Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

doctor-don

macrumors 68000
Dec 26, 2008
1,604
336
Georgia USA
Can't wait until the only Macbook I can buy is non-upgradable.


I can't express how much I hate that this soldered stuff has happened. I'll take a little thicker body and non soldered RAM instead of this soldering because it's so thin stuff.

One PC manufacturer skimped on the solder in an effort to save money / increase profits to the point that soldered connections were breaking during shipping.
 

Gudi

Suspended
May 3, 2013
4,590
3,265
Berlin, Berlin
Maybe some people can't afford to pay Apple's BTO prices on top of a laptop all in one go. Being able to upgrade the RAM and storage several pay checks later is "a big deal".
It's not deferred cost, but lower cost. When you buy cheap on ebay and sell high on craigslist, you can be lucky and double your RAM for free. Anyway, it's much cheaper than the $100 every upgrade costs at Apple. Soldered RAM is a price increase and if it dies you can throw away the whole logic board. So you better have AppleCare, which is another price increase on top of it.
 

Elijen

macrumors 6502
May 8, 2012
465
898
Well, no upgrades for me then, I guess. I will not pay $1000 (or whatever Apple charges) for 8Gb RAM upgrade.
 

alent1234

macrumors 603
Jun 19, 2009
5,689
170
*128GB PCI-e SSD vs a 5400 RPM turtle...Seriously, once you go SSD for your primary drive you will never look back. I have plenty of external storage that is redundantly backed up (External drives for speed and a RAID 5 NAS for redundancy, plus CrashPlan for offsite backup.) - I don't need to carry my entire photo library with me at all times.

Yes, I would have preferred a slightly thicker body for non-soldiered RAM and maybe an easier to replace battery, but given the other enhancements (Massive resolution increase, I always run on 1680x1050 scaled as I need the space, smaller footprint) it was an easy choice for me.

my 2011 MBP had the hard drive die and i spent $130 for a 1TB fusion drive with like 32MB of flash
huge difference, but until the SSD prices come down i'm not paying the premium unless i have lots of spare cash and its a treat
why can't apple offer this on their laptops?
and the fact that nothing is replaceable by the user and i have to spend another $300 just for a warranty is way too much for a laptop that's used less than my ipads and phones
 

nikaru

macrumors 65816
Apr 23, 2009
1,123
1,396
That would mean no way to have a MacBook with 1TB or 2TB of storage for an affordable price. Quite unfortunate. If it means they add a retina display, that would be fine with me.

Storage, who cares about internal storage? For 100$ you have your 2TB external WD for all your porn. 250GB is sufficient storge nowdays for 99% of the users. I prefer cheaper stock MBP, than paying for extra storage I can get elsewhere much cheaper if I need it. With all availabe cloud storage services and cheap external memeries spending resource on increasing you internal SSD which you may or may not need, is complete waste of money, especially considering that its still too expensive.

More stock ram memory, cooler chasies, higer clock CPU and better GPU and display is what metters.
 

Mal67

macrumors 6502a
Apr 2, 2006
519
36
West Oz
Nope. I think computer RAM has reached a plateau. Notice how it's not increasing at the pace that it used to. 4GB ram is perfect for 99.9% of people and that's why it's standard on so many MacBooks now. I have a 2013 air with 4gb ram and 256gb ssd. I doubt it will get slow any time soon....
These things tend to go in cycles in terms of the number out front but ram is always increasing. Soon the standard will be 8gb across the board as is the case with a large number of similarly priced pc notebooks and so long as we have computers in the current form will in all likelihood go on increasing. Which makes the non-replaceable ram 4gb machines problematical because if all you need is extra ram then you need a whole new computer.
 

PatriotInvasion

macrumors 68000
Jul 18, 2010
1,643
1,048
Boston, MA
I suppose I understand the gripes people have about being unable to swap out RAM, especially given Apple's continued reluctance to lower the price of BTO RAM upgrades which are ridiculous. The optical drive is completely useless though in 2014 and beyond as far as most are concerned.

I wanted to argue that these machines hold their value so well that if you grow out of the RAM you chose, you can easily upgrade to a newer machine without taking much of a hit. However, as minimum RAM standards go up, that extra $200-$400 you gave Apple during the BTO stage will never be recovered once that RAM total becomes the new baseline. That does stink.
 

Razeus

macrumors 603
Jul 11, 2008
5,349
2,034
I fully expect to see better prices then. Apple is trying to do everthing it can to keep the price high. $1500 for a Macbook Pro is ridiculous. A base 13" Retina should be $1099, with "double spec" MBPr (double RAM, double SSD) should be $1299.
 

gspet01

macrumors newbie
Jun 13, 2011
13
0
Goodbye optical drive

I don't consider my desire for a built in optical drive to be an old fogy thing. My two daughters, both in their 20's, both bought non-retina MBs this past year specifically because they have built in optical drives. I'm quite irritated that I had to go buy an external optical drive for my new iMac. Why? So it can be thinner?

Apple made the correct call when they got rid of floppy drives in the 90's. They got it wrong this time. Or at least it was wrong to remove the option. My daughters are happy they have computers with built in drives. I'm unhappy I don't.
 

majkom

macrumors 68000
May 3, 2011
1,855
1,150
I don't consider my desire for a built in optical drive to be an old fogy thing. My two daughters, both in their 20's, both bought non-retina MBs this past year specifically because they have built in optical drives. I'm quite irritated that I had to go buy an external optical drive for my new iMac. Why? So it can be thinner?

Apple made the correct call when they got rid of floppy drives in the 90's. They got it wrong this time. Or at least it was wrong to remove the option. My daughters are happy they have computers with built in drives. I'm unhappy I don't.

You are damn wrong, my friend.. you and your daughters are minority here, most of us don`t use CDs and DVDs anymore, apple is simply doing what they were doing all the time, get rid of old technology just in time...
 

osofast240sx

macrumors 68030
Mar 25, 2011
2,541
16
I don't consider my desire for a built in optical drive to be an old fogy thing. My two daughters, both in their 20's, both bought non-retina MBs this past year specifically because they have built in optical drives. I'm quite irritated that I had to go buy an external optical drive for my new iMac. Why? So it can be thinner?

Apple made the correct call when they got rid of floppy drives in the 90's. They got it wrong this time. Or at least it was wrong to remove the option. My daughters are happy they have computers with built in drives. I'm unhappy I don't.

Can get an external drive not really a big deal. The less moving parts inside of my machine the better.
 

mono1980

macrumors 6502
Feb 15, 2005
420
190
Lansing, MI
This would be great as long as they lower the price of the 13" retina to match the old one. It could go either way with Apple, though.
 

Mal67

macrumors 6502a
Apr 2, 2006
519
36
West Oz
I don't consider my desire for a built in optical drive to be an old fogy thing. My two daughters, both in their 20's, both bought non-retina MBs this past year specifically because they have built in optical drives. I'm quite irritated that I had to go buy an external optical drive for my new iMac. Why? So it can be thinner?

Apple made the correct call when they got rid of floppy drives in the 90's. They got it wrong this time. Or at least it was wrong to remove the option. My daughters are happy they have computers with built in drives. I'm unhappy I don't.
I used to feel quite strongly about the removal of the drive too, especially when removing it was solely because of Apple's agenda of smaller, thinner, lighter and download it all from us. Despite the fact that smaller to me meant compromise and downloading was less covenient and cost me more. Hardly fitting of Apple's user ethos. Now I just put up with it because 1: they aint gonna change (and I prefer the osx experience overall) and 2: there will be no shortage of voices telling you that discs are out and to just buy an external drive. Good on you for speaking up in support of it though. BTW since firing my old white mb up the optical drive in it is getting more use than it ever had before I did the upgrade.
 

MacVista

macrumors 6502
Jun 18, 2007
303
2
I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of this. Just max if out when you buy it. If you configure it how you want it when you purchase it, you don't have to worry about it. I bought a Retina MBP 15" recently. I maxed out the ram and processor.

Can you please buy me a maxed-out $3,757 MBP 15" for pick up at the Apple store near by.
You are absolutely right, I don't know what the fuzz is about.
Thanks!!!
 

Rafterman

Contributor
Apr 23, 2010
7,161
8,614
You are damn wrong, my friend.. you and your daughters are minority here, most of us don`t use CDs and DVDs anymore, apple is simply doing what they were doing all the time, get rid of old technology just in time...

Actually, DVD's still sell in the tens of millions every year in the US alone. Hundreds of millions worldwide.

No, DVD's are not "old" tech, not yet anyways. Apple is simply doing away with a competitor to the iTunes store, plain and simple.
 

DenBeke

macrumors regular
Aug 11, 2011
192
8
Antwerp
*128GB PCI-e SSD vs a 5400 RPM turtle...Seriously, once you go SSD for your primary drive you will never look back. I have plenty of external storage that is redundantly backed up (External drives for speed and a RAID 5 NAS for redundancy, plus CrashPlan for offsite backup.) - I don't need to carry my entire photo library with me at all times.

Well, I don't need external drives, I want everything inside my Mac, so I need enough storage.

I'm running a 15" non retina with 250GB SSD and 750GB HDD... But if I had to choose between 128GB flash or 500GB mechanical, I'd choose for the more storage.
 

69650

Suspended
Mar 23, 2006
3,367
1,876
England
That would mean no way to have a MacBook with 1TB or 2TB of storage for an affordable price. Quite unfortunate. If it means they add a retina display, that would be fine with me.

They could always add the fusion drive option to the MBP but I don't think they will as the prices of large capacity flash memory is finally starting to fall.
 

Taz Mangus

macrumors 604
Mar 10, 2011
7,815
3,504
They axed the 17" in June 2012 without much explanation. Only that it comprised 1% of their laptop sales.

Then they axed the 15" recently in October 2013

It was obvious they are going to do the same to the 13". It didn't even receive the haswell update, which is big a shame. I do have to admit here, that you get a better value out of 13" retina MBP at this point.

Oh yes, and the 1% of laptop sales which were the 17" MBPs were bought by professionals who really needed it for their work.

Don't throw arguments at me that the 15" retina has better resolution and therefore is better than the old 17" because you probably don't know anything about screen's real estate. Oh, and it had antiglare option

I take good care of my early 2009 2.93GHz 17" which I maxed out and it's running flawlessly. I could hardly imagine replacing it for any retina MBP, even these days

I have a 2009 2.8GHz 17" Macbook Pro and it is heavy, that is the problem I have with it. The screen size is nice though. Would have been cool if Apple brought out a 17" Macbook Air.

----------

Well, I don't need external drives, I want everything inside my Mac, so I need enough storage.

I'm running a 15" non retina with 250GB SSD and 750GB HDD... But if I had to choose between 128GB flash or 500GB mechanical, I'd choose for the more storage.

SSD prices, even those that are specially designed for the Macbook Pro retina, are getting cheaper every year.
 

ValSalva

macrumors 68040
Jun 26, 2009
3,783
259
Burpelson AFB
Well, no upgrades for me then, I guess. I will not pay $1000 (or whatever Apple charges) for 8Gb RAM upgrade.

It's $100 to go from 4GB of RAM to 8GB. Not unreasonable.

At first I bristled at the soldered RAM in the rMBP's. I used to save every penny by buying third party RAM. But Apple's prices for RAM have at least come way down. And the benefits of the rMBP form factor came to outweigh the lack of upgradeability, at least for me.
 

seecoolguy

macrumors 6502
Nov 28, 2007
256
34
I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of this. Just max if out when you buy it. If you configure it how you want it when you purchase it, you don't have to worry about it. I bought a Retina MBP 15" recently. I maxed out the ram and processor.

Its not bad to swap out the drive that it comes with or even add a drive. Look it up. San Disk Extreme 128gb drives have been spotted for under $100.

eh? so you should max out a machine or vote to allow for upgradeable/replaceable drives?
 

69650

Suspended
Mar 23, 2006
3,367
1,876
England
Actually, DVD's still sell in the tens of millions every year in the US alone. Hundreds of millions worldwide.

No, DVD's are not "old" tech, not yet anyways. Apple is simply doing away with a competitor to the iTunes store, plain and simple.

Agreed. It'll be interesting to see what Apple does when UHD starts to become more mainstream. I can't imagine downloading a 20GB film from iTunes and even if you did you wouldn't get many films on a 128GB iPad. I'm still downloading SD content because the HD content takes ages to download and just fill up your hard dive in no time.

If the financials were right I can see Apple doing a Netflix in the near future and moving across to a subscription/streaming model. They could even give it away free with an iPhone contract like some others do.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.