RAM Soldered Into New Mac Mini To Block Memory Upgrades

pxc said:
On the price detour...

I'd still take a Mac Mini. The price is actually reasonable for a micro system, given its configuration. Haswell-based NUCs are still overpriced, and that's the next closest thing to the Mini.
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Meh. Last year, when you could get them for $450-499 they were a decent deal compared to NUCs. I folded and bought one to mess around with OSX just about a year ago. However, for much of this year they were around $599 till this price drop. I'd wager that is to compete with the NUCs.

Apple is just being Apple here and seems to be going to full boutique mode except for their Mac Pro "workstation" trash can. Which I think is a neat engineering concept for a small portable workstation. I just dont see where there would be a large demand for it if it wasn't for Apple's brand hype.
 
Say what $3000? With no memory upgrades down the road? Ill take it just like the rest of the iTards out there! Apple are genius! :rolleyes:
 
jimmyb said:
As opposed to all the not-for-profit computer manufacturers.
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They have over $150 billion in liquidity alone.
You would think they have enough fucking money and would start to "give back" to their loyal customers and fan base via much-improved products.

Or at a minimum, if a product costs less to make, sell it for less, not sell it for the same and make it non-upgradable.
But whatever, support the megacorps.

If you're still around 30 years from now, you'll regret it, trust me. ;)
 
Red Falcon said:
They have over $150 billion in liquidity alone.
You would think they have enough fucking money and would start to "give back" to their loyal customers and fan base via much-improved products.
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Easily replaceable memory is only desired by a very small portion of the population, especially in this low-end form factor. It is cheaper to manufacture, more reliable, and faster when it is soldered on. This is a win for all but a small segment of consumers.

Red Falcon said:
Or at a minimum, if a product costs less to make, sell it for less, not sell it for the same and make it non-upgradable.
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How do you know the product cost less to make? We're talking about one component in a much larger design.
 
jimmyb said:
Many components in electronics can fail; most of them aren't easily replaceable.
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Youre telling us youve never replaced bad sticks of ram? Um yea last I checked my PC and laptop and netbook and HTPC, the memory is easily upgradable/replaceable!
 
chaikovski2002 said:
Youre telling us youve never replaced bad sticks of ram? Um yea last I checked my PC and laptop and netbook and HTPC, the memory is easily upgradable/replaceable!
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I think I've replaced one bad memory stick about ten years ago. My point is not that memory doesn't fail, but that many other components fail and yet we aren't demanding they are replaceable. Putting components on sockets hurts the design in just about every other way.

For a low-end small form factor consumer, non-consumer replaceable memory is a pretty reasonable design decision.
 
chaikovski2002 said:
Youre telling us youve never replaced bad sticks of ram? Um yea last I checked my PC and laptop and netbook and HTPC, the memory is easily upgradable/replaceable!
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I'm I replaced a memory stick sometime in the decades I've been into computing...but I can't exactly remember when and I'm not exactly sure it was the memory, result from someone yanking it out from a socket when the computer was on, whether it was installed/removed with an ESD band or someone dragged their feet across the carpet...

it's a remote possibility that a manufactured DIMM comes off the line faulty, and not nearly close to the factors of users yanking and stuffing them in and out of DIMM slots, though
 
chaikovski2002 said:
Youre telling us youve never replaced bad sticks of ram? Um yea last I checked my PC and laptop and netbook and HTPC, the memory is easily upgradable/replaceable!
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Been building computers since 1991.

Thus far - knock on wood - I've never had RAM go bad.

I still think Apples decision is shitty, as I believe RAM needs to be upgradeable (I've definitely had situations where upgrading RAM was necessary) but in my 23 years as a hobbyist, I have yet to have a stick of RAM fail.

Maybe I just handle it well to avoid ESD damage?
 
paffinity said:
I'm sure some of it is to prevent users from upgrading, but I think the main reason why they do this is to reduce costs. Soldering the DRAM directly to the board removes the DIMM slots and associated components from the bill of materials. Granted, it probably saves them $1 or so, but when you're building millions of these (or is it much less for the mini) it adds up.
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There is no reason other than to sell units with more ram for more money.
 
fdiaz78 said:
There is no reason other than to sell units with more ram for more money.
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That's not true. Soldered on ICs offer better cost, performance and reliability than socketed/slotted packages; if your target demographic is unlikely to want to upgrade the memory then it doesn't make any sense to make the memory removable.
 
jimmyb said:
That's not true. Soldered on ICs offer better cost, performance and reliability than socketed/slotted packages; if your target demographic is unlikely to want to upgrade the memory then it doesn't make any sense to make the memory removable.
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I suppose that makes sense.
Kind of like the "tablet" of the desktop.
 
jimmyb said:
That's not true. Soldered on ICs offer better cost, performance and reliability than socketed/slotted packages; if your target demographic is unlikely to want to upgrade the memory then it doesn't make any sense to make the memory removable.
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Let's also remove the start menu since research shows most people don't use it. Removing features and options never benefits the consumer.

Maybe they never will upgrade the RAM but it is nice to know the option is available. Memory slots are not a new invention and proven more than reliable, the cost is also almost non-existent.

The only logical reason to remove them is to screw anyone unfortunate enough to purchase one. Apple pockets the $0.05 savings, the cost of the computer does not decrease, and they then fleeces everyone on RAM upgrades; nice way to treat your customers.
 
This is actually a response for a post in the first page...Are all girls (and thus possible girlfriends) in your area Zarathustra[H] Followers of the Holy Apple?

My girlfriend of more than 8 years would want a MBP...if they were very cheap. As it stands she has an Asus laptop and I was the one who built her desktop (i3-2100, Asrock H61 board, Sapphire HD 7770 1GB) years ago.
 
meh usual bullshit Apple bashing lol, people immediately say Apple are trying to screw them over etc. If Apple wanted to make money from you all they have to do is develop a proprietary interface and charge what they want...

The reality is that removing expansion options saves a ton of space physically on the PCB and means they can orientate memory modules any way they want on the PCB for easy trace routing.

They could have gone the other way and made it larger and kept expansion then everyone would sook that its 1cm bigger than the old model. Consumers are their own worst enemy.
 
BryanSTG said:
Removing features and options never benefits the consumer.
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That's not true. Features and options cost money. If a feature costs money to include, and it is rarely used, then to many it is a benefit not to include it.

Would you like all the other ICs and components socketed as well? No you wouldn't. Designing electronics requires cost/benefit analysis of what features to include.

BryanSTG said:
the cost is also almost non-existent.
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You seem to have a rough idea of the cost of adding memory slots to the device, so what is it? How will it impact the size of the device? What will the performance impact be?

BryanSTG said:
The only logical reason to remove them is to screw anyone unfortunate enough to purchase one.
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As I've enumerated, there are many reasons "screwing" the consumer.
 
m heisty said:
How is it not legal? If you buy a fully licensed version of the OS. You can put it on what ever you want.
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Apple only sells upgrades of the OS, and it is a violation of the license to install it on none Apple hardware.

I'd call that illegal.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041178997 said:
Been building computers since 1991.

Thus far - knock on wood - I've never had RAM go bad.
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Memory is much more reliable than it used to be.
Replacing bad memory chips was so common back in the days of the PC's and AT's that we made sure the techs always carried an extra set of 64 & 256KB memory chips.

As for the newer DDR & better dimms, it's pretty rare. I remember replacing at least 4 dimms over the last couple years at work (around 100 systems).
However, I've upgrade the ram on probably 2/3 of the systems. 4-8GB was fine when they where bought, but most my users now need 16GB (software dev & testing). In some cases, the system weren't even available with 16GB when they where purchased, since that size memory dimms where not yet available.




This just add even more of a $$ premium to Macs over PC's
 
jimmyb said:
Easily replaceable memory is only desired by a very small portion of the population, especially in this low-end form factor. It is cheaper to manufacture, more reliable, and faster when it is soldered on. This is a win for all but a small segment of consumers.
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Then why is Crucial 16GB memory kit (specifically for MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Mac Minis, iMacs) listed as the #1 best seller on Amazon?

Considering the small market share Apple has, sure seems like a lot of people are upgrading their memory. Doesn't seem like a "small segment of consumers".

With most of Apples systems no longer upgradable, I expect that memory upgrade will start falling down the chart soon.
 
nutzo said:
Then why is Crucial 16GB memory kit (specifically for MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Mac Minis, iMacs) listed as the #1 best seller on Amazon?
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The fact that is #1 in some amazon category tells us very little about the *percentage* of mac mini user's that are upgrading their memory. That is one of the central pieces of evidence necessary in performing the cost benefit analysis.

Also note I can't find it as #1 seller in the departmental category I see. Not necessarily doubting your claim here - the important point is that this tells us very little about percentage users upgrading.

nutzo said:
Considering the small market share Apple has, sure seems like a lot of people are upgrading their memory.
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How many people, and what percentage of all mac mini owners?
 
Zarathustra[H];1041178997 said:
Been building computers since 1991.

Thus far - knock on wood - I've never had RAM go bad.
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I have seen maybe a few dozen sticks go bad, verified by MS Memtest.

So it does happen.
 
Amaroth said:
When did I wake up in the 90's? Holy hell.
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Heh...;) Back in the '80's everything was permanently soldered to the motherboard--to get an upgrade you had to swap out entire motherboards--which was expensive, considering you had to buy everything else on a new motherboard, too (cpu, gpu, etc.)

Today this is only done to save money. Apple customers are used to paying through the nose for yesterday's components, though, or else for throw-away products, so they probably won't care.
 
WaltC said:
Heh...;) Back in the '80's everything was permanently soldered to the motherboard--to get an upgrade you had to swap out entire motherboards--which was expensive, considering you had to buy everything else on a new motherboard, too (cpu, gpu, etc.)
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NOT!

My first over the counter computer was from the worst of the worst Packard Bell. I have no problems upgrading the CPU, Ram and Modem.

Maybe Apple was that way back in the 80's but I can assure you the PC market generally speaking was not.
 
aokman said:
meh usual bullshit Apple bashing lol, people immediately say Apple are trying to screw them over etc. If Apple wanted to make money from you all they have to do is develop a proprietary interface and charge what they want...
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Which they've done before...
 
Zarathustra[H];1041177728 said:
Ever had a girlfriend?

I've never met a woman who didn't prefer a Mac to a PC, and rolled their eyes at me whenever I complained about all the limitations of Macs.

I'm planning on surprising my GF with a computer for Xmas, and while it really pains me to give such an awful company my money, I want her to have something she likes, so I'll probably suck up the pride and buy a image-over-substance Mac... :(
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Dude, build her a custom PC... that's a way better move
 
Red Falcon said:
You know, in a laptop or ultrabook, this would make sense.
But for a desktop computer, albeit a SFF, this only makes sense from Apple's liquidity.

Definitely not from the customers' point of view.
Just keep drinking that delicious koolaid. :p
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Agreed here. I don't LIKE it in ultrabooks, but I understand it. In a non-ultrabook format it is just a pure money grab, inconveniencing their customers for their own profit.

But they've been doing stuff like that for years. Inconveniencing their own customers to make more money has pretty much been standard business practice for Apple all along.

To go back a few years, take the iPod as an example. They COULD have made it just a USB mass storage device you just drop your music on, and it would have been easy to manage. But no, instead they made a convoluted proprietary XML database that needs iTunes to manage and sync it. Why? Because when you are forced to have iTunes on your computer, you are more likely to use iTunes to buy your music, rather than other sources.

Totally inconveniences users, and totally benefits Apple's bottom line.

Business as usual for a crappy company, that gets away with it because uneducated consumers are willing to sacrifice usability for image and trendiness.
 
entropy13 said:
This is actually a response for a post in the first page...Are all girls (and thus possible girlfriends) in your area Zarathustra[H] Followers of the Holy Apple?

My girlfriend of more than 8 years would want a MBP...if they were very cheap. As it stands she has an Asus laptop and I was the one who built her desktop (i3-2100, Asrock H61 board, Sapphire HD 7770 1GB) years ago.
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I've met a few rare geeky girls who get it, but they are unusual.

Yes cost is a factor, that is why many of them are clamoring to their practically obsolete older Apple models while still feeling smug that they have the "best" computer.
 
WaltC said:
Heh...;) Back in the '80's everything was permanently soldered to the motherboard--to get an upgrade you had to swap out entire motherboards--which was expensive, considering you had to buy everything else on a new motherboard, too (cpu, gpu, etc.)

Today this is only done to save money. Apple customers are used to paying through the nose for yesterday's components, though, or else for throw-away products, so they probably won't care.
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My 286 used those little SIMM memory modules for RAM, which were definitely replaceable.

I originally had 1MB of those bad boys (4x 256k), 640k base ram, 384k expanded but later upgraded to 4 glorious MB.

Maybe if we are talking Commodores, Amiga's (but I think Amigas had upgradeable RAM) and other basic early models, yes, but every PC I have ever tinkered with, including 80s models had replaceable and upgradeable RAM.
 
gdonovan said:
I have seen maybe a few dozen sticks go bad, verified by MS Memtest.

So it does happen.
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I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it is not as common as suggested previously in this thread.

I consider RAM to be some of the most stable and reliable components in a computer.

Usually once installed, unless you have a lightning strike or something of that nature it never goes bad. Typically damage occurs due to improper handling resulting in ESD or other damage during install / removal.

I've never been a grounding strap guy, but I'm always very careful to handle the RAM by the edges of the PCB, so I am not touching any of the leads or chips. These days now that most ram has heat spreaders, it's even more difficult to kill it. You'd have to be grabbing it by the leads at the bottom which is just stupid.
 
Meh, not much different from making batteries unremoveable on various Macs and PCs. Part of the quest for being the thinnest too, I'm thinking.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041179904 said:
Agreed here. I don't LIKE it in ultrabooks, but I understand it. In a non-ultrabook format it is just a pure money grab, inconveniencing their customers for their own profit.
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The ultrabook format is a pure money grab too though. The idea that a computer is somehow worth a big markup and lower performance per dollar because of cooling constraints just because it's smaller in one of three dimensions, but not in the other two is super silly.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041178869 said:
I'd rather take this bundle :p
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Thank you for the link, that is much appreciated. I have been waiting to get one of these deals for a while now but this is fantastic. I have a spare SSD, Hard drive, Power supply and ram to use with it. I will probably just install Windows 10 preview on it.
 
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