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

[jeepman3071]

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.

Yup 100%. Unfortunately most manufacturers are adopting this model. I work in the tech field, and my organization is primarily Dell and Apple. We originally got a contract with Dell years ago due to their ability to be repaired and parts being upgraded or swapped. Our latest device upgrade for staff and faculty all the models have the RAM soldered to the main board. We still have an employee that can repair many of the Apple devices, but you need someone certified in Apple pretty much to work on it. For most people that means taking it to the Apple store.

Believe it or not, the worst device for repairability is actually the Windows Surface laptop. If you need anything repaired on it you basically have to send it back to Microsoft. It was rated the worst to repair by several different tech sites.

With that said, my devices are mostly Apple. They just tend to last a bit longer, and I used to be Windows only due to the previous environments I worked in. We get 4-5 years if we are lucky out of a Dell or other Windows device before it becomes too slow to be usable. We have several faculty clinging on to their old Apple devices (8+ years old) that work fine, but we are trying to get them to upgrade from due to older OS being out of our security requirements.

 

[jeepman3071]

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.

+1

The cheapest Macbook Air with the M1 chip and 8GB of RAM is still a pretty fast computer for most people. The University I work for won't order anything less than a Dell laptop with 16GB of RAM and i-7 for faculty because it will otherwise be way too slow to handle all of the security software running in the background.

 

[jeepman3071]

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)

My personal laptop is a 2021 Macbook air M1 with 16GB of RAM, and even as an IT professional who uses much more powerful computers daily, that laptop has done everything I asked of it and more.

 

[bunnspecial]

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.

I don't disagree that MacOS is more efficient with RAM, however I have seen "Out of application memory" on my M1 doing web browsing and word processing. Granted Firefox has terrible memory leaks, but still, it doesn't bode well for me with a computer this new. My memory pressure routinely runs 70% and has since the computer was new.

I have a computer at work that exists only to run a scientific instrument(GC-MS). Before I had some upgrade work done on the system, I was running it on a Pentium 2 running Windows 2000. Now it's on a newer version of the same control software(Agilent MSD Chemstation) in Windows 10. The computer only has 4gb RAM, and I do need to upgrade it because it routinely throws "The computer is out of memory" "The computer is now swap bound" etc. It keeps running, but I have to manually clear the error. I wouldn't care except sometimes I'll set it up to run 30+ samples overnight(each takes ~15 minutes-it's nice to just have it run them and come in to grab the data the next day) and it will usually toss this error between runs and pause the sequence. I'll come in the next morning to find it ran one sample and stalled.

The instrument that it's running dates to the mid-90s. I mentioned it being upgraded, but the upgrade was refitting the original HP-IB interface with LAN, and the whole purpose of that is to run a newer version of the control software. The control software is still light enough-I can pull it up and see it using maybe 40-50mb of RAM. It's completely offline and I don't have anything else intentionally running, so it must be Windows eating up that much memory.

 

[Elkins45]

One argument in favor of Apple is that their stuff tends to go longer before it becomes unusable. I bought a Dell laptop in 2016 that is so slow as to be painfully unusable. Startup takes like 10 minutes and even basic tasks are frustratingly slow.

My Mac from 2015 won’t run the latest OS but it’s still fine for everyday tasks and as a place to store and edit photos. I bought it used on eBay for $125 last year.

 

[pghvolvo]

I love IFIXIT.COM when it comes to repairing your electronics. It cost me $35 a few years ago to replace the battery in my Garmin GPS. I just spent $26 on Amazon for a new battery for my Dell Laptop. I Fix It has detailed instructions on thousands of products out there to fix or upgrade your computers. The problem is the manufactures have made it harder for you to do the upgrades yourself. Like Laptops years ago you took one screw out, to open a door to install more ram, replace the hard drive or even a battery now it's a major ordeal to make those changes. So a less than two minute swap out, is now a twenty minute job, even if you have the instructions on how to disassemble the case of your laptop.

 

[dogememe]

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?

You're missing the point. It's not having X amount of RAM for Y price that's the problem.

100hp is OK for a Nissan Versa but not OK for a BMW 7-series.

 

[SShooterZ]

It used to be big business updating old machines. Processors, video cards, memory, hard drives, etc. Problem is, you sill have an old machine. If you're reinstalling the OS, you're probably seeing a performance improvement simply from the lack of other programs loading. Once you load up everything you're going to use, even with more RAM, you're only slightly ahead of where you started. Plus you still have the same situation with the possibility of other older parts failing.

I would say adding RAM is really the only sensible move to make on today's machines. By the time you're done upgrading everything to keep up with current needs, you've increased your cost by anywhere from 10-50% and you still have an old machine.

 

[dogememe]

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.

The OS may use less RAM and manage it more efficiently but the actual software that people use for work is still going to use a similar amount of RAM.

For example, for my web development work, I have a few Docker containers running, Firefox Developer Edition with less than a dozen tabs, GitHub desktop, VSCode, Outlook, Discord, Spotify, and various background services. That's using 24.7GB/64GB of RAM on my PC. Let's be very nice to a Mac and say somehow RAM usage is half (it's not), that would be about 12GB... so on a $1000 MacBook Air I'd still be swapping to the SSD which drags down overall system performance and also reduces the lifespan of the SSD. And that's just web development, not audio engineering, game design, gaming, graphic design, video editing, etc.

Also keep in mind the Apple M* architecture shares RAM across the CPU and GPU. So any GPU-heavy tasks will reduce available RAM even further.

Plus the more RAM you have, the more responsive your system will be. For example, if I check Task Manager right now on my PC, I'm using 24.7GB, but another 37GB is cached content... Windows calls it "Standby." If I access a resource cached in RAM, it will be even faster than loading it from SSD, even though my Samsung 990 Pro 4TB is plenty fast.

THAT's why all Airs should have at least 16GB and all Pros should have at least 32GB.

 

[proveitwithdata]

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.

What tools are you buying from them, and to fix what exactly?

 

[proveitwithdata]

The way most software cycles have gone, we have only marched towards using more and more memory and even storage space as time goes on. Yes programs have become more efficient in handling the available memory, but only so much can be achieved.

 

[AutoMechanic]

What tools are you buying from them, and to fix what exactly?

I just want to buy the special screwdrivers. Just to have them. Don’t plan on fixing anything at least not yet. I’ve never had an Apple product fail on me except one iPod the home button went bad on and I ended up with a free iPod in the end because the shop messed it up so now I’ve got two iPods.

 

[mr_boring]

Two schools of thought
Buy something relatively inexpensive that will work fine for 3-4 years that really isn't upgradable (say an Acer Inspire 5) and know that it's basically just a disposable unit

Buy something upgradeable for 800 and get 5-6 years out of it .... spending another hundred or 2 somewhere along the way.

Or buy an apple because that Kool aid is just that darn tasty.

Me other half loves the Kool aid. Swears up and down her MacBook will still be worth a grand in 8 years (we've had it for 2, originally it was 10 years and a g-note)

Me, I'm betting that MacBook gets tossed in 4 and I have to sell a kidney for a new one....

I'd rather buy a new cheap one every 3-4 years. I used to trend the other way. As recently as 2018 I had a custom HP built that should have lasted me a long time (upgrading a little along the way) but it didn't. Wasn't it's fault. Ex wife played Frisbee with it lol. I was convinced I still needed a dvd burner

 

[y_p_w]

I still have my 13" mid-2012 MacBook Pro that I bought in 2015. I actually put off a lot of stuff over the years. I didn't upgrade the drive until 2018 when the factory hard drive died, and I got a 7200 RPM drive and then an SSD (which did wonders even with 4 GB RAM). I then went to a 1 TB SSD and still have it. Last year I finally got 16 GB of RAM which cost $35 on Amazon. It's not the latest or the greatest, but it works well considering it's an 11 year old design.

But fixed hardware is kind of what Apple has become with notebook computers. The pricing for more RAM/storage kind of sucks, but if properly configured they work exceptionally well.

 

[y_p_w]

I just want to buy the special screwdrivers. Just to have them. Don’t plan on fixing anything at least not yet. I’ve never had an Apple product fail on me except one iPod the home button went bad on and I ended up with a free iPod in the end because the shop messed it up so now I’ve got two iPods.

Oh - I've had Apple stuff fail on me, but that happens. Some of it was just that they got old, like an iPhone 4S where the case started falling apart after 5 years. However, my iPhone 7 from 2017 is still working well although it's been replaced. My iPad mini 6 stopped working with cables, more or less. It would take a charge with higher voltage USB-C, but that was about it. It wouldn't charge with a USB-A to USB-C cable any more and wouldn't establish a data/sync connection with any cable. Warranty replacement was excruciatingly easy. Even though I bought it at Best Buy, it was replaced at an Apple Store, although I had to go to a second store (two miles away) since they had the replacement in stock while the store I went to would have had to order a replacement. And for the most part Apple doesn't replace stuff with regular retail devices but specially packaged replacement devices. That was last year and the replacement is working fine other than coconutBattery says that the battery capacity is dropping prematurely (about 91% after 150 cycles).

The most bizarre was the time that the battery of a late-2007 white MacBook was displaying negative capacity. My wife was playing a game on it where it got really hot and then suffered an unplanned thermal shutdown. From that point on, the battery was wonky - going from displaying negative capacity to displaying normal condition, and then back to negative capacity. I was going to get a service replacement battery out of warranty for $100, but the store didn't have any in stock so I put it off. At least until the battery started swelling, but it only started swelling out since it attached to the bottom and wasn't captive like with newer Macs.

My current mid-2012 MacBook Pro finally got the battery replaced in 2022. It was actually swelling slightly which pushed out the trackpad a bit. It was also finally showing under 80% battery capacity. I was wondering if they still had the batteries, but I was fortunate that they did.

 

[Hall]

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

Have you checked the price of the tools ? I remember a place (place like IFixIt, etc) bought or rented the equipment for doing something like replacing a battery on an iPhone and Apple sent them a LARGE, crated contraption that was pretty complex. Your MBP can't even have the battery replaced at an Apple Store - they send it out to a central repair facility, which tells me the equipment required is so complex and costly that even Apple doesn't put them in their retail stores anymore.

My Mac from 2015 won’t run the latest OS but it’s still fine for everyday tasks and as a place to store and edit photos. I bought it used on eBay for $125 last year.

Look into OpenCore Legacy Patcher. I have my old MBA (2013) running Sonoma and it is really good.

 

[y_p_w]

Have you checked the price of the tools ? I remember a place (place like IFixIt, etc) bought or rented the equipment for doing something like replacing a battery on an iPhone and Apple sent them a LARGE, crated contraption that was pretty complex. Your MBP can't even have the battery replaced at an Apple Store - they send it out to a central repair facility, which tells me the equipment required is so complex and costly that even Apple doesn't put them in their retail stores anymore.

I don't think they do that for Macs. They have something like a press for putting the case back together for iPhones. iPads are only serviced by Apple with a complete replacement and then they send exchange devices for refurb.

Most Macs these days have the battery glued into the case, complete with keyboard and the top case. I looked at the "self-repair" price Apple charged for this for a 2021 14" MBP and the top case was maybe $500 but with maybe $75 returned if the old top case was shipped back.

Apple charges $249 for a battery replacement service, but will require that the battery be under 80% capacity. They do that as a complete top case replacement and I believe typically will do that in store. But they have central facilities to do all the refurb of those top cases. Obviously replacing the batteries as well as fixing heavily worn keys. My understanding is that if the exchanged top case doesn't meet certain requirements, they'll charge the price they would if the keyboard were completely trashed.

I've seen the iFixit instructions for battery replacement on newer Macs, and it involved solvents to loosen the old glue. There are some indications that some of the newer Macs don't have batteries that are glued in.

 

[proveitwithdata]

I think the last upgradeable macbooks (ssd) only were circa 2017. From there went one piece boards (i think thunderbolt is a standalone board) and batteries that were industrially glued in.

 

[Hall]

Apple charges $249 for a battery replacement service, but will require that the battery be under 80% capacity. They do that as a complete top case replacement and I believe typically will do that in store.

Nope, my daughter was having a battery issue and I checked into getting it replaced. $249 and the repair takes 3-5 days - it gets sent out. We figured out what was wrong and it didn't need a battery after all. Co-worker just had his MBP battery replaced 2 weeks ago. Went to Apple Store on a Sunday afternoon, found out it had to be sent out. It was shipped back to him quick, in just 3 days, but still wasn't done in their store.

 

[y_p_w]

Nope, my daughter was having a battery issue and I checked into getting it replaced. $249 and the repair takes 3-5 days - it gets sent out. We figured out what was wrong and it didn't need a battery after all. Co-worker just had his MBP battery replaced 2 weeks ago. Went to Apple Store on a Sunday afternoon, found out it had to be sent out. It was shipped back to him quick, in just 3 days, but still wasn't done in their store.

I suppose it can depend on the model and available technicians. I've heard of it being done in store. They may even offer to perform a complete replacement, like how Apple services iPads.