My son and I went to the Apple store to check out the new Macbook. Retina Macbook Pros were very nice but for my son, NO! :D. We got it narrowed down to the 13" 2.5 GHz Macbook Pro which has the 4 GB memory and 500 GB HD or the 2.9 GHz with 8 GB memory and 750 GB HD. There is a $300 difference between the two. He is taking Life Sciences at McMaster doing Bio-Chem which means a lot of graphing, lab reports and who knows what else. We thought of only upgrading the ram only for the 4 GB model which would be cheaper. I know some of the professors or students might be able to help me here.

Upgrade the ram yourself, much much cheaper and you can do it in about 5 mins, its very simple. Same with the hard drive. I only did the upgrade of ram on my ordered RMBP because you cannot do it yourself, if I had ordered the regular MBP I would do hard drive and ram myself.

Upgrade the ram yourself, much much cheaper and you can do it in about 5 mins, its very simple. Same with the hard drive. I only did the upgrade of ram on my ordered RMBP because you cannot do it yourself, if I had ordered the regular MBP I would do hard drive and ram myself.
Yeah, that was my intention about the ram but not the HD. Thinking more of a external HD especially to back up stuff. What would an extra 4 GB memory cost roughly now? Also my son may get a monitor for the Mac later.

Yeah, that was my intention about the ram but not the HD. Thinking more of a external HD especially to back up stuff. What would an extra 4 GB memory cost roughly now? Also my son may get a monitor for the Mac later.

Should be around $45 or so, check Canada RAM sells Memory, Hard Drives, SSD and Computer Accessories in Canada (http://www.canadaram.com)

Should be around $45 or so, check Canada RAM sells Memory, Hard Drives, SSD and Computer Accessories in Canada (http://www.canadaram.com)
Thanks for the info! I believe a lot of posters in this forum like canadaram so I'll get their ram when my son gets his Macbook Pro. I assume instructions come with the ram? Or would the Apple site have one? Worst case scenario I'll have my IT mac guy at work install it.

It wont come with instructions, but their are youtube videos galore on how to do it. Basically your taking the screws out of the bottom of the case. Keep them organized so they go back in the same spot, some are longer then the others. Very basic and easy job to do yourself.

yup a simple google/youtube search will get you there