10-17-2014, 03:17 PM
decay wrote:
Just logged in and checked it out, Chris.
Wow.
"bottom cover can no longer be removed by the user"
From a service provider standpoint, soldered RAM is a waste of time.
Troubleshooting bad memory? Pull sticks and substitute with on-hand known-good memory.
Now you have to order a logic board, wait a day or more, and do a major replacement. What a time-suck.
I'm still on the fence on the soldered ram debate...
On one hand, my gut feeling is that the soldered ram is much more relaible than socketed. I've never had Memtest find errors with onboard ram on the newer Macs. I did a lot of warranty claims for either bad ram or defective ram slots in machines over the years. That is a non issue in soldered ram machines. I bet that Apple looked at the service repair data and found that soldering on the ram leads to less ram problems and fewer warranty claims as well as reducing the cost of manufacturing. A win-win from their perspective.
On the other hand, ram is cheap, logic boards are not. If the ram does fail out of warranty it means an expensive repair or recycling the device. It also means you need to determine the future amount of ram you need at the time of purchase.