<story><title>New Apple Macbook Pro RAM is soldered to the motherboard | Ian Chilton</title><url>http://www.ichilton.co.uk/blog/apple/new-apple-macbook-pro-ram-is-soldered-to-the-motherboard-513.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ctdonath</author><text>Making components replaceable increases volume, weight, and cost.&lt;p&gt;If you want replaceable components, go buy a computer for which that is a feature - and know that you will get a machine which is larger, heavier, and more expensive (all other factors being equal). Swapable components require additional casing, connectors, testing, sales channels, etc. You&apos;re not going to get a 3/4&quot; 5-lb 7-hour 256GB-SSD 8GB-RAM MBA Retina for $2200 &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; be able to swap out darn near everything; something&apos;s gonna give.&lt;p&gt;Some of us DON&apos;T want to replace components, having learned over the years that by the time we&apos;re replacing components we&apos;d rather replace the whole computer outright. If I need more RAM, it&apos;s best matched with a new CPU. If I need more storage, I&apos;ll need more RAM to throw around more data. When the battery dies, all those other components are gettin&apos; obsolete anyway. I also know from experience that upgrading parts doesn&apos;t always go as planned, and time wasted upgrading can very quickly add up to the cost of a new machine outright. I&apos;d rather have a notebook which is very thin, very light, very fast - and just replace the whole package when the time comes as I see fit.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;re welcome to a different POV, and there is a market happy to serve our different needs &amp;#38; desires.&lt;p&gt;However, just because we have a different POV doesn&apos;t make me a f&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;*ing idiot.</text></item><item><author>gouranga</author><text>Sorry but you have got to be a fucking idiot to buy one to be honest if that is the case.&lt;p&gt;Apple are making an attempt to turn generic computers into disposable appliances with moves like these. I would never accept a compromise like that with a computer that I owned.&lt;p&gt;My rationale is as follows: If I pay £1800 for one of those machines, I expect to be able to repair common problems easily. That&apos;s a lot of money sitting in one component waiting to fail and considering the warranty is a year (or 3 if you are extorted for even more cash by Apple for their expensive AppleCare service).&lt;p&gt;First it was the batteries - now no longer replaceable by mere mortals, then the SSDs were brought in with proprietary interfaces, now the RAM is soldered on the board.&lt;p&gt;In the average 5 year life span of a computer, I have found that you will need to replace the battery between 1-2 times, the memory will need to be upgraded at least once and the disk will need to be upgraded. These are observations but rational ones.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m now sitting on a Lenovo T61 which is 5 years old. EVERY component in this machine can be replaced for literally nothing and very rapidly.&lt;p&gt;Sorry but stuff like this is just pandering to consumerism if it is disposable by design.&lt;p&gt;The design is retarded.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: It appears the battery is GLUED in so that&apos;s not replaceable any more either, even with the aid of a screwdriver.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tincansandtwine</author><text>Specifically in reply to the battery: I work in an enterprise environment where Macs make up about 50-60% of the installed machines.  Of these, about 30-40% are laptops.  In my experience, Mac laptop batteries have a high rate of failure, higher than our significantly more dated PC hardware.  With the most recent revs, replacing the battery has become a huge problem, since relatively new hardware (1-2 years old) is now completely shot, unless we buy a proprietary screwdriver (not a big deal, but every time they change the screw, we have to find a shop that sells it), or send it to a Mac repair shop. Now, if we upgrade to the Retina Macbook Pro, we will not have the considerably cheaper and faster option of replacing it ourselves.  Unfortunately, our userbase is such that they &quot;require&quot; Mac hardware, so it puts IT in a rough position (having to explain why we&apos;re essentially outsourcing our work, and spending money to do so).&lt;p&gt;Now, this isn&apos;t necessarily a typical case, but if you were a regular consumer and your battery died, it isn&apos;t that hard to buy a replacement battery for the majority of laptops, though this kind of thing is becoming more prevalent. I would also like to mention that it&apos;s not just Apple (I&apos;m looking at you, Ultrabooks), though I would say that they are the trendsetter.</text></comment>
<story><title>New Apple Macbook Pro RAM is soldered to the motherboard | Ian Chilton</title><url>http://www.ichilton.co.uk/blog/apple/new-apple-macbook-pro-ram-is-soldered-to-the-motherboard-513.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ctdonath</author><text>Making components replaceable increases volume, weight, and cost.&lt;p&gt;If you want replaceable components, go buy a computer for which that is a feature - and know that you will get a machine which is larger, heavier, and more expensive (all other factors being equal). Swapable components require additional casing, connectors, testing, sales channels, etc. You&apos;re not going to get a 3/4&quot; 5-lb 7-hour 256GB-SSD 8GB-RAM MBA Retina for $2200 &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; be able to swap out darn near everything; something&apos;s gonna give.&lt;p&gt;Some of us DON&apos;T want to replace components, having learned over the years that by the time we&apos;re replacing components we&apos;d rather replace the whole computer outright. If I need more RAM, it&apos;s best matched with a new CPU. If I need more storage, I&apos;ll need more RAM to throw around more data. When the battery dies, all those other components are gettin&apos; obsolete anyway. I also know from experience that upgrading parts doesn&apos;t always go as planned, and time wasted upgrading can very quickly add up to the cost of a new machine outright. I&apos;d rather have a notebook which is very thin, very light, very fast - and just replace the whole package when the time comes as I see fit.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;re welcome to a different POV, and there is a market happy to serve our different needs &amp;#38; desires.&lt;p&gt;However, just because we have a different POV doesn&apos;t make me a f&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;*ing idiot.</text></item><item><author>gouranga</author><text>Sorry but you have got to be a fucking idiot to buy one to be honest if that is the case.&lt;p&gt;Apple are making an attempt to turn generic computers into disposable appliances with moves like these. I would never accept a compromise like that with a computer that I owned.&lt;p&gt;My rationale is as follows: If I pay £1800 for one of those machines, I expect to be able to repair common problems easily. That&apos;s a lot of money sitting in one component waiting to fail and considering the warranty is a year (or 3 if you are extorted for even more cash by Apple for their expensive AppleCare service).&lt;p&gt;First it was the batteries - now no longer replaceable by mere mortals, then the SSDs were brought in with proprietary interfaces, now the RAM is soldered on the board.&lt;p&gt;In the average 5 year life span of a computer, I have found that you will need to replace the battery between 1-2 times, the memory will need to be upgraded at least once and the disk will need to be upgraded. These are observations but rational ones.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m now sitting on a Lenovo T61 which is 5 years old. EVERY component in this machine can be replaced for literally nothing and very rapidly.&lt;p&gt;Sorry but stuff like this is just pandering to consumerism if it is disposable by design.&lt;p&gt;The design is retarded.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: It appears the battery is GLUED in so that&apos;s not replaceable any more either, even with the aid of a screwdriver.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mark_l_watson</author><text>+1 I am with you on this. Although I have a MacBook Pro as a hot backup, I do all of my work and writing using a 13&quot; MacBook Air. For me it is a commodity device that I have no interest in upgrading. If it breaks, a new one can be configured using a Time Machine backup while I enjoy a cup of coffee.&lt;p&gt;Life used to be different: I spent a lot of time with extensible PCs, tweaking and running Linux, etc. I have come to realize that this &quot;fun&quot; had an opportunity cost that I am no longer willing to pay.&lt;p&gt;I also tend to replace Apple gear more often but it is easy to find relatives or friends who appreciate being given slightly outdated gear.&lt;p&gt;I like having an easily replaceable commodity laptop in sort of the same way I like server assets sold like electricity (e.g., AWS, Heroku, AppEngine).&lt;p&gt;Ultimately time is the most precious resource. The older I get the more I care about using it wisely.</text></comment>