Is it time for laptop makers to be more repair/upgrade friendly?

[proveitwithdata]

I was walking a friend on migrating from windows into a macbook. They wanted to purchase the base macbook air, and then upgrade the internals as time moves on since they believe macbooks to be supported longterm rather then a windows device.

Unfortunately I had to tell them macbooks must be purchased from the factory with your desired specs as you cant do anything outside of a couple of odds and ends.

Well, they are holding off on their purchase due to pricing.

Apple isnt alone in their ways, Lenovo as well does this with ram on select notebooks (thinkpads and ideapads alike).

Will we see more makers jump on board the buy it from the factory or nothing, or will we see a subset of companies like framework rise to the occasion?

 

[dishdude]

Dell is great about this, they even post all the service manuals online.

 

[Elkins45]

Apple has moved farther away from upgradability/repairability over the years, not toward it. To upgrade an Apple product you basically buy a new one.

 

[Pew]

Depends on the laptop. Lots of business class laptops are still upgradeable somewhat with an extra RAM slot or M.2 slot with non-soldered chips. However, my general consensus is the thinner the laptop, the less likely the ability to upgrade it later because of soldered-on chips.

 

[dogememe]

Apple is the worst when it comes to that stuff. More RAM/SSD space is cheap but they charge BIG MONEY for it.

 

[bdcardinal]

Dell is great about this, they even post all the service manuals online.

My Alienware laptop is very easy to work on.

 

[Jimmy9190]

I have no idea about Apple or Mac Books, but my Windows 11 laptop is a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad L340, the non-gaming version. It originally had the OEM 1TB hard drive and 8 GB of Ram. Just last week I wanted to upgrade it so I bought a 16GB Ram stick and a 256GB hdd from Amazon. Both parts were completely plug and play, unplug the old, plug in the new and reinstall Windows. For less than 50 bucks it's like a brand new computer, fast and light. I also did a small upgrade on an old Toshiba laptop maybe 6 months ago, it only had 4GB of Ram, I added an 8GB stick that just plugged into an empty slot above the soldered-in 4GB Ram. I keep that laptop in my home office in case I need it for personal use when I am at work during the day.

 

[proveitwithdata]

Apple is the worst when it comes to that stuff. More RAM/SSD space is cheap but they charge BIG MONEY for it.

me personally i dont understand locking folks into 8gb of ram in 2024 on $900 machine.

Yes they are super integrated in terms of hardware and software, but even then one must be a really casual user.

 

[dogememe]

me personally i dont understand locking folks into 8gb of ram in 2024 on $900 machine.

Yes they are super integrated in terms of hardware and software, but even then one must be a really casual user.

32GB of RAM should be standard on any laptop in that price range or above.

 

[proveitwithdata]

32GB of RAM should be standard on any laptop in that price range or above.

I was having this discussion the other day and to be fair shipping a laptop with a solder on ram with another free ram slot is fine in my book (alot of sub 500 machines have this setup). Allows you to at least get 12gb at the bare mini. But 8gb onboard ram with no upgrade path is bold, especially at the $800+ segment.

 

[dogememe]

I was having this discussion the other day and to be fair shipping a laptop with a solder on ram with another free ram slot is fine in my book (alot of sub 500 machines have this setup). Allows you to at least get 12gb at the bare mini. But 8gb onboard ram with no upgrade path is bold, especially at the $800+ segment.

Maybe that's fine for cheap laptops but both MacBook Pro 14" configurations with 8GB RAM are a ripoff. 512GB SSD for $1600 or 1TB SSD for $1800. Yes, an $1800 "Pro" laptop with 8GB RAM... in 2024. You've got to be kidding me. 32GB RAM should be standard in all MacBook Pros.

And all MacBook Air configurations which range in price from $1000-$1500 look to come with only 8GB as well. At the prices they are asking, they should all have 16GB.

And the storage pricing is equally absurd. A quick look on Amazon for name brand NVMe SSDs, 256GB $40, 512GB $60, 1TB $85, 2TB $140. Keep in mind those are retail prices. Meanwhile, upgrading a M2 MacBook Air 13" from 256GB to 512GB costs a whopping $300. Sure you get 2 extra GPU cores as well, but those cost Apple a few bucks in silicon and are pretty pointless because you aren't going to do any gaming or video editing on a laptop with 8GB of RAM.

A Dell XPS 13" with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD is $600 while Apple's cheapest laptop with the same amount of RAM and SSD is $1000. And Dell XPS isn't garbage, it's nice stuff.

A Framework 16" AMD with 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD and the optional Radeon RX7700 GPU is $2500 while the same amount of money gets you a MacBook Pro with 18GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. So, for the same amount of money you get double the RAM, double the SSD space, and a laptop you can upgrade and repair for many years to come.

The Apple tax has always been insane and Macs have always cost more than PCs for the same or worse specs but it traditionally hasn't been this huge of a difference. Apple's margins are ABSOLUTELY INSANE!

 

[AutoMechanic]

I feel like Apple has gotten better about it. They sell the tools directly on their website to fix the stuff and parts too. Well they are linked on the website to a different website but still. I just purchased a 2019 MacBook Pro and couldn’t be happier. So glad I got away from Windows. Pricey but longer support and better quality. Can’t wait to buy the tools just to have them.

 

[Lubener]

It's all about manufacturing using the most efficient and economical methods. Common sense does not figure into that equation.

 

[350Rocket]

I was walking a friend on migrating from windows into a macbook. They wanted to purchase the base macbook air, and then upgrade the internals as time moves on since they believe macbooks to be supported longterm rather then a windows device.

Unfortunately I had to tell them macbooks must be purchased from the factory with your desired specs as you cant do anything outside of a couple of odds and ends.

Well, they are holding off on their purchase due to pricing.

Apple isnt alone in their ways, Lenovo as well does this with ram on select notebooks (thinkpads and ideapads alike).

Will we see more makers jump on board the buy it from the factory or nothing, or will we see a subset of companies like framework rise to the occasion?

This is why still with this chunky old thing from 2013. It was a hand me down from my employer, used for AutoCAD back in the day so it's still pretty fast today. I already put a bigger SSD in. I can upgrade the ram if I want but 8gb is enough so far. Runs windows 10 perfectly. We'll see how long I can get out of it. The newer ThinkPads eventually started to get less repairable.

 

[bunnspecial]

me personally i dont understand locking folks into 8gb of ram in 2024 on $900 machine.

Yes they are super integrated in terms of hardware and software, but even then one must be a really casual user.

I made this point here back in 2021 when I-stupidly-bought an 8gb M1 Pro, convinced that it was fine because all the reviewers said it was.

One particular rather prolific poster became quite irate and nasty when I started reporting my findings about memory in day to day use, but I still stand by it. There's no excuse in 2024, much less in 2020 or 2021, to ship a $1000+ computer with 8gb RAM. I consider 16gb an absolute minimum.

Back in 2012 when I bought my first MacBook Pro, a late 2011 13", I intentionally opted for the base RAM(4gb) and hard drive. 4gb was moderately useable, but Apple charged $200 to upgrade it to 8gb. I spent $80 on an 8gb kit, then a few years later went further on to 16gb. I don't remember what Apple was charging for SSDs then, but normal "street prices" those days for Samsung, etc, were around $1/gb and I think Apple charged you about double that. I replaced the stock 5400rpm 500gb drive with a 500gb hybrid drive and it made a noticeable difference. Later on I did put a 1tb SSD in it.

I got a lot of life out of that computer, then upgraded to a used 2012 15" MacBook Pro that I was still using as my main computer until 2020.

Now I'm still using my 8gb RAM M1 Pro, but I'm eying old stock/refurb 16" M2 Max in the 32gb/1tb config.

 

[John105]

I'm probably the outlier here but I use a Dell Dimension 8200 and the 19" flat screen that it came with. It works. I don't remember what ram it has but not 32 gb and maybe not even 512 mb. Saying that, "there's no excuse for x gb of ram in 2024," well the same could be said for cars under 500 HP. But it kinda sounds snooty

It's 2024--can you imagine a person on the road that doesn't have 700 HP or more? I can, but why would anyone do that?

 

[DuckRyder]

I got 12 years i think it was out of my last MAC. That made it pretty cost effective, compared to similar PCs.

I do agree that one should probably not buy the 8GB memory 16 is what 100.00? (Store is offline right now)

 

[bunnspecial]

As a bit of a sidenote, it is possible to upgrade the storage in the M1 Macs, but it's not exactly a DIY process



I know Colin(DosDude1) and he's done some crazy Mac projects for me including CPU swaps. He does RAM upgrades on the 2010-2015 MBAs also. My wife is limping along with a 2015 Air-base config although I did upgrade her storage to 512gb(easy to do on those) but 4gb RAM is definitely showing its age. I talked to Colin about upping to 16gb, but ultimately I think she's just going to use my M1(which will be more than fine for her needs) when I get around to getting a 16".

I haven't talked to him about what he'd charge for an M1 storage upgrade, mostly because with cloud storage the 512gb in mine is enough, but I think it's more proof of concept than economic repair.

 

[350Rocket]

As a bit of a sidenote, it is possible to upgrade the storage in the M1 Macs, but it's not exactly a DIY process



I know Colin(DosDude1) and he's done some crazy Mac projects for me including CPU swaps. He does RAM upgrades on the 2010-2015 MBAs also. My wife is limping along with a 2015 Air-base config although I did upgrade her storage to 512gb(easy to do on those) but 4gb RAM is definitely showing its age. I talked to Colin about upping to 16gb, but ultimately I think she's just going to use my M1(which will be more than fine for her needs) when I get around to getting a 16".

I haven't talked to him about what he'd charge for an M1 storage upgrade, mostly because with cloud storage the 512gb in mine is enough, but I think it's more proof of concept than economic repair.

I have soldered in the past but I still wouldn't trust myself to do that. I prefer the Lego style of upgrading on my ThinkPad. It's a PGA socket cpu so even that can be upgraded to something newer, even certain quad core i7 are compatible.
Even my phone doesn't require soldering to replace the charging port, battery, motherboard, LCD.

 

[Hall]

me personally i dont understand locking folks into 8gb of ram in 2024 on $900 machine.

Don't compare hardware requirements of Windows computers with macOS. They're not the same and less RAM on macOS isn't necessarily a crippling shortcoming.