(no subject)

[plonq]

Pricing makes no sense sometimes.

While I was out for lunch today I stopped in at a local camera store where they have pretty good prices on things like memory cards, and I had a look at the current prices for XD cards.  The prices went like this:

128MB -- $39
256MB -- $59
512MB -- $109
1024MB -- $139

Doing a quick breakdown of the cost per MB, it comes out like this:

30.5¢ per MB
23.0¢ per MB
21.3¢ per MB
13.6¢ per MB

The price drop is far from linear; a fact that becomes very apparent if you graph the data out.  One is considerably better off buying a 256MB card over a 128MB, but the savings of going to a 512MB card are marginal.  On the other hand, the 1GB card is by by far the best bang for the buck.

On the plus side we've reached the point where buying a larger card is more cost effective than buying two of the cards a size down, but I still wonder why the 128 and 512 are such comparatively lousy buys.

Comments

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, there is a threshold below which they don't want the price to go, no matter how cheap it "could" be.

-The Gneech

[leopanthera.livejournal.com]

I have always wondered if they get rid of faulty RAM this way. For example, 256MB cards might be faulty 512MB cards with the faulty half turned off.

The Spectrum 48K did this - it used two banks of 32K RAM, but to save money they had bought lots of faulty chips, and one of the 32K banks had the faulty 16K half turned off, so everything worked fine with the 48K you were expecting.

[dingotush.livejournal.com]

Traditionally, memory chip sizes go up in factors of 4 not factors of 2. A technological change that allows you to double the storage across the width of the chip will also double it in the other direction, so factors of 4. The in between sizes do get made, but not in the same volumes (and so disproportionately expensive). Its possible that the 128 and 512 are made of two chips, while 256 and 1G are only one. Its "reasonable" that 256 and 512 are the same cost per Mb, as your buying one or two chips at the same price.

[smrgol-t-kirin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 1 gig cards routinely come on sale for about $70US in my area.

The interesting thing is you are not necessarily buying a full 1024MB

Some of the "Gig" cards are only 1000MB. How this saves them money, I don't know.