Yeah, it's a new form factor/connector. I ordered a 2TB in any case, so I personally am extremely unlikely to upgrade in the future.
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This is how laptop upgradeability should be
- Thread starter bigpoppamac31
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Yeah, it's a new form factor/connector. I ordered a 2TB in any case, so I personally am extremely unlikely to upgrade in the future.
That's not true at all.
More opportunities for things to go wrong? If your RAM or drive bites the dust, you need a new logic board. For me, that's a terrible prospect. You're not just giving up the opportunity to upgrade, you're giving up the opportunity to replace failed components as well.
...and?
The point is that it would be upgradable if Apple makes the replacement parts available.
This is just money grab from Apple.
Maybe you wouldn't but many (like me) would. Besides given that things are smaller now we can have a MBP as thin as the 2015 model and have user upgradeability as well. Thin and light and upgradeable. The best of both worlds.
Nothing you said address the point that there are more opportunities for things to go wrong. Slotted memory is more likely to fail than soldered memory. Case screws can loosen, get lost, or allow seams where contaminants can get in.
And if something breaks I am not fixing it myself anyway. I'm bringing it to apple who will fix it for me, and I won't pay out-of-pocket for 3 years and after that it's always been less than $300, even when they've had to change the mainboard (and by then I'll be onto the next MBP anyway).
Meanwhile the thinner, lighter design will be a benefit to me EVERY day.
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Your definition of "many" is different than Apple's. Either that, or you're wrong. Because Apple wouldn't leave money on the table if they thought it was worth their while. Apparently it's not.
Can you support your claim that MBP memory failure rates are lower since they switched from slotted to soldered on RAM?
I would argue that true Pro's are not most users, and that most Pro users DO upgrade their machines given the option. If you want a small notebook that is not upgradable and not "worse" (whatever that means) they sell the Macbook.
My making the machine upgradeable you will inevitably sacrifice mobility and battery life. Not to mention that there is no standard for replaceable LPDDR3/4 RAM. I don't understand why Apple should cater to a clear monitory of users (one's who want upgradeable desktop replacements/workstations). I need a fast, capable laptop that lasts as long as possible on a single charge + is light and comfortable in use. Apple so far is the only company that delivers such a product. One of the reasons for that is because they decided to make it non-upgradeable.
Again, if you need upgradeability or desktop-class GPU, Apple is simply not the right company for you. I have no idea why that is so difficult to understand. There are more than enough computer on the market that cater to specialised uses and purposes.
Well it wouldn't be Apple's money it would be third party companies money (like Crucial or Samsung) that make ram and SSD and graphics cards.
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Guess I'm not like "most users" as I loved the upgradeability of my old 2011 MBP and 2006 MB.
Yes but they're not Mac OSX for one. And two: as I said above things (like ram and SSD) have gotten smaller now. So now upgradeability and "thin and light" can go hand in hand. We can now have the best of both worlds.
I upgraded my MacBook Pro 17" Late 2011 with a solid state drive and more memory.
It runs better now than it ever has.
It would be nice to have access to statistics, but I don't think that anyone here does*. Anyway, slotted RAM has more potential points of failure + it needs to allow for some variance in chip behaviour. With soldered-on RAM, one knows exactly which chips are being used so one can optimise the system (e.g. the power delivery etc.) for that particular chip and only it. Not to mention that soldering-on chips allows Apple to use more advanced, energy efficient memory chips which are not available in slotted variants.
*if you want anecdotal evidence, I have had a number of pre-retina laptops with failed RAM, but I have yet to experience a single such issue with a retina machine.
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With SSDs' maybe (even though the commercially available M.2 SSDs seem to be significantly slower than what Apple is offering in their laptops, for whatever reason). For RAM, no — because again, there is no slotted LPDDR
Well I'm sure Apple could make it slotted if they wanted to. I thought they were supposed to be design geniuses.
I actually wish I still had my early 2011 MBP. It had the hi-res anti glare screen. I put an SSD in mine also. But those ones apparently had logic board issues. So I sold mine before it had the chance to break on me.
I assume there is no slotted LPDDR3, because no manufacturers are designing their laptops around it. I assume that if a PC maker decided they wanted slotted LPDDR3, memory manufacturers would make it.
Also, I always look at expected value. Even if the failure rate were higher, I would multiply that by the cost to replace, to come up with an expected cost to replace. Replacing an entire logic board is more expensive than a single stick of DDR3. How much more likely is memory failure on slotted RAM? I'm not sure.
Even if it isn't just Apple, I think lack of upgradable parts in modern laptops is not a great thing. While many people don't upgrade, it's probably due to lack of awareness rather than anything. If someone was like. Hey, you could buy a lowest spec Macbook Pro, put your money into the GPU and CPU, and then buy an aftermarket PCI-E SSD and RAM, you don't think budget concerned consumers would do it? I think they would. I think they have in the past. Apple didn't like it, and now it's gone.
Many people 2012 and earlier were buying 4GB MBP and dropping 16GB into it for the price Apple was charging for 8GB.
Ok, now you lost me. So you suggest that Apple makes a proprietary slotted RAM that you can buy from Apple (obviously paying a healthy Apple premium) so that you can upgrade your computer? And of course we all would pay more because slotted RAM actually costs more to make than just soldering it on?
Isn't it better just to buy 16GB upfront and be done with it? Like, what you can do now?
Laptops, tablets and phones should be completely modular. Companies talk about their green credentials but when you are forced to upgrade the whole device when something dies or grows old, then that contributes to a lot of waste and pollution. Corporate greed is the only thing that is not allowing us to have modular devices. Same reason upgradable desktop machines have vanished from the Apple line up.
There are a lot of laptops that use LPDDR RAM variants. Why it doesn't come in DIMMs, I do not know, I am not a semiconductor specialist. Maybe someone who knows this stuff can explain. If I understand correctly, LPDDR RAM uses different signalling schemas and has very different properties overall than DDR, which makes it not suitable for interchangeable solutions like DIMMs.
Well to my knowledge third party ram cost less then Apple ram. But why would slotted ram be proprietary to Apple? We've had slotted ram forever.
Ewwwwww. Those old 13" MacBooks were incredibly slow and the screen was pretty horrible, IMO!
5200 RPM spinning hard drives = took forever and a day to boot up, and forever to load apps .. watching the dock icon bounce for 30 seconds wasn't cool
1280 by 800 washed-out looking screen
4GB of RAM .. w00t w00t
So for $212 more, today's rMBP comes with 2x the RAM, a PCI-e SSD that's got to be 100x (literally) faster, making everything you do feel faster (since about everything you do involves disk access). You also get a retina display with an actually usable resolution. Those two three things right there are worth $212 to me!
I couldn't disagree more. Modularity means lower efficiency, less stability, lower performance, lower mobility and higher cost. The environmental problem is much better solved by investing into recycling and making sure that no excess waste is produced. Tighter and tighter integration is the only viable path for computer technology.
My 2012 MacBook Air came with a SSD (standard) and 8GB of soldered-in RAM. It's 5+ years later and I don't feel like it needs an upgrade in order to run better.
Because if Apple were to make slotted LPDDR RAM it would be obviously Apple proprietary RAM that no-one else makes...
P.S. And again, third party RAM often costs less because it uses cheaper chips. LDPPR3 is expensive.
There is a contingent who value size, weight and battery life above all else. Fine. Apple caters to them, as well it should.
However there are those who need a powerful, truly capable laptop. To suggest they should just bugger off is sheer arrogance and stupidity. To suggest that they are a relatively small segment of Apple's customer base is true, but misses the point. For even if most do not require professional capability, nor will pay the price for as much, in many ways those top-tier computers inform the rest of the line and all else Apple does. The rMB is excellent in what it represents as well, if aimed at a different market; but the proposition that it would not exist or be half what it is save for the excellence Apple once strove for to meet professional needs.
Perhaps non-replaceable parts make sense in a rMB. It makes none in something with professional pretensions labeled a MacBook Pro. At that point the only possible reason and excuse is greed, maximizing profit over the needs of the customer.
However there are those who need a powerful, truly capable laptop. To suggest they should just bugger off is sheer arrogance and stupidity. To suggest that they are a relatively small segment of Apple's customer base is true, but misses the point. For even if most do not require professional capability, nor will pay the price for as much, in many ways those top-tier computers inform the rest of the line and all else Apple does. The rMB is excellent in what it represents as well, if aimed at a different market; but the proposition that it would not exist or be half what it is save for the excellence Apple once strove for to meet professional needs.
Perhaps non-replaceable parts make sense in a rMB. It makes none in something with professional pretensions labeled a MacBook Pro. At that point the only possible reason and excuse is greed, maximizing profit over the needs of the customer.