Maybe a dumb question: If 64GB chips are $6, why aren't we seeing terabyte-sized tablets and netbooks for $100 more than the baseline version? I would imagine the idle power draw is negligible and the extra size and weight well worth it.
Producers take the exact opposite approach, and use storage size as a price discriminator: a 64GB version might cost $300, while the 128GB is "only" $499, pure profit margin an order of magnitude higher than the cost of the actual storage.
> Maybe a dumb question: If 64GB chips are $6, why aren't we seeing terabyte-sized tablets and netbooks for $100 more than the baseline version? I would imagine the idle power draw is negligible and the extra size and weight well worth it.
> Producers take the exact opposite approach, and use storage size as a price discriminator
You're answering your own question, storage is an easy way to do price discrimination, you can provide what is essentially the same device at two different price points, play to price sensitivity and better capture income.
Same with airlines, premium is usually ~2x coach, and business is ~2.5x premium. Is there a twofold difference in airline cost? I don't think so. But it serves to capture the less price-sensitive customers (as well as those with real needs which get fucked over by economy seating).
Yes, the appeal of price discrimination on storage is evident, but a 1TB tablet has such fundamental customer value it's impossible some producers will not break ranks and offer them on the cheap - if only it's technically possible. Instead, they are priced at thousands, as specialty, low volume products.
> Yes, the appeal of price discrimination on storage is evident, but a 1TB tablet has such fundamental customer value it's impossible some producers will not break ranks and offer them on the cheap
1. 1TB tablets have no fundamental value for the vast majority of customers
2. offering 1TB tablets at storage cost would be self-defeating, the producers who would do that get significantly more money by offering tiered and price-discriminated storage just a bit below competition
These chips were low performance and limited number of write cycles. Even with a great controller (which would be expensive) you're looking at slow transfer rates. If it reaches USB 2 capabilities, you're lucky. This guy kinda was.
SD cards and eMMC chips[0] do have controller inside. Usually not a great one (tens to hundred-ish MB/s), but that's good enough - overwhelming majority of smartphones/tablets use eMMC for internal storage.
UFS/eUFS cards keep (sort of) same form-factor [1] but bring significant speed boost. [2]
[0] Technically, it is incorrect to say "eMMC chip", as there are typically two (or more) silicon chips inside the same plastic BGA package. One of them is controller.
You can technically replace any chip on any device with a better, pin- and voltage- compatible chip. But you need soldering equipment easily tens of thousands of dollars.
For example, a Dell desktop I had a while back was the lowest-end SKU, and therefore they left the AGP connector off of the board, even though the BIOS knew about AGP and there were the AGP solder points/vias on the motherboard. Had I had the ability to solder the dozens of points at the same time, I could have added my own AGP slot.
I was thinking you could have a laptop company that uses the same board for a few years (for it's whole range) everything would be soldered on but could be sent back for generously priced upgrades.
Producers take the exact opposite approach, and use storage size as a price discriminator: a 64GB version might cost $300, while the 128GB is "only" $499, pure profit margin an order of magnitude higher than the cost of the actual storage.