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Comment by kalleboo | Hacker News Reader

But you can't upgrade them. I just added 4 GB of RAM and an SSD to my mom's 4-year-old MBP, ensuring it'll last another 3-4 years. 2 GB RAM and a 5400rpm drive just wasn't cutting it anymore. Several of my friends extended the lives of their MacBooks by replacing the DVD with a secondary SSD.

Apple's new generation design of Macs have soldered-in RAM and a proprietary disk. Will we be able to upgrade them in 4 years?

edit: Imagine if you could upgrade the RAM in an iPad. I could still have used my original iPad now instead of it being junk.

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Junk!!??

I have a first generation iPad and it does more things than the first day it was purchased.

Not being updated will mean that it will do the same things it does now but no more. That's far from junk.

Every iOS update slows it down more and more and makes apps crash more as they run out of RAM and developers have only tested it with the latest device.

You pointedly didn't respond to the post:

>> I have a first generation iPad and it does more things than the first day it was purchased.

That's certainly true of mine, crashing 3rd-party apps notwithstanding.

The original iPad was very much sold on the promise of upcoming third-party apps. If it didn't have the potential of apps, I would definitely not have bought it, just how I didn't buy the original iPhone.

And it has had upcoming third-party apps for 2+ years since you bought it. I'm not seeing the problem.

If your issue is "developers have only tested it with the latest device", that's not an issue Apple can correct.

This is simply not true.

I agree

That has not been my experience.

I also use a 1st gen iPad.

My dear friend, that's the definition of compromise. Lighter/smaller vs. being very powerful. I carry my 15" MacBook Pro + iPad 2 in my bag and the next time would definitely go with the lighter product.

I'm not saying I like it. I would probably buy a Retina MacBook Pro if it wasn't "crippled" (for me), now I just use my 2009 MacBook Pro a year longer, hoping for a better rMBP next year. It's crippled for me, but the retina MacBook Pro does more things than anything 95% of the world could hope to do in 3 years (it's a beast).

I'm still going to buy the new Retina MacBook Pro, but I can currently afford to upgrade my laptop every year and gift away the old one. Plus I personally don't care much about recycling/the environment.

That doesn't mean it's not an environmentally unfriendly design.

Not true, only the Retina Macbook Pro and Airs have soldered-in batteries/RAM, just like ultrabooks made by other manufacturers (ASUS, Dell, Acer).

It's a design decision. If you want an ultra thin/light machine then you have to compromise. If servicing the machine yourself is an issue then buy one of the 'regular' Macbooks.

Something's telling me the 'regular' MacBooks won't be around for very much longer.

Then the market will have spoken.

Sorry, with "new generation" I meant "next generation". There's no way the fullsize laptops are staying around any meaningful time (unless they survive on no-update life support like the Mac Pro)

Original iPad being junk? There's tons still in service. As a matter of fact, I'd imagine most who upgraded to the 2 or 3 did so due to additional features (camera, Retina), not the RAM.

Also, how do I upgrade the RAM in a Galaxy Tab or a Kindle Fire? I think the lack of upgradability is endemic to the tablet form-factor.

>how do I upgrade the RAM in a Galaxy Tab or a Kindle Fire?

You probably cannot, but iFixit gives the Fire a repairability score of 8 and the iPad a score of 2.

Be fair and link to the review:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Kindle-Fire-Teardown/7099/2#s...

Main positives are for ability to remove the back side and use of Phillips screws: big pluses. However, primary iPad issues: glued on front glass, RAM, persistent storage: all true for Kindle as well.

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