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Ugh. This is the trend that will finally push me off Apple desktop/laptop hardware: "you'll finally see that the new Mac Mini's RAM is soldered directly to the

Ugh. This is the trend that will finally push me off Apple desktop/laptop hardware: "you'll finally see that the new Mac Mini's RAM is soldered directly to the motherboard. It's no longer user-upgradeable, so make sure you order all the RAM you need when you buy the computer in the first place."

jiggy2011 12y ago
I wonder why they did this? In the case of the macbooks and iMacs at least, it can be somewhat justified as a space saving measure. However the new mini is the same size as the old one and it's already quite tiny.
- jlcx 12y ago
  I think that's what lots of people are wondering. There doesn't seem to be a good reason here, from the customer's point of view. It looks like they're just trying to push people to buy new machines instead of upgrading the old ones, which is disappointing. I was waiting for the update, and I even bought one, but I returned it a few days later; too much about it just wasn't acceptable.
  - danieldk 12y ago
    It looks like they're just trying to push people to buy new machines instead of upgrading the old ones, which is disappointing. Or getting power users to buy the non-base models. I have a 2012 Mac Mini base model, and upgraded it to 16 GB RAM and a 256GB SSD for little cost. It should go without saying that I'll keep it for a while and probably double the SSD in some point in the future.
    - jlcx 12y ago
      If Apple were just trying to get people to buy upgraded stuff from them, I'd understand. But they're not even doing that very well; the $699 configuration minis still come standard with a 5400 rpm spinning disk, for example, and SSDs and 16GB RAM are both considered "customized Macs" that you can't just walk into any Apple Store and buy.
- jeangenie 12y ago
  A) Most users will never open their computer for any reason, including upgrading RAM. B) Apple wants to capture the cost of upgrading their hardware in the future.
  - pbreit 12y ago
    C) Apple wants to capture the cost of more RAM in the present.
  - jlcx 12y ago
    The "most users" thing might be technically true, but I bet a lot of the minis belonging to those users were still being upgraded after being sold by the original owners. I think "capture" is the key word. They're not trying to create wealth for their users with this action; they're trying to capture it for their company and its shareholders.
- taylorbuley 12y ago
  Presuming the market for Macs is relatively fixed, and that soldered RAM was the "status quo" configuration previous to recent iterations, it's plausible that the change to user-upgradable RAM to impacted sales for other, higher margin Macs in a noticeable, provable way.
- tammer 12y ago
  Of course the other comments are true, but I could easily see Apple justifying this as a reduction in power draw. They made a big deal out of the mini's efficency at the keynote.
  - danieldk 12y ago
    Justification or excuse? For a desktop machine it is not that much of an issue. And since Mac Minis are already using mobile CPUs, they were already very low-power compared to other desktop machines. There is always an excuse. In reality, they have changed their model to 'upgrades only at purchase'. Unfortunately, their machines are so good that we all accept this...
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    Hackintosh on a NUC seems like the way to go at this point. It'd be interesting if Apple just started using actual NUCs instead of making their own inferior version.
  - judk 12y ago
    Does non-soldered RAM draw more power??
- smackfu 12y ago
  One tangible reason is support costs. A new Mac mini is never going to the Genius Bar because of bad third party memory, or badly seated memory, or a static shock administered to the mother board while the memory was being changed. Even if those are quite rare, support incidents can be expensive, so it could be a dollar or two average per mini being saved.
  - trvz 12y ago
    Those situations might be less rare than you think, the savings tens of dollars and contributors to the lower price.
  - appleflaxen 12y ago
    I know I'm not the typical consumer, but I would be /so happy/ to pay a dollar to have removable memory.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    I remember when CMOS was new and static really did damage just about every part you handled if you weren't careful. Little conductive wrist band connected to steel desk, carbon coated conductive foam to work on and so on. But for the life of me I can't remember when a part failed due to static in the last decade or even longer. If anything broke it was either a cable or a soldered connection to a board. Sure, I've had RAM break, but that was factory installed RAM that was several years old. This is definitely anecdata but it would be interesting to know how much damage static really does these days. If you're going out of your way to pet your cat prior to installing your RAM chips on a glass floor or something like that then you're probably asking for it. But regular precautions (place RAM container on the case before opening package, hold the case while inserting the RAM) seem to be more than enough. On chip ESD protection has come a long way since the 80's. http://www.amazon.com/On-Chip-Protection-Integrated-Circuits-International/dp/0792376471 http://www.amazon.com/On-Chip-Protection-Integrated-Circuits...
- rdtsc 12y ago
  Presumably everything they do is to make more money. Let's just say that customers who buy base models then go on newegg and add memory or replace hard drives, put on their static arm bands, open cases and match connectors and so on, are not their target audience. They would like people to go buy a higher end model. The profit on RAM is probably pretty good given performance boost vs the cost of RAM. It is an opportunit they would be silly to waste.
  - judk 12y ago
    It undermines/reinforces their brand though. These misleading sticker prices with car-salesman trim levels piss off users except the Mercedes class who enjoy conspicuous consumption.
- cherry_su 12y ago
  Probably for ease of design and manufacturing. Apple raids the corporate parts bin: the lowest SKU, like the base iMac, is a MacBook Air in a box. The mid and high tier SKUs are repackaged 13" MacBook Pros.
radley 12y ago
This was the deal breaker for me. I ordered it on the release day and only found out the truth a few days later. I returned it unopened (I only ordered 8GB - was going to just add my own RAM). Instead of spending $1300 for marginal improvements, I bought a $125 256GB SSD and upped my 2012 Mini to a fusion drive.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
The maximum RAM this model accepts is 16GB. 3 years down the line it's more likely you'll just buy a new model instead of hunting deprecated RAM modules. And for the people who need a lot of RAM, they need it now, not later. I know the benefits of RAM upgrades - I even had a Pentium MMX with 128mb in the old days - but I don't see it making sense nowadays for consumer hardware like the Mini.
- self 12y ago
  Are you sure about that? My work MBP is a mid-2009 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo; upgrading the RAM to 8 GB means I can keep Chrome (with 30+ tabs open) running while working in Xcode or Android Studio. This wouldn't have been possible if I was stuck with the 4 GB it shipped with. It probably cost a lot more to configure it with 8 GB in 2009 than it did to upgrade the modules last year.
  - hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
    Please notice you're comparing the 2009 hardware with the 2014 market - 5 years. The Mac Mini has a RAM cap that is just 2x the amount you have right now, which you already judge is enough. What's the logic in making it upgradeable? Just buy it maxed out now. It's not like you would be able to upgrade it to 64GB in 5 years if it had a slot. Actually, it's likely you won't even find a RAM module with the right specs in 5 years, the industry is changing specs every 6 months.
    - fakename 12y ago
      I also have a 2009 macbook pro. I bought it with 2gb ram (or was it 1gb?--can't remember) upgrading to 8gb at the time would have cost me like 3-400. I upgraded to 4gb for about $50 in 2011, and upgraded to $8gb in 2013 for another ~$50.
      - to3m 12y ago
        I did something similar too. This is actually very bad for Apple - because I've now had the same Macbook Pro for 5.25 years, and it's remaining serviceable thanks to RAM upgrades and a modern high-capacity SSD. I'm sure it will end up lasting 5.5 years and it seems like there's a fair chance it will (Apple software support and wobbly ports permitting...) last for 6. But if they'd forced me to pay for all the upgrades up front, I'd probably still have bought the same spec (the 8GB RAM option was eye-wateringly expensive at the time, and the SSDs were comically pricey) - and then I'd have had to buy a whole new one after 2 years. Which probably wouldn't have had an SSD, because they were still expensive back then. So I'd probably be buying another one round about now, if not before, and Apple would have had 3 purchases out of me rather than just one.
threatofrain 12y ago
I think what frustrates me most is not the RAM, but the hard drive. I feel that the future will be kind to 4-8 GB of RAM, and I guess I'm willing to pay extra for RAM, but the hard drive options puts the price too high for me, and the options themselves are meh when I'd rather have my own SSD. It's frustrating to know that I am probably a minority customer, and thus Apple will probably never cater to me again. All the while I know that if only I had enough money, then I could be a happier Apple customer (I think the happiest Apple customers live in the middle-to-upper price tiers). If and when I get more successful, I'll consider Apple, but until then, I can see that Apple is no longer the best fit for me.
cicero 12y ago
I had a similar reaction to changes in the iMac last year that reduced the ability to upgrade. After owning mostly Macs since my 512K Fat Mac in 1985, I decided to build my own PC last Christmas, and I've been very happy with it. I then decided to replace my wife's MacBook with a Toshiba. She has only used Macs, but it hasn't taken her long to get used to and be happy with the Toshiba, and it only cost me $375. I have realized that I can no longer afford to be an Apple customer, and as the margin of any advantage Apple products previously had over the competition has greatly reduced, I don't see the point anymore. It is sad for me because my relationship with Apple began when my dad brought home an Apple II in 1977, but all good things in this world eventually come to an end.
- Adirael 12y ago
  I tried to do this, but I just don't like working with Windows (or Linux). I don't like their current line of hardware, nothing fits me. iMacs: too rigid, I wan't my own screen. Mac Pro: too expensive, too powerful. Mac Mini? Soldered RAM, 5400RPM drive. If I max it out it's cheaper to get an iMac. I ended getting a PC and throwing OS X on it. It's a pain in the ass when things break but it works for me. I would love a more upgrade-friendly Mini with desktop and not laptop hardware, even if it has to be bigger.

jiggy2011 12y ago

I wonder why they did this? In the case of the macbooks and iMacs at least, it can be somewhat justified as a space saving measure. However the new mini is the same size as the old one and it's already quite tiny.

jlcx 12y ago
I think that's what lots of people are wondering. There doesn't seem to be a good reason here, from the customer's point of view. It looks like they're just trying to push people to buy new machines instead of upgrading the old ones, which is disappointing. I was waiting for the update, and I even bought one, but I returned it a few days later; too much about it just wasn't acceptable.
- danieldk 12y ago
  It looks like they're just trying to push people to buy new machines instead of upgrading the old ones, which is disappointing. Or getting power users to buy the non-base models. I have a 2012 Mac Mini base model, and upgraded it to 16 GB RAM and a 256GB SSD for little cost. It should go without saying that I'll keep it for a while and probably double the SSD in some point in the future.
  - jlcx 12y ago
    If Apple were just trying to get people to buy upgraded stuff from them, I'd understand. But they're not even doing that very well; the $699 configuration minis still come standard with a 5400 rpm spinning disk, for example, and SSDs and 16GB RAM are both considered "customized Macs" that you can't just walk into any Apple Store and buy.
jeangenie 12y ago
A) Most users will never open their computer for any reason, including upgrading RAM. B) Apple wants to capture the cost of upgrading their hardware in the future.
- pbreit 12y ago
  C) Apple wants to capture the cost of more RAM in the present.
- jlcx 12y ago
  The "most users" thing might be technically true, but I bet a lot of the minis belonging to those users were still being upgraded after being sold by the original owners. I think "capture" is the key word. They're not trying to create wealth for their users with this action; they're trying to capture it for their company and its shareholders.
taylorbuley 12y ago
Presuming the market for Macs is relatively fixed, and that soldered RAM was the "status quo" configuration previous to recent iterations, it's plausible that the change to user-upgradable RAM to impacted sales for other, higher margin Macs in a noticeable, provable way.
tammer 12y ago
Of course the other comments are true, but I could easily see Apple justifying this as a reduction in power draw. They made a big deal out of the mini's efficency at the keynote.
- danieldk 12y ago
  Justification or excuse? For a desktop machine it is not that much of an issue. And since Mac Minis are already using mobile CPUs, they were already very low-power compared to other desktop machines. There is always an excuse. In reality, they have changed their model to 'upgrades only at purchase'. Unfortunately, their machines are so good that we all accept this...
- seanp2k2 12y ago
  Hackintosh on a NUC seems like the way to go at this point. It'd be interesting if Apple just started using actual NUCs instead of making their own inferior version.
- judk 12y ago
  Does non-soldered RAM draw more power??
smackfu 12y ago
One tangible reason is support costs. A new Mac mini is never going to the Genius Bar because of bad third party memory, or badly seated memory, or a static shock administered to the mother board while the memory was being changed. Even if those are quite rare, support incidents can be expensive, so it could be a dollar or two average per mini being saved.
- trvz 12y ago
  Those situations might be less rare than you think, the savings tens of dollars and contributors to the lower price.
- appleflaxen 12y ago
  I know I'm not the typical consumer, but I would be /so happy/ to pay a dollar to have removable memory.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  I remember when CMOS was new and static really did damage just about every part you handled if you weren't careful. Little conductive wrist band connected to steel desk, carbon coated conductive foam to work on and so on. But for the life of me I can't remember when a part failed due to static in the last decade or even longer. If anything broke it was either a cable or a soldered connection to a board. Sure, I've had RAM break, but that was factory installed RAM that was several years old. This is definitely anecdata but it would be interesting to know how much damage static really does these days. If you're going out of your way to pet your cat prior to installing your RAM chips on a glass floor or something like that then you're probably asking for it. But regular precautions (place RAM container on the case before opening package, hold the case while inserting the RAM) seem to be more than enough. On chip ESD protection has come a long way since the 80's. http://www.amazon.com/On-Chip-Protection-Integrated-Circuits-International/dp/0792376471 http://www.amazon.com/On-Chip-Protection-Integrated-Circuits...
rdtsc 12y ago
Presumably everything they do is to make more money. Let's just say that customers who buy base models then go on newegg and add memory or replace hard drives, put on their static arm bands, open cases and match connectors and so on, are not their target audience. They would like people to go buy a higher end model. The profit on RAM is probably pretty good given performance boost vs the cost of RAM. It is an opportunit they would be silly to waste.
- judk 12y ago
  It undermines/reinforces their brand though. These misleading sticker prices with car-salesman trim levels piss off users except the Mercedes class who enjoy conspicuous consumption.
cherry_su 12y ago
Probably for ease of design and manufacturing. Apple raids the corporate parts bin: the lowest SKU, like the base iMac, is a MacBook Air in a box. The mid and high tier SKUs are repackaged 13" MacBook Pros.

radley 12y ago

This was the deal breaker for me. I ordered it on the release day and only found out the truth a few days later. I returned it unopened (I only ordered 8GB - was going to just add my own RAM). Instead of spending $1300 for marginal improvements, I bought a $125 256GB SSD and upped my 2012 Mini to a fusion drive.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hcarvalhoalves 12y ago

The maximum RAM this model accepts is 16GB. 3 years down the line it's more likely you'll just buy a new model instead of hunting deprecated RAM modules. And for the people who need a lot of RAM, they need it now, not later. I know the benefits of RAM upgrades - I even had a Pentium MMX with 128mb in the old days - but I don't see it making sense nowadays for consumer hardware like the Mini.

self 12y ago
Are you sure about that? My work MBP is a mid-2009 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo; upgrading the RAM to 8 GB means I can keep Chrome (with 30+ tabs open) running while working in Xcode or Android Studio. This wouldn't have been possible if I was stuck with the 4 GB it shipped with. It probably cost a lot more to configure it with 8 GB in 2009 than it did to upgrade the modules last year.
- hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
  Please notice you're comparing the 2009 hardware with the 2014 market - 5 years. The Mac Mini has a RAM cap that is just 2x the amount you have right now, which you already judge is enough. What's the logic in making it upgradeable? Just buy it maxed out now. It's not like you would be able to upgrade it to 64GB in 5 years if it had a slot. Actually, it's likely you won't even find a RAM module with the right specs in 5 years, the industry is changing specs every 6 months.
  - fakename 12y ago
    I also have a 2009 macbook pro. I bought it with 2gb ram (or was it 1gb?--can't remember) upgrading to 8gb at the time would have cost me like 3-400. I upgraded to 4gb for about $50 in 2011, and upgraded to $8gb in 2013 for another ~$50.
    - to3m 12y ago
      I did something similar too. This is actually very bad for Apple - because I've now had the same Macbook Pro for 5.25 years, and it's remaining serviceable thanks to RAM upgrades and a modern high-capacity SSD. I'm sure it will end up lasting 5.5 years and it seems like there's a fair chance it will (Apple software support and wobbly ports permitting...) last for 6. But if they'd forced me to pay for all the upgrades up front, I'd probably still have bought the same spec (the 8GB RAM option was eye-wateringly expensive at the time, and the SSDs were comically pricey) - and then I'd have had to buy a whole new one after 2 years. Which probably wouldn't have had an SSD, because they were still expensive back then. So I'd probably be buying another one round about now, if not before, and Apple would have had 3 purchases out of me rather than just one.

threatofrain 12y ago

I think what frustrates me most is not the RAM, but the hard drive. I feel that the future will be kind to 4-8 GB of RAM, and I guess I'm willing to pay extra for RAM, but the hard drive options puts the price too high for me, and the options themselves are meh when I'd rather have my own SSD. It's frustrating to know that I am probably a minority customer, and thus Apple will probably never cater to me again. All the while I know that if only I had enough money, then I could be a happier Apple customer (I think the happiest Apple customers live in the middle-to-upper price tiers). If and when I get more successful, I'll consider Apple, but until then, I can see that Apple is no longer the best fit for me.

cicero 12y ago

I had a similar reaction to changes in the iMac last year that reduced the ability to upgrade. After owning mostly Macs since my 512K Fat Mac in 1985, I decided to build my own PC last Christmas, and I've been very happy with it. I then decided to replace my wife's MacBook with a Toshiba. She has only used Macs, but it hasn't taken her long to get used to and be happy with the Toshiba, and it only cost me $375. I have realized that I can no longer afford to be an Apple customer, and as the margin of any advantage Apple products previously had over the competition has greatly reduced, I don't see the point anymore. It is sad for me because my relationship with Apple began when my dad brought home an Apple II in 1977, but all good things in this world eventually come to an end.

Adirael 12y ago
I tried to do this, but I just don't like working with Windows (or Linux). I don't like their current line of hardware, nothing fits me. iMacs: too rigid, I wan't my own screen. Mac Pro: too expensive, too powerful. Mac Mini? Soldered RAM, 5400RPM drive. If I max it out it's cheaper to get an iMac. I ended getting a PC and throwing OS X on it. It's a pain in the ass when things break but it works for me. I would love a more upgrade-friendly Mini with desktop and not laptop hardware, even if it has to be bigger.