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Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

> Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered

Unless that RAM fails in some way or another, then you have to replace the whole motherboard because of this.

It depends - soldered RAM (LPDDR) on iPads and soldered SSD on Intel Mac Minis can be repaired by replacing the chip. (But obviously it requires skills and specialised tools). So you don't necessarily need to replace the whole board. But if it is some kind of "integrated" non-standard RAM, like Apple uses on its ARM series SoCs, it is near unrepairable. So yeah, one should think many times before buying a computer with soldered RAM. (On the positive side, I've never had to replace any RAM in any computers I've owned so far - the failure point has always been HDDs for me).

in case of macbooks even if something like usb port controller failed is most likely leads to board replacement as well so is high change that even if RAM is fine it could be useless because some $2 component failure

macbooks have modular ports.

https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...

The MacBook Neo has modular ports. The rest of them don't. They may introduce them more widely in the next redesign but that remains to be seen.

The piece I linked, along with the parts for sale in the iFixIt shop seem to contradict your assertion. The piece says:

"The Neo has the same modular bits and bobs we’ve applauded in recent MacBook designs. The USB-C ports are modular, so a damaged charge port doesn’t turn into logic board work."

good that they improving but I have one 2019 macbook died because of that issue, probably my M1 also could die because of that.

The M1s have the modular ports, if iFixIt is to be believed:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+14-Inch+2021+USB-C+...

I've only changed a battery on that model, not the ports, so I haven't verified, but those steps are detailed enough and consistent enough with what I observed, that I believe them.

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