I’m off to go buy “a Windows”…

For one, there is no such thing as “Apple RAM”. Apple buys RAM from the same 4 or 5 big companies (Samsung, Micron, Qimonda, Hynix, Elpedia, Nanya) that sell 80% of the RAM for the entire industry and just sticks it in their computers. Companies like Crucial and Kingston are just retail-fronts for the RAM makers like Micron (Crucial) and Qimonda (Kingston). So if whether you buy from Apple or from Crucial, you’re getting the same chips.

Concerning apple RAM being “faster”, that is just patently untrue. RAM that is rated at a certain speed (e.g. DDR2-667 333) runs at that speed, no matter who you buy it from. Furthermore, when you stick a DDR2-667 DIMM into your machine, the memory controller runs at that speed. If you stick a piece of Apple DDR2-800, but the memory controller or FSB only runs at 667MHz, then the DDR2-800 DIMM is being wasted – it will only run as fast as the memory controller wants it to. Any perceived speed benifit you’re getting from using Apple RAM vs. retail is 100% in your head.

Having said all that, there IS some crap RAM you can buy out there. But this will not be slow, it will likely just create software errors or boot errors or something. All the big RAM makers have “value brands”, which is sold under a different brand name, mostly to white-box markets in Asia and Russia. There are also some smaller fabless RAM makers who sell cheap junk RAM. But if you stick to names like Crucial, Kingston, OCZ, etc, you will be getting the exact same chips that Apple gets, but for a lot cheaper

Even if RAM took a couple of hours to install, it’d still be far more worth it than paying those prices.

To be honest, the low range on prices is a valid comparison seeing as Crucial is quite a big company, and their RAM is quite widely distributed.

And FYI, CL 3 is worse than CL 2, as CL stands for ‘CAS Latency’, higher is slower on that number.

I usually buy Apple refurbed on the Apple website and I’ve not had a bit of trouble (YMMV). An additional bonus of buying these refurbs is that they often come with extra RAM or larger hard drives at no additional cost. Part of the fun of receiving a refurb is seeing what components, if any, will be upgraded for free. On my last purchase (the 1.5 Ghz 12″ Apple Powerbook) I got an extra 256 of RAM and the next step up in hard drive.

Of course, I’ve already upgraded the HD (a bit of a pain on the 12″ PBs, since so much is stuffed into such a small space). I’m expecting a 1 GB stick to arrive from OWC today (which will be much easier to install). I’m trying to hold off on purchasing a new laptop until after MWSF 2008 in January.

Another bit of advice: extended Applecare is totally worth it, especially for the laptops. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but when I sent my Tibook in for a combo drive repair, they also replaced damage to the case (which was user inflicted) and the keyboard (which had gotten a little melty from a cigarette ash). On top of this, the combo drive they used to replace the non functioning one was of higher spec, i.e. faster. I figure the Applecare not only paid for itself, but paid for the next two extended warranties I will buy.

More: Save your old RAM. If you need to send your Mac in for service, replace your third party RAM with the factory RAM.

Lastly: I’ve had very uneven service from the Apple Store Geniuses. it’s been about 50/50 between those that know their stuff, and those that don’t know their ass from their elbow. And it’s always the dumb ones that are arrogant and unwilling to learn from someone with a lot more experience. But I guess that’s the case everywhere, not just at Apple Stores.