
-> Among the replies were references to vendors with $140 a meg all the
way down to $80 a meg(in quantity).
******************************************************
** THE CHIP MERCHANT
9285 Chesapeake Drive, Suite L
San Diego, CA 92123
1-800-426-6375 (orders)
1-619-268-4774 (information)
1-619-268-0874 (fax line)
-> The best price that have seen is from the Chip Merchant - they have
been advertising in MacWeek for $79 per meg. This is 80ns Fast Page ram,
which should work with everything, including the IIci.
They offer a 5 year guarantee, but I do not know how good the chips are
or how good their support is.
-> I've noticed that Chip Merchant is the cheapest around, and have
purchased from them twice.
In both cases they were 1) speedy, essentially UPS turnaround on a phone
order, and 2) they worked. Given the prices were the lowest (at the time)
what more could you ask? Well, they didn't take credit cards so it was
UPS collect but that wasn't a problem for me.
-> I just bought from the Chip Merchant at $64 per 80 ns 1-meg SIMM for
the Mac. I've ordered from them several times and have always been satisfied.
-> The Chip Merchant said that they had no SIMMs in stock, the last quoted
price was $66/SIMM, but they probably wouldn't have any in stock until
Wednesday or Thursday. I pointed a friend at Chip Merchant last week -
he got them at $66 in two days. I mailed my order in and waited a week
and a half before calling them. Apparantly they had to wait until my check
cleared. Then they said it would ship the following monday. Well its been
a week since then and still no SIMMs. I guess others are just lucky.
-> The people on the phone at Chip Merchant weren't at all helpful.
-> The price is lower if you send them a check than if you use a purchase
order.
******************************************************
** MICRO ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGIES INC. (MET)
35 South Street
Hopkinton, Massachusetts 01748
telefax: (508) 435-6481
telephone: (800) 766-7466
-> 80ns for $80(in quantity), actually, $85 for say, 4.
-> The SIMMs have a lifetime warranty ( to protect against floods and/or
acts of God) and were received in three days (UPS ground).
-> The sales person that I talked to was extremely helpful. As for the SIMMs
I got an excellent price of $66 per 1Mb (80ns) at MET. They were prompt and
courteous and accepted my VISA card. I picked up the chips in person. They
ship UPS ground so that would have only cost a $1.50.
******************************************************
** SOUTH COAST ELECTRONICS
10920 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Telephone: (213) 208-3260
Fax: (213) 208-3282
Toll free: (800) 289-8801
-> We were very happy with the service. The cost right now is $75 a MB. The
chips have a lifetime warranty, 70 & 80 ns, surface mount, low profile,
same-day shipping.
******************************************************
** TECHNOLOGY WORKS
4030 Braker Lane West
Austin, TX 78759
Toll free: (800) 622-2210
telefax: (512) 794-8520
-> Technology WORKS is pretty good. 70ns SIMMs for $98/meg. Includes Torx,
installation guide, etc. Will send it COD; accepts visa, M/C, etc.
-> Thanks to those on the net endorsing the Technology Works, I bought
my memory expansion from them. The price and service were fine.
******************************************************
** NEWER TECHNOLOGIES
-> I got my RAM from Newer Technologies (look for the ad in the back
of MacUser) and was satisfied with price and service, though other
places may be cheaper.
******************************************************
** PERIPHERAL OUTLET
Ada, Oklahoma.
Telephone: (405) 332-6581.
-> Their current prices for each 1 meg SIMM 80 ns. is $64.00
******************************************************
** PSI
2005 Hamilton Avenue, Ste 220
San Jose, CA 95125
Toll free: (800) 622-1722
Telephone: (408) 559-8544
-> PSI is ok too.
******************************************************
** MACCONNECTION
(look in magazine for address, phone)
-> $100 a meg for 100ns