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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2014-05-01, 11:02

Quote:
Originally Posted by alcimedes View Post
In theory an SSD would take less energy than RAM, since RAM has to be powered to retain the data, where as an SSD writes and it's done.

To me the big screw job in all of this is that the RAM can't be upgraded, and that is Apple's cardinal sin.

This shit might be "OK" by their standards today, but in two or three years time that 4GB of RAM is going to be rearing its head even more than today, and you CAN'T FIX IT.

That's just stupid. Ship them all with 8GB minimum, or allow people to upgrade them after the fact, but you can't say "no upgrades after you buy it" and still allow people to buy machines with anemic RAM specs.

The consumer might not know any better, but Apple should.

(to be fair I haven't tried a machine with 4GB of RAM *and* an SSD) Maybe in that combination the lack of RAM isn't nearly as noticeable, SSD's to seem to smooth over a wide variety of 'slowness' perceptions and realities with machines.
Yeah, that's why I wrote/asked what I did earlier...if 4G of RAM - combined with SSDs and the way Mavericks treats memory - might make it less noticeable than on a pre-Mavericks MacBook with a traditional hard drive (at 5400rpm or whatever).

But you're right...Apple should know, even if the consumer doesn't, and just cover that since 4GB may not seem like much in 18-24 months. That's also why I was curious about what it costs Apple to use 8GB instead of 4GB.

I, too, don't like the movement of "here it is, what you buy is what you're stuck with for the life of the machine...but we're going to make the stock amount lower than it probably should be, and we're going to charge you quite a bit to upgrade it. That means you pretty much have to order online and go through the BTO procedure (often adding several days to the purchase/delivery). We know you'd like to walk into your local Apple Store or Best Buy and just get what you want (and feel good about its specs over the long haul). Tough!"

The 21.5" iMac is the same way, and I've written about that plenty. It's no longer user-upgradeable either, and so you're having to make those decisions with it as well. Just seems wrong that a desktop of that kind is sealed/inaccessible (after having not been since 1999).

Do one or the other...either figure out a way to build an Air with user-upgradeable RAM, OR put a solid, decent amount in stock for 2014 (and for the high price people are paying for these things), and then let the BTO be geared toward those who're really needing the extra or pushing their machines more than the average user.

Can't have it both ways..."we're welding the thing shut/soldering everything to the board AND we're skimping on the stock amounts! You want a RAM amount you're going to feel good about come 2016 or so? Fork over now, pal...".
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