5 ms·
> The RAM is soldered to the motherboard, something that iFixit would typically penalize in the past. But iFixit says that given the power savings and performan
by Sakos 4y ago
> The RAM is soldered to the motherboard, something that iFixit would typically penalize in the past. But iFixit says that given the power savings and performance boost from proximity to the CPU, it can't punish the decision.
... seriously? At this point it's beginning to feel like iFixit is selling out to these companies. Score of 7/10 and the RAM is soldered. That doesn't compute for me.
If the SSD is actually replaceable as the teardown indicates, that's a huge plus.
If the wifi/BT module is still integrated, that's a big fat minus, because those are the most likely parts that have failed on pretty much every iteration of the Surface and I'm sick and tired of seeing these insanely expensive and impossible to repair devices with parts that quickly fail.
- Wowfunhappy 4y agoReplaceable parts aren't necessarily better if they come with huge design tradeoffs. For maximum replaceability, you should get a desktop—but Microsoft is selling laptops. I'm glad iFixit is considering the tradeoffs involved here.
- Sakos 4y agoConsidering? No, they're ignoring the trade-offs to prefer the one that benefits Microsoft. Their purpose used to be to judge the repairability of devices. It clearly isn't anymore.
- Wowfunhappy 4y agoShould iFixit give all laptops terrible scores for not being desktops?
- mkl 4y agoNo, some laptops are designed for easy repair and upgrades. My 2010 ThinkPad simply has unscrewable panels to access the RAM and hard disk, and Framework is even better.
- Wowfunhappy 4y agoYes, but even the Framework is more difficult to repair than many desktops, and certainly less upgradable. Most devices are going to make some sort of tradeoff, the question is which ones are reasonable given the upsides.
- Nullabillity 4y agoA laptop is definitely going to score lower than a desktop. That doesn't mean all laptops are equally terrible, or that there isn't a market for laptops with a much longer life but slightly worse power efficiency.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ksec 4y agoWell in that case where do we draw a line between Desktop and Laptop? Why Integrated GPU when GPU could be an exentsion as well? Should be the CPU be using Socket upgrade? Should capacitor be soldered? We no longer have Solid Capacitor and they aren't even a repairing problem anymore. That goes the same with LPDDR.
- trap_goes_hot 4y agoAesthetics and design is not as important as the environment and reducing e-waste.
- kevingadd 4y agoSoldering components direct near the CPU has performance (and as a result potentially power draw / mild environmental) benefits, it's not just done for aesthetics. It's very common for a reason.
- trap_goes_hot 4y agoThe design of devices which end up in land-fills by the millions, should focus on the environment, not some minuscule performance benefit. I wouldn't defend a design that increases e-waste, but to each his own.
- Nullabillity 4y agoIt's done because these companies would rather sell you a new computer than a new RAM stick.
- hjgjhyuhy 4y agoThere is no environmental benefit if we soon have tons of minimum specs laptops thrown to landfills because they don’t have enough RAM and it can’t be upgraded.
- 8note 4y agoI dislike that iFixit is making such tradeoffs. If you tradeoff repairability for performance in the repairability metric, once you compare the repairability metric to the performance metric, you've double counted the performance
- solardev 4y agoDon't need to overthink this. It's easy to just have scores for devices of different categories. A 10/10 laptop doesn't have to match the repairability of a 10/10 desktop, but it sure better be more repairable than a 3/10 laptop.
- bcrosby95 4y agoSo should every laptop be 10/10 for power use, performance, and repairability because tradeoffs? That 15 watt cpu? 10/10 performance because of the power draw! That 45 watt cpu? 10/10 power draw because of the performance it provides!
- cobertos 4y agoThe tone of this comment is abrasive, but I agree. I _thought_ IFixIt's whole scoring system was about repairability. Not performance, not best value but also repairable. Feels weird to just throw that out. Also how does this get a 7/10 when you still have to unglue the screen to do anything but a storage upgrade?
- dangus 4y agoContext is key with these repairability ratings. I always assumed that a score of 7 for a phone means something different than a score of 7 for a laptop or tablet. It’s not reasonable to expect that a tablet would ever provide modular RAM. It just doesn’t make sense for that form factor.
- ksec 4y agoJust from reading the thread I think a lot of people are mixing up Reparability and upgradeability.
- Nullabillity 4y agoTwo sides of the same coin. Hurting one hurts the other, both help improve device longevity, and both help encourage a more open and modular design.
- dangus 4y agoI think they're still separate issues in specific cases. For example, if you made a motherboard with user-removable capacitors, that would not enable any significant upgradability, only repairability. Another situation: If you have a $100 device and it has a major component that takes up most of the overall device cost (let's say, $80), making that $80 component modular/removable/replaceable doesn't aid repairability all that much. If that component fails, my entire device is "totaled."
- Sakos 4y agoSorry. The tone is abrasive because it's channeling years of having to tell customers with a broken 1500 or even 1000 Euro laptop that it can't be fixed because the manufacturer put zero effort into repairability and, while I wish I could do anything at all to help them, all I can do is tell them 'sorry'. I hated letting down my customers. Meanwhile, companies like Microsoft are making money hand over fist with this stuff with no regard to what happens after the warranty period ends. It makes me furious.
- cma 4y agoAren't RAM latencies due to refresh etc. at least 100X what the wire-delay from speed of electric signal would add to having it farther from the CPU?
- wtallis 4y agoSoldering RAM isn't really done for the sake of latency, it's done to save physical volume and to lower power from the memory PHY not having to fight against a connector's insertion loss.
- CamperBob2 4y agoSoldering the RAM is good for literally every single use case that doesn't involve the vanishingly-low probability that someone will want to upgrade the RAM in their tablet or phone. Less weight, less cost, better long-term reliability... but one in a hundred thousand nerds get thwarted. Wearing my hardware-dev hat, I'm more than OK with that.
- Nullabillity 4y agoThis is just another case of "We made it hard and annoying to do, so nobody's doing it. Let's remove it entirely.". You need to start from the other direction. How many people are buying new devices every year? What would it take to get them to upgrade their existing devices instead? How do we prevent manufacturers from sabotaging this kind of effort?
- CamperBob2 4y agoTo be clear, nobody, but nobody, is a bigger right-to-repair advocate than I am. And I walk the talk. I've shipped hardware whose user manual, at my insistence, included schematics. But the last time I upgraded the RAM in a PC to keep from having to buy a new one was in the late 1990s, if I remember correctly. The last time I upgraded the RAM in a portable device -- even a laptop PC, much less a phone -- to keep from having to buy a new one? That would be never... and I'd definitely remember that. Forcing literally billions of users to pay more because a microscopic minority might want to upgrade their RAM is terrible business, and, frankly, terrible engineering. It's never going to happen again; the ship has sailed. Sorry.
- dtgriscom 4y agoMy experience is that soldered-on RAM (almost?) never fails. What's the benefit of being able to repair something that doesn't break? SSDs and external connectors definitely fail, though, and they should be repairable/replaceable.
- nicoburns 4y ago> What's the benefit of being able to repair something that doesn't break? With RAM, generally the ability to upgrade the capacity, which can extend the useful life of the device.
- rowanG077 4y agoI mean this used to be true. But for years and years now RAM capacity hasn't meaningfully changed. My first laptop almost 10 years ago now had 8gb of memory. And I now have 16gb of which I'm currently using only 3.1gb, while running chrome, slack, thunderbird, vs code and telegram. I would be fine with 8gb as well. The point being that memory upgrades to increase capacity is really not important anymore due to capacity having stagnated for the most part.
- nicoburns 4y agoI kinda agree. That does require everyone buying high-spec laptops in the first place though. Many people were buying laptops with 2gb or 4gb of RAM 10 years ago, many of which will be useable now if upgradeable to 8gb, but not otherwise.
- kasabali 4y agoExperience of 99% of people is that component ______ never fails. By that logic no electronic component needs to be replaceable/repairable and the whole repairability discussion is useless gibbery.
- innocenat 4y agoIf it's DDR4 or DDR5 that is soldered, sure, I agree that it should be penalised. But LPDDR4X or LPDDD5? There are legitimate benefit to using low-powered RAM, and these aren't available in DIMM sticks.
- madeofpalk 4y agoI think soldered RAM should always have a penalty for repairability. What else is there for iFixit to judge?
- innocenat 4y agoSo should soldered CPU always be judged for repairability too? It's also the same repairability/efficiency tradeoff against using socketed (desktop) CPU instead.
- Nullabillity 4y agoYes? Maybe designing a computer with 10/10 repairability and 10/10 power efficiency isn't possible. That doesn't mean we should dilute either of those metrics to make it look that way.
- madeofpalk 4y agoYes. Higher power efficiency could come at the cost of repairability. A repairability score should reflect that tradeoff, not excuse it.
- poopooracoocoo 4y agoThis could be because iFixit is trying to be more consumer facing so they can sell more of their repair products. A wild guess. More likely that they're getting paid by these manufacturers though.
- Nullabillity 4y agoYeah... this is what happens when review organizations are also selling accessories/parts for the same products...