Technology MacBook Pro Retina has SOLDERED MEMORY

[tom_mai78101]

Be sure to order your MacBook Pro 'Retina' with 16GB memory.

My information is that the 2012 Apple MacBook Pro 'Retina' has its memory SOLDERED TO THE LOGIC BOARD.

Meaning that if you get 8GB memory, you are screwed if you later want 16GB. Sorry for the use of overly technical terminology there, but the 'f' key was not working on my keyboard.

The failure of Apple to mention this critical buying fact sets a dismal low in product marketing. How many potential buyers will figure out that the choice at the time of purchase is a permanent limitation to a “pro” model. The verbiage about “clock cycles” is so irrelevant compared to the fact of “non-upgradeable”.

“Increasing the amount of memory in your Macbook Pro is an easy way to improve performance”.​

​

Except that you cannot increase it. Cannot upgrade from 8GB to 16GB after purchase. Ever. It’s contemptible for Apple to omit this key fact for a $3000 laptop, especially when blathering on about memory speed and clock cycles, missing the forest for a tree.

MacBook Pro Retina has SOLDERED MEMORY

macperformanceguide.com

 

[MrBrooks]

I dislike all Apple products simply for the fact that they:
1. Update their products every 6-8 months
2. Other products out-perform them <month after release or announcement
3. They cost stupid amounts
4. You can build a computer twice as fast for the same price, at best lower.

About 50% of an Apple products price is just design. It's ridiculous. Plus 8GB of RAM is plentyful as it's very rare that applications use 4GB.

 

[rover2341]

Ill wonder if they did this, to improve batter life some how, or size of the computer. So they might have had good intentions.

But... I am with MrBroooks. I am not much of a apple fan for most of the same reasons.

 

[Accname]

Ill wonder if they did this, to improve batter life some how, or size of the computer. So they might have had good intentions.

But... I am with MrBroooks. I am not much of a apple fan for most of the same reasons.

I can also imagine it makes it slightly faster.
You know, with the speed of todays ram, there is hardly much you can do to make it much more faster exept for reducing the distance the signals have to travel. After all, even electronic current does not teleport from A to B and the movement time is time not spend efficiently.
But that would be minimal gain i guess.

What i dislike with apple products is that you can hardly upgrade them by hand. I can just screw my computer open and switch its components at any time. I guess with an apple mac i couldnt do it. At least as far as i have heard.

 

[Slapshot136]

they get one thing right on the display, and then screw up elsewhere.. and I was actually interested in this one...

 

[Bribe]

The display is pointlessly large, they could have gotten away with far fewer pixels and achieved the "retina" effect from normal viewing distances.

Either that or they should have installed a much better GPU. They hailed Diablo III as an early adopter for the retina resolution but they failed to supply a graphics card that can max out Diablo III at said resolution. A plain boring 15" MacBook Pro can max out Diablo III at the simpler resolution with the 650m, however, making it the perfect candidate to do so.

Apple also artificially cripples the GPU in the entry-level 15" MacBook Pro for no reason other than to trick people into spending even more money on their devices.

Apple also artificially limits the hard drive path in their basic 13" machine - you can give a more "spendy" 13" machine a 1TB hard drive but not the entry level version? The same is true with the entry-level iMac - you can't even change the hard drive there!

 

[sqrage]

I can also imagine it makes it slightly faster.

It would not make it faster...

 

[Accname]

It would not make it faster...

It would make it insignificantly, slightly faster, the signals have to travel through your computer, and the longer the distances the more time it takes.
Thats the reason why they try to make processors even more tiny, or at least, the distance between each transistor.

But i dont think thats the reason, my guess is they are just stupid.

 

[Slapshot136]

It would make it insignificantly, slightly faster, the signals have to travel through your computer, and the longer the distances the more time it takes.
Thats the reason why they try to make processors even more tiny, or at least, the distance between each transistor.

But i dont think thats the reason, my guess is they are just stupid.

memory has not yet had it's bus saturated (as in the pins that connect the memory to the motherboard are not the weakest link), therefore it's pretty useless - the one thing that this may improve on is power consumption by making better contact, but by such a small amount (much less that 1%) and the fact that memory itself consumes very little compared to the rest of the system, that's not going to be measurable, much less noticeable - the one thing that they could do is skip on the expensive gold-coated contacts and just use copper, but even those aren't that expensive, since it's very thin (just on the surface) to have better contact

 

[Accname]

memory has not yet had it's bus saturated (as in the pins that connect the memory to the motherboard are not the weakest link), therefore it's pretty useless - the one thing that this may improve on is power consumption by making better contact, but by such a small amount (much less that 1%) and the fact that memory itself consumes very little compared to the rest of the system, that's not going to be measurable, much less noticeable - the one thing that they could do is skip on the expensive gold-coated contacts and just use copper, but even those aren't that expensive, since it's very thin (just on the surface) to have better contact

The RAM needs a huge amount of energy. It needs to be refreshed constantly because of how it is build it would otherwise not be able to save the data. the RAM basically needs to be constantly supplied with electricity.

I dont know, how much the bus is actually saturated. Might be that you are right and no real gain in speed is gotten with closer distances.
But as i said i dont think thats the reason anyways. Might be that apple just dont want you to be able to upgrade it.

 

[Slapshot136]

The RAM needs a huge amount of energy.

each stick of ram uses about 1 watt of energy - yes it needs continuous electricity, but not much, and less than 1% (the amount saved by soldering it instead of the normal insertion) is insignificant

for comparison a regular screen uses 10- 20W depending on brightness, the SSD between 2-5 watts, and the CPU between 25-45W, with the motherboard also consuming some electricity depending on how much connections and expansions it supports (and are enabled)

and to explain the 1%, that is about how much more efficient a non-modular PSU is compared to a modular PSU, in which you can remove unnecessary cables since the cables are removable - but those use regular copper contacts, while the ram uses gold-plated contacts which are much better in the first place, therefore the loss from the soldered connection to the insertion connection will be much less

 

[Icyculyr]

I dislike all Apple products simply for the fact that they:
1. Update their products every 6-8 months
2. Other products out-perform them <month after release or announcement
3. They cost stupid amounts
4. You can build a computer twice as fast for the same price, at best lower.

About 50% of an Apple products price is just design. It's ridiculous. Plus 8GB of RAM is plentyful as it's very rare that applications use 4GB.

1) It's 9 months to 12 months.
2) Untrue.
3) Untrue.
4) No, but you can build one just as fast that's much cheaper but that's true of any computer

Ill wonder if they did this, to improve batter life some how, or size of the computer. So they might have had good intentions.

But... I am with MrBroooks. I am not much of a apple fan for most of the same reasons.

It contributes to the thinness.

The display is pointlessly large, they could have gotten away with far fewer pixels and achieved the "retina" effect from normal viewing distances.

No. It's necessary for the new resolution to be two fold the actual workspace being provided else much trouble arises. That's why when you choose the "more space" scaling option it renders at 3840x2400 and then downscales it to 1920x1200.

Either that or they should have installed a much better GPU. They hailed Diablo III as an early adopter for the retina resolution but they failed to supply a graphics card that can max out Diablo III at said resolution. A plain boring 15" MacBook Pro can max out Diablo III at the simpler resolution with the 650m, however, making it the perfect candidate to do so.

Then game at 1440x900. It'll look exactly as it does on the standard 15 inch MacBook Pro with the 900p resolution. Or try 1680x1050, 1920x1200 or 2048x1280 -- mix and match resolution and settings to get what you want.

>>>>>

Oh and Apple does say that this memory isn't upgradable later on, right on the purchasing page under the memory tab:

Memory
More memory (RAM) increases overall performance and enables your computer to run more applications at the same time.
The more memory your computer has, the more programs you can run simultaneously, and the better performance you get from your computer. Increasing the amount of memory in your MacBook Pro is an easy way to improve performance.

How much memory is right for you?
Choose the standard memory to support day-to-day tasks such as email, word processing, and web browsing as well as more complex tasks such as editing photos, creating illustrations, and building complex presentations.
Max out the memory in your MacBook Pro with the 16GB option to enjoy the greatest possible performance for all your computing tasks.
MacBook Pro with Retina display uses one of the fastest memory technologies available today — 1600MHz, Double Data Rate (DDR3L), synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) — ensuring that the Intel Core i7 processor is constantly fed with data without wasting clock cycles.

Every MacBook Pro with Retina Display comes with 8GB of memory built into the system. If you feel you may need 16GB in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of purchase, as RAM is not upgradeable in this model.

Considering the date of the article it's quite possible that Apple simply hadn't put up that part of it yet.

 

[rover2341]

1. Update their products every 6-8 months
2. Other products out-perform them <month after release or announcement
3. They cost stupid amounts
4. You can build a computer twice as fast for the same price, at best lower.

1. No Idea.
2. no comment.
3. define stupid amounts. You just have to understand your paying that priuem price. rarely for the hardware. as you can get it generally for quite a bit cheaper. But generally your paying it to know apple put it togather, and to get the mac os software.
4. eh, yes and no. if you buy a top end mac, you genearly geting pretty high specs. but i know for what my wife paid for her laptop. (2.5k her dad paid) for 1k - 1.5k She could have had twice the proccessing power, and a large SSD, more memory, better graicifs card. and 1k to spend on anything else.





My wife is a big mac fan, i am not. She claims that mac books last looking due to them not being slaped togather by someone who just wants a cheap computer. I personaly see her point, but for the most part think the amount more they charge for the same hardware, (aside from the apple logo) is a bit much.

I personaly am not a huge fan of the apple system either. due to limations put on most systems on what hardware can be used.

But i have to admit, most buyers dont upgrade there computer specs after they buy it, and its nice to know the os has made 100% sure that there drivers work well with the system. there are less variables in the equation to go wrong. Support Most hardware (PC), Support Limited hardware (Mac). Ill bet there is less conflicts on mac with it.

But to me limiting what hardware i am allowed to use due to mac not giving the ok... before hand is not cool.

 

[Accname]

I read an article about this, although it was some time ago and i cannot give you the source anymore, but basically the prize of apple products is about 25 - 40% higher then non-apple products of the same quality.

What i have also noticed is that many games say that you need more ram to play them on an apple mac compared to windows.
For sc2 for example it goes like this:
Windows XP: 1 GB RAM (minimum), 2 GB recommended
Windows Vista/7: 1.5GB RAM (minimum), 2 GB recommended
Mac OS: 2GB RAM (minimum), 4 GB recommended

I dont really understand this. Does the OS need so much more RAM? Why does the game somehow need double that much RAM when running on Mac OS?

Source

 

[Icyculyr]

I read an article about this, although it was some time ago and i cannot give you the source anymore, but basically the prize of apple products is about 25 - 40% higher then non-apple products of the same quality.

That's sound pretty wrong. The iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook Air are all similarly priced to the competition, and even the MacBook Pro is too if you include battery life in your comparison.

What i have also noticed is that many games say that you need more ram to play them on an apple mac compared to windows.
For sc2 for example it goes like this:
Windows XP: 1 GB RAM (minimum), 2 GB recommended
Windows Vista/7: 1.5GB RAM (minimum), 2 GB recommended
Mac OS: 2GB RAM (minimum), 4 GB recommended

I dont really understand this. Does the OS need so much more RAM? Why does the game somehow need double that much RAM when running on Mac OS?

Source

It may be because OS X is a RAM hog -- it loves all the RAM you can give it.

 

[Bribe]

Oh and Apple does say that this memory isn't upgradable later on, right on the purchasing page under the memory tab:
...
Considering the date of the article it's quite possible that Apple simply hadn't put up that part of it yet.

That's exactly it. They silently updated it. It should also be mentioned on their site that your flash storage is also soldered on, and let's not forget that the battery is for no apparent reason glued on. However they do mention that you get a one year warranty on it, unless you pay them an extra £279 for a 3-year warranty. The fact that you can't get anything longer than a 3 year warranty is a deal breaker for me.

Clearly Apple is uninterested in the market of people who want to upgrade their own computers and want to customize with any kind of RAM/HD/CPU/GPU. Lately, Apple is only interested in serving people who are too uneducated to know enough about what they are buying. They used to care a lot more, but they stopped once they created iOS. Since then, they have slowly brought over oodles of iOS handicaps features over to the Mac.

By the way I am an Apple sales rep. I know how to shark noobs but no one who is like me is going to consider the proposal.

 

[Icyculyr]

That's exactly it. They silently updated it. It should also be mentioned on their site that your flash storage is also soldered on, and let's not forget that the battery is for no apparent reason glued on. However they do mention that you get a one year warranty on it, unless you pay them an extra £279 for a 3-year warranty. The fact that you can't get anything longer than a 3 year warranty is a deal breaker for me.

There is a reason: to make it thinner. Anything else they would use to secure the battery would take up more room and if you look at the insides its pretty clear there's no room available.

Don't most companies only offer a 3 year warranty as max? Is it possible to get a longer warranty from a place like SquareTrade or something?

Clearly Apple is uninterested in the market of people who want to upgrade their own computers and want to customize with any kind of RAM/HD/CPU/GPU.

It's more like their targeting the majority because it's more profitable.

Lately, Apple is only interested in serving people who are too uneducated to know enough about what they are buying.

How so?

They used to care a lot more, but they stopped once they created iOS. Since then, they have slowly brought over oodles of iOS handicaps features over to the Mac.

They're making OS X and iOS work well together, and they do. I like the features they brought over, and I'm looking forward to having a Notification Centre too.

By the way I am an Apple sales rep. I know how to shark noobs but no one who is like me is going to consider the proposal.

That's not true, some techies, such as myself, would purchase the Retina MacBook Pro. I don't need a laptop, but if I did I'd grab it for sure. I'm just waiting on the iMacs to get the Retina display.