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giancarlostoro | on: Apple introduces iPad mini built for Apple Intelligence
Lowkey wish their laptops would be as they used to be. Being able to swap RAM or hard drives is so basic but so useful.
aucisson_masque | parent | next
I have a mac, absolutely love it, hate windows and yet my next laptop will be windows because of that.

You don't realize how much it matters until it does, and then it changes everything. Always having to carry an external drive just because my email takes 150gb of the 256gb MacBook storage is even more annoying than windows puting candy crush saga on the start menu.

bschwindHN | root | parent | next
> just because my email takes 150gb

You have a very different email life than me. Is that like, all emails received in your life, or just huge attachments?

dankwizard | root | parent | next
He's replaced Github repos with local email archives because a Medium article said "One trick to enhance your version control"
aucisson_masque | root | parent
It's only a few years but lot and lot of attachment. Unoptimized pdf takes a big chunk.
chemmail | root | parent | next
Unfortunately with DDR5L speeds, they need to be embedded to keep signal stability, so you need to find at least a 16GB laptop which is STILL pretty gatekept with a higher chip like i7 so you have to pay $300 more for that extra 8GB, pulling a page from Apple. Luckily m.2 is still a thing and 99% of Windows still use it.
loading story #41856855
dijit | root | parent
Why do you need 150G of mail locally? and why did you think it sufficient to bug the absolute minimum spec available?

I’m afraid though that the core premise of your comment is flawed. Storage and especially memory are increasingly soldered to thin and lights. Even professional grade laptops such as the Thinkpad X1 Carbon have soldered memory.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-scourge-of-fully-soldered-...

talldayo | parent | next
Drives in particular. Let them solder the memory if they absolutely have to, but exposing even an empty NVMe slot should be standard for laptops. Unfortunately, Apple makes a pretty penny off the storage surcharge so I wouldn't really anticipate that anytime soon.
AlexandrB | root | parent | next
Even when Apple laptops had removable solid state storage, it used a non-standard connector[1]. Very consumer and repair hostile. While OWC still made thirds party drives for these[2], few (no?) other companies did.

[1] https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-gu...

[2] https://www.owc.com/solutions/aura-n2

franciscop | root | parent | next
They no longer even have a "memory" chip anymore, it's all part of the same SOC AFAIK, so they cannot "solder" it.
loopdoend | root | parent
I will accept the trade off for the performance boost tbh.
lucb1e | root | parent
What performance boost? As in, same software running for comparison on the hardware of interest, one soldered and the other not. I never heard that soldering your SSD on makes it faster...
jsheard | root | parent | next
It doesn't, Apples SSD performance is fine but unremarkable. Their current machines will do around ~6GB/sec read and ~5GB/sec write, which isn't even at the limit of socketed PCIe4 NVMe drives, nevermind the bleeding edge PCIe5 drives which can do up to ~14GB/sec read and ~12GB/sec write (albeit with excessive heat and power consumption for a laptop).

Soldering the RAM has legitimate performance benefits, but soldering the SSD is just to save space and upsell overpriced upgrades.

throwaway48476 | root | parent
It's crazy that some people think it's apple so it must be special and better not realizing NVMe is a industry standard.
loopdoend | root | parent
Sorry I was referring to the boost you get from having ram integrated into the chip vis-à-vis apple’s M-line of processors.

Having replaceable ram is not really a marketable feature these days.

adolph | parent
Hot air rework is more accessible than ever. This video is kinda over-the-top breathless, but removing components and reballing new ones isn't rocket science.

https://youtu.be/apEKAY11NQs?t=328

wasabinator | root | parent | next
It is and will always be rocket science to most people, and orders of magnitude more difficult than swapping a drive or ram sticks.
e44858 | root | parent
Apple has been gluing down the NAND on their phones: https://youtu.be/KRRNR4HyYaw

If that practice spreads to the MacBooks, you'll also need a CNC mill.