It's not like Apple soldered some plain old DDR5 to a PCB to be difficult:
1. It's TSMC's InFO_POP, which has significant performance benefits.
2. There weren't even any modules that existed for LPDDR until very recently. (and while the A18 was being designed, it didn't exist)
3. The power/price/performance/thermals they are able to achieve with this configuration is not possible with socketed RAM. You are asking them to make the device worse
Go pop open a Framework with an Ryzen AI Max processor -- you won't find socketed RAM. Technology has moved on. Math coprocessors and CPU cache aren't separate modules anymore either. AMD has even said they studied the possibility of LPCAMM for Strix Halo and found that even it wasn't good enough for signal integrity.
I picked up a 15" Macbook Air (M3) for $849 — clearance @costco early 2025.
This model only has 8gb of RAM — which is fine for streaming videos/typing — it absolutely could not be my daily driver, but makes for good casual usage.
Machines probably should ship with more than that (or a lighter operating system?), particularly when the RAM isn't upgradeable. I'll recon Apple supports at least two more macOS on these 8GB configurations.
My favorite machine only has 4GB of RAM (Core2Duo Max, Win7Pro) and works good, albeit nothing modern.
That device was explicitly made with "not enough" memory, because if it had enough, it'd cannibalize a significant portion of their higher-margin products' sales.
I'd argue that if memory and storage were still customer-expendable, they wouldn't have even considered making this product.
> simp: be excessively attentive or submissive to a person in whom one is romantically or sexually interested.
This word does not appear to be in any way relevant. You do not have to buy a MacBook Neo, but approximately everyone else in the low-end laptop market will.
If you think it is a bad product, go buy some Acer stock.
It's not like Apple soldered some plain old DDR5 to a PCB to be difficult:
1. It's TSMC's InFO_POP, which has significant performance benefits.
2. There weren't even any modules that existed for LPDDR until very recently. (and while the A18 was being designed, it didn't exist)
3. The power/price/performance/thermals they are able to achieve with this configuration is not possible with socketed RAM. You are asking them to make the device worse
Go pop open a Framework with an Ryzen AI Max processor -- you won't find socketed RAM. Technology has moved on. Math coprocessors and CPU cache aren't separate modules anymore either. AMD has even said they studied the possibility of LPCAMM for Strix Halo and found that even it wasn't good enough for signal integrity.
The "Mac memory is special" shtick is getting old. macOS is a heavy OS, 8gb is an objective liability to the SSD lifespan.
Not a single thing in my comment has anything to do with MacOS.
You realize that most customer shopping for the cheapest computer they can find are not going to upgrade their RAM.
And Apple is effectively committing to supporting 8GB computers with their OS upgrades for years to come.
I picked up a 15" Macbook Air (M3) for $849 — clearance @costco early 2025.
This model only has 8gb of RAM — which is fine for streaming videos/typing — it absolutely could not be my daily driver, but makes for good casual usage.
Machines probably should ship with more than that (or a lighter operating system?), particularly when the RAM isn't upgradeable. I'll recon Apple supports at least two more macOS on these 8GB configurations.
My favorite machine only has 4GB of RAM (Core2Duo Max, Win7Pro) and works good, albeit nothing modern.
That device was explicitly made with "not enough" memory, because if it had enough, it'd cannibalize a significant portion of their higher-margin products' sales.
I'd argue that if memory and storage were still customer-expendable, they wouldn't have even considered making this product.
That handily edits multiple 4K streams
[flagged]
> simp: be excessively attentive or submissive to a person in whom one is romantically or sexually interested.
This word does not appear to be in any way relevant. You do not have to buy a MacBook Neo, but approximately everyone else in the low-end laptop market will.
If you think it is a bad product, go buy some Acer stock.
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