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> I prefer the upgradeability. The market doesn't care about such niche concerns, but it'll not flip completely overnight. I like the idea of upgradeability t

> I prefer the upgradeability. The market doesn't care about such niche concerns, but it'll not flip completely overnight. I like the idea of upgradeability too, but when the trade-off is such great performance, I'm not going to give that up. It would be different if the performance numbers were not as stark. The open question is how long this performance will be sustained. If it drops off, then concerns like upgradeability make become higher priority (and an opportunity for hardware vendors.)

FpUser 6y ago
>"The market doesn't care about such niche concerns, but it'll not flip completely overnight." I do not care all that much abut market either. When I need something it always seems to be there and I do not mind if it is not produced by the biggest guy on the block. If at some point I would not be able to find what I need I'll deal with it but so far it did not happen.
piokoch 6y ago
Yes, this is a niche concern... called environment protection. The new stuff cannot be upgrade, so when amount of RAM stops to be sufficient, old computer needs to be recycled (a modern word for throwing something into waste bin together with all CO2 that was emitted when computer was produced, not to mention environmental costs of digging rare earths, etc.). I am still able to use my Lenovo Thinkpad 510T only because I could easily replace HDD with cheap, stock Samsung EVO SSD and throw more RAM. The absurdity of Apple approach is that Mac Mini with 512 GB SSD is $200 more expensive than the one with 256 GB. 256 GB for $200 is a crazy price, so Apple basically says: hey, pay us a lot, lot more, so maybe you can use our stuff a bit longer, but, in fact, we try to actively discourage you from doing this, since we want you to buy cheaper model and in two-three years you will need to buy a new fancier model. But Tim Cook will tell you a lot how much he cares about humanity, environment and CO2 emission. Maybe he will even fly his private jet to some conference to tell people how awful is all that oil & gas & coal industry.
- alexvoda 6y ago
  On-package RAM and upgradability are not at odds with eachother. If upgradability was desired, we could see socketed SOC. This is one of the things modular phones (project Ara) were about. Just because RAM was one of the last holdout of upgradability, does not make it inherently more suitable for upgradability. The problem is a lack of interest in manufacturing repairable and upgradable hardware. It is simply less profitable.

FpUser 6y ago

>"The market doesn't care about such niche concerns, but it'll not flip completely overnight." I do not care all that much abut market either. When I need something it always seems to be there and I do not mind if it is not produced by the biggest guy on the block. If at some point I would not be able to find what I need I'll deal with it but so far it did not happen.

piokoch 6y ago

Yes, this is a niche concern... called environment protection. The new stuff cannot be upgrade, so when amount of RAM stops to be sufficient, old computer needs to be recycled (a modern word for throwing something into waste bin together with all CO2 that was emitted when computer was produced, not to mention environmental costs of digging rare earths, etc.). I am still able to use my Lenovo Thinkpad 510T only because I could easily replace HDD with cheap, stock Samsung EVO SSD and throw more RAM. The absurdity of Apple approach is that Mac Mini with 512 GB SSD is $200 more expensive than the one with 256 GB. 256 GB for $200 is a crazy price, so Apple basically says: hey, pay us a lot, lot more, so maybe you can use our stuff a bit longer, but, in fact, we try to actively discourage you from doing this, since we want you to buy cheaper model and in two-three years you will need to buy a new fancier model. But Tim Cook will tell you a lot how much he cares about humanity, environment and CO2 emission. Maybe he will even fly his private jet to some conference to tell people how awful is all that oil & gas & coal industry.

alexvoda 6y ago
On-package RAM and upgradability are not at odds with eachother. If upgradability was desired, we could see socketed SOC. This is one of the things modular phones (project Ara) were about. Just because RAM was one of the last holdout of upgradability, does not make it inherently more suitable for upgradability. The problem is a lack of interest in manufacturing repairable and upgradable hardware. It is simply less profitable.