3 ms·

>An M1 MacBook Air with replaceable RAM and SSD would not have the same performance, battery life or form factor. citation please.

foldr 6y ago
Discrete replaceable components use up more space, which leaves less space for battery. On top of that, Apple are most likely getting power consumption and performance benefits from integrating the SSD controller and reducing the length of the traces to the RAM chips by an order of magnitude (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25258797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25258797). Take a look at the logic board for an M1 MacBook Air: https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/38927-74332-MBA-Teardown-xl.jpg https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/38927-74332-MBA-Tea... There's just no room for RAM sticks and and M2 slot. You could make a different laptop with those features, but it's a laptop that from the point of view of most consumers would be worse.
- brokenmachine 6y ago
  >but it's a laptop that from the point of view of most consumers would be worse "Worse", but the insignificantly "better" one is landfill in a few years time when the battery/storage/keyboard/anything has a fault, or even just when it needs more RAM or storage. Most consumers are just ignorant.
  - foldr 6y ago
    Do you have any stats on this? I'd be surprised if Apple laptops ended up in landfill quicker than their competitors' on average, given the huge second hand market. You also have to bear in mind that the vast majority of 'broken' laptops just get thrown away or put in a cupboard, regardless of whether it would be theoretically possible to repair them.
    - brokenmachine 6y ago
      If they were repairable, maybe those "broken" laptops would not just be put in the cupboard... and maybe there would be less on the secondhand market if the owner was able to upgrade them and extend their useful lifetime. I hate Apple and consider their non-repairable and non upgradeable hardware design both consumer-hostile and environmentally wasteful. You apparently do not, and seem to want to cling to any justification, no matter how flimsy, to sustain that belief, to the point of pretending that a 1mm thick, 20c connector is such a major size and cost burden when buying an expensive high-end laptop that customers should forgo possible repair and a guaranteed ability to extend the life of the item a few years down the track. Arguing that in a thread that is about excessively high levels of writes to a limited lifespan SSD, no less! Remember the story about Steve Jobs putting the iphone in the fish tank to see the bubbles where there was space left inside it? Imagine that with an M1 Mac, but the bubbles are connectors. I see space in there. I have a question: If Apple released a laptop that was 20% faster than their M1, and the same price, but it was hardware disabled after four years and must be returned to be disposed of after that, would you buy it? Why or why not? Would you consider that to be a better laptop from the point of view of most consumers? I just hope you can afford all the dongles you'll need in the future you're so enthusiastic for...

foldr 6y ago

Discrete replaceable components use up more space, which leaves less space for battery. On top of that, Apple are most likely getting power consumption and performance benefits from integrating the SSD controller and reducing the length of the traces to the RAM chips by an order of magnitude (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25258797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25258797). Take a look at the logic board for an M1 MacBook Air: https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/38927-74332-MBA-Teardown-xl.jpg https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/38927-74332-MBA-Tea... There's just no room for RAM sticks and and M2 slot. You could make a different laptop with those features, but it's a laptop that from the point of view of most consumers would be worse.

brokenmachine 6y ago
>but it's a laptop that from the point of view of most consumers would be worse "Worse", but the insignificantly "better" one is landfill in a few years time when the battery/storage/keyboard/anything has a fault, or even just when it needs more RAM or storage. Most consumers are just ignorant.
- foldr 6y ago
  Do you have any stats on this? I'd be surprised if Apple laptops ended up in landfill quicker than their competitors' on average, given the huge second hand market. You also have to bear in mind that the vast majority of 'broken' laptops just get thrown away or put in a cupboard, regardless of whether it would be theoretically possible to repair them.
  - brokenmachine 6y ago
    If they were repairable, maybe those "broken" laptops would not just be put in the cupboard... and maybe there would be less on the secondhand market if the owner was able to upgrade them and extend their useful lifetime. I hate Apple and consider their non-repairable and non upgradeable hardware design both consumer-hostile and environmentally wasteful. You apparently do not, and seem to want to cling to any justification, no matter how flimsy, to sustain that belief, to the point of pretending that a 1mm thick, 20c connector is such a major size and cost burden when buying an expensive high-end laptop that customers should forgo possible repair and a guaranteed ability to extend the life of the item a few years down the track. Arguing that in a thread that is about excessively high levels of writes to a limited lifespan SSD, no less! Remember the story about Steve Jobs putting the iphone in the fish tank to see the bubbles where there was space left inside it? Imagine that with an M1 Mac, but the bubbles are connectors. I see space in there. I have a question: If Apple released a laptop that was 20% faster than their M1, and the same price, but it was hardware disabled after four years and must be returned to be disposed of after that, would you buy it? Why or why not? Would you consider that to be a better laptop from the point of view of most consumers? I just hope you can afford all the dongles you'll need in the future you're so enthusiastic for...