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Other Starting to appreciate some bits of the Intel-Mac era.
- Thread starter TheLion01
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I do realise. It's not a new practice, but it is anti-consumer and anti-environment. It's a particular annoyance to me as my last MacBook Air, which was otherwise perfectly fine, was an entire write-off because the RAM failed. What would once have been a 5 minute fix now meant 1kg of e-waste.
A thoughtful answer. I appreciate you. It makes little sense to me to criticize growth of a company moving into new markets as their devices (iphone in your pocket) support it, technology (digital payment & currencies etc) already exist and market demand (customers whether it be end user or shareholder) exists for it. This in short stifles the very innovation that provides the products we enjoy including every single early intel mac we are all enjoying now (I use at least 5 in my own home), of course we cant put one of those in our pocket or pay for a latte with it.
I realize our perspectives may differ but our differences are what I value in thoughtful discourse and I appreciate yours. Now a world absent of freewill is a world absent of personal moral responsibility so we as consumers are free to point the finger at the institution free of any moral obligation or responsibility surrounding our own purchases and use of them; our own actions & choices. Paradoxically business uses this market data directly to drive where innovation dollars go, what products to pursue and what not etc. Where/what to compete and what to stay out of. So internally we can attempt to isolate ourselves; nd remove any moral responsibility from our actions when in reality our collective action directly impact the product line. So with this in mind one can understand and see our direct moral relationship to Apple as consumers of Apple products thus our responbility is hand in hand with Apple shareholders and Apple itself.
We are not separate from them or victims of a nefarious organization. Apple is providing what we collectively want.
That was true for a period of time. You can buy that same RAM socketed now. They started advertising it a few months ago and it should be shipping already.
These upgrade prices are exactly what drives the value of Apple Silicon down. The base models are very well priced and very competitive IMO.
I think it ends up costing less to just buy the base models of any Mac and resell-upgrade every 1-2 years, rather than upgrade the RAM and Storage from the get go and keeping the Mac for 5-6 years.
One small hack you can do with a Mac Mini or Mac Studio (or Mac Pro if anyone feels like this is still a thing) is to buy external NVME. You can buy a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro for like $200 and 4 TB for like $350.
I think it ends up costing less to just buy the base models of any Mac and resell-upgrade every 1-2 years, rather than upgrade the RAM and Storage from the get go and keeping the Mac for 5-6 years.
One small hack you can do with a Mac Mini or Mac Studio (or Mac Pro if anyone feels like this is still a thing) is to buy external NVME. You can buy a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro for like $200 and 4 TB for like $350.
RAM failures on MacBooks were a lot less common than RAM slot failures, which generally resulted in the board being consigned to the scrap heap anyway.
Fun fact: for the years after the first Retina models were introduced, Apple's warranty costs declined year over year for 2012-2016. Yes, some of that was having mostly reliable GPUs (the 650M's in the 2012s seem to have been a bit more failure prone than the same chip in the non-Retina) but it was also because they were just built better.
That memory is A: intended for server use B: going to be hellaciously expensive C: isn't for on-die use like Apple Silicon is designed around.
Everybody brings valid points more or less.
I believe the Intel MacBooks were the best looking laptops ever made, especially the 2016-2019. Unpopular opinion, but I believe we will miss Jony Ive. Yes, I am aware the 14 inch M1 Pro that I am typing on is basically 2008 unibody macbook design.
What people may forget (or take it for granted) is that I do not believe the Apple laptops would have been where there are now in popularity if it wasn't for the Intel/Bootcamp support. A lot of people were "willing to give it a shot" because, if anything, they can rely on Windows.
All I am saying Intel had its place and its time, it was the right decision and the right time back in 2006.
I have also played a bit with powerbooks/PPC. Ultimately, I think Silicon is, as in 2006, the right decision at the right time. It feels again like a "pure Mac". And ironically, as people have pointed out, the base models are offering amazing value, something that was not the case in the post-2013 era.
Also, I certainly do not miss waiting for the 2014/2015 MacBook Pro threads from over here where mad hopes and desperations would settle for hundreds of pages only to get a 5-8% intel increase and if any graphical performance at all.
To put things into perspective, I just checked ebay, a 16" M1 Max 64 ram 4tb those "ebay refurbished" stores where you do not get scammed, was around $2500. That's half the prices (or even more of a discount) just 2 years later.
Once Windows gets on board with ARM, which it will and especially Windows Rosetta for any 32-bit/oldware than nobody is going to miss the Intel Era macbooks. Even the small jumps that we get today in Silicon are much better than we were getting in 2013-2014. The "golden age" Intel era was only for a couple of years 2011-2013. The 2016 macbooks were clearly tailored for something only Apple Silicon would have been able to provide.
So basically better Windows and return to sexy af designs will make the macbook again the undisputed (overall) best laptop.
I believe the Intel MacBooks were the best looking laptops ever made, especially the 2016-2019. Unpopular opinion, but I believe we will miss Jony Ive. Yes, I am aware the 14 inch M1 Pro that I am typing on is basically 2008 unibody macbook design.
What people may forget (or take it for granted) is that I do not believe the Apple laptops would have been where there are now in popularity if it wasn't for the Intel/Bootcamp support. A lot of people were "willing to give it a shot" because, if anything, they can rely on Windows.
All I am saying Intel had its place and its time, it was the right decision and the right time back in 2006.
I have also played a bit with powerbooks/PPC. Ultimately, I think Silicon is, as in 2006, the right decision at the right time. It feels again like a "pure Mac". And ironically, as people have pointed out, the base models are offering amazing value, something that was not the case in the post-2013 era.
Also, I certainly do not miss waiting for the 2014/2015 MacBook Pro threads from over here where mad hopes and desperations would settle for hundreds of pages only to get a 5-8% intel increase and if any graphical performance at all.
To put things into perspective, I just checked ebay, a 16" M1 Max 64 ram 4tb those "ebay refurbished" stores where you do not get scammed, was around $2500. That's half the prices (or even more of a discount) just 2 years later.
Once Windows gets on board with ARM, which it will and especially Windows Rosetta for any 32-bit/oldware than nobody is going to miss the Intel Era macbooks. Even the small jumps that we get today in Silicon are much better than we were getting in 2013-2014. The "golden age" Intel era was only for a couple of years 2011-2013. The 2016 macbooks were clearly tailored for something only Apple Silicon would have been able to provide.
So basically better Windows and return to sexy af designs will make the macbook again the undisputed (overall) best laptop.
I don't think I've ever heard of any real-life scenario of RAM failing in my entire life. Is it really a thing ?
Yes.
Boss bought a brand new 2004 PowerMac G5 in February 2005. A year later, one ram stick failed. I spent an hour or so on a light workday running it through Apple's tools to figure it out. Apple replaced the stick.
No biggie, except when the stick bought the farm it took out the B-Tree in the HFS+ filing system. That meant certain apps would quit with no warning whenever certain standard functions were used. I tried to rescue the disk, which led to DiskWarrior. Unfortunately, that wouldn't work because it can't recover the B-Tree from OS 10.3.9 Panther, which the G5 was running at the time. I was forced to not only reinstall the system, but reinstall apps and redo preferences for each and every app I had to reinstall.
So yes. RAM failure happens. And it can take out a disk system.
You should've had a "True Hero" status on MR forum if one existed
Intel is dinosaur for laptops. I type this on a 2016 MBP but it is a redundant box, replaced by an M2 MBP with 96 GB RAM. Higher end desktops will take longer to go defunct because they were able to add lots of RAM, but desktops are also aging out. M-series is the Mac future.
This is tech we are talking about; no room for nostalgia really. Intel on Macs is EOL. If you actually like Windows ("I still like my Windows..."), go buy Windows. And tinker away with old Intel Mac if you want to tinker. But if you want to compute, look to the M series chips and do not cheap out on RAM.
Upgrading has always been costly, even when it was third-party. The +$400 it cost for each +32 GB RAM to my M2 MBP was IMO well worth it for a pricey laptop I expect to use for 6-7 years like I did the last two MBPs with max RAM.
That's so weird, I have been starting to appreciate the Dark Ages.
I built my own stand-up desk to hold three 4K displays on Vesa mounts. The 44" high 38"x60" desk surface is verathane but the rest is all raw lumber, works great. I actually extended the desk about a foot on each end to make it ~7' long total. When I need to sit down I use the RAM-limited-out secondary laptop or unplug the M2 MBP if I need the horsepower.
My first Mac experience was with non-upgradeable MacBook 12" with Intel Core m5 SkyLake, so I have no comment on this. However, I've known some of my friends who vehemently keeping their pre-retina era MacBook Pro simply because of its upgradability, thus I understand your point.
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I'm still using that cute little MacBook 12" to this day, albeit just for media consumption connected to my living room TV because the backlight of its screen has died. The setups are: my TV, the MacBook + multi dongle hidden away in a cabinet, and wireless keyboard + mouse on the coffee table. This killed my temptation to buy an AppleTV or an iMac.
You need to read up on Unified Memory Architecture and stop ignorantly claiming anti-consumer and anti-environment just because Mac tech has evolved to become more efficient.
Hint: It is about physics. M3 chips are built on an ~3 nanometer process. Repeat: nanometer.
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I'd love to be handy like that, but I'm not. It would just look really bad. I also do not have the time or money, so for me it's whatever tables I can find. And I like the current table I have. I'd order another, but it's not in stock anymore so I will be using a different table at some point that is the same height.
I look forward to when I can pay for what I want, done right with the materials and look I want.
RAM failures were less common than RAM slot failures? I've never heard of a RAM slot failure. I tried a search but couldn't find anything to back this claim up, that the slots fail more than the RAM itself... got a link?
What's stopping Apple using socketed LPDDR RAM in laptops? It's the same RAM, socketed or on die. Performance losses over a 3-6cm run would be insignificant.
Edit: Why would it be hellishly expensive to buy? It won't be- why would people buy it for servers if it was? It has to be economical to make sense. RAM is RAM- the active component is the same whether socketed or not?
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I've had RAM fail on a personal PC too. Once upon a time (20 years ago) when I briefly worked at BT, RAM was regularly failing. It's far less common now, but evidently does occur.
There is a model of the Aluminum 15" PowerBook G4 that was noted for it's lower ram slot failure. My son has one of these (with the ram slot failure).
Uh, are you suggesting recycled dead products aren't electronic waste because they're recycled?
I guess anything in a computer can fail... I can't find any stats on the prevalence of RAM slot failure.
Haha, yep, simplifies repairs I guess, when "replace" is the solution to every problem! 😅🤦♂️