OCZ Jumps On Mac Hardware Bandwagon
Need a Blu-ray burner or solid state drive for your Mac? MCE and OCZ are happy to oblige.
When it comes to laptops and desktops from Apple, you are typically stuck with whatever hardware comes in the original computer. Whether it's storage, RAM, or optical drives, upgrading a Mac can be a headache when compared to upgrading a PC. If you're a Mac owner and have been looking to upgrade, the last several days have seen a flurry of activity regarding Mac-specific hardware from several different companies.
OCZ, a brand known for PC memory, power supplies and solid state drives (SSDs), is now bringing a number of different Mac-specific SSD and RAM solutions to the market. For starters, OCZ has unveiled a "Mac Edition" Vertex SSD. Available in 30, 60, 120 and 250 GB flavors, the Mac Vertex drives boast read speeds of 220-240 MB/sec. and write speeds ranging from 125-170 MB/sec., with the smaller drives having the slower read and write speeds. These drives were tested in the labs over at Apple and are certified as such. A "guaranteed compatibility" list shows us that the drives are supposed to work flawlessly in any and all MacBooks and MacBook Pros released in mid-2007 or later. More specifically, if your Mac laptop shipped with OS X version 10.4.2 or later, you should be in the clear.
OCZ is also selling notebook RAM for Mac laptops. With DDR2-667 and DDR3-1066 speeds available, the memory is "Qualified by OCZ engineers in the Apple Development Center." both varieties are available in 2 GB and 4 GB kits, but there is no word on price just yet.
If you're rocking a Mac Pro desktop (or even an older Power Mac) and want to add a Blu-ray drive to your arsenal, MCE has unveiled its newest BD drive. At $400, the MCE burner boasts an 8x BD-R speed, 2x speed for re-writeable Blu-ray discs, and can write DVDs at 16x. While adding a Blu-ray burner to a Mac Pro setup would make for an impressive multimedia machine, Apple has yet to support Blu-ray players in its OS X software. Until that happens, the MCE drive can burn BD media, but it will not be able to play a Blu-ray movie on your Mac. That said, the burner will work with Adobe Premier Pro, Final Cut Pro and Roxio Toast 10.
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I would hope this is the start of forced sensible thinking for Apple. If more 3rd parties start delivering hardware for the Mac, which either fill the gaps (i.e. Blu-Ray) or undercut prices (RAM), then surely Apple will have to respond - I don't see Apple sitting back and still charging thousands for large RAM upgrades when the likes of OCZ and Crucial will do the same for so much less.
The idealist in me would like to think this sort of thing could help lessen the ongoing Mac/PC rants and haters - if Mac users make the most of having supplier options they may well see Apple for the overpricing monster they are ("why is the Apple Store charging me £4,000 for 32GB RAM when Crucial do it for £1,600?") or at least appreciate the benefits of having choice instead of a closed platform.
Similarly, with the choice of 3rd party kit able to bring the price of Macs down to near-sensible levels, it would mitigate the pro-PC argument of "overpriced PCs".
Still, no amount of 3rd party hardware can justify £800 for an aluminium body (MacBook), but then I wouldn't pay for Carbon Fibre (Envy133) or Leather (Adamo) either.
If Apple wern't such ripp-off merchants I would cretainly own one alongside my pc.
As it is, I know I'm being conned so I simply wont buy.