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Sealed-Box Macs: Should Computers Be Disposable?
An anonymous reader writes "Apple's new Retina MacBook Pro is essentially completely non-upgradable, a sealed-box, following a trend started with the MacBook Air in 2008. It's a given that hardware companies are in the business of selling hardware, and would love for computers to have iPhone-like replacement cycles of 1-3 years. But does this mean we're moving irresistibly into an era of 'sealed-unit computing,' even for power users?"
Only if you want to spend money with Apple. I'll stick with building my own, or using a laptop from a brand where I can upgrade it if I want.
... wait, what?
According to your sig, this is what we call insightful. ;-)
It very much is the way things are going to be done and it turns out, people like it. The experiment was first tried with the MacBook Air and people bought it without hesitation. Had the Air been a flop this wouldn't be happening.
Or put another way, I've never met someone that "upgraded" their laptop after 2 years anyway. They hand it down or put it to work in the corner of the room, but they aren't upgraded. Whether it is a Dell, Mac, or Thinkpad. I put more ram in mine after 3, but I think I"m by far the exception. The most upgrades laptops probably ever received was in that period of time when you could replace the old hdd with ssd and get a huge bump. Now we're falling out of that even as laptops come stock with ssd.
Honestly, they're not "sealed" to sell more hardware. Nobody in their right mind is buying a new $3000 laptop every three years.
The reasons are twofold:
1) It is easier to make the laptop thinner and smaller if it does not have to have the mechanics necessary to facilitate taking it apart (screws, bulkheads, etc), or to make it modular (why not just mount a bunch of SMT flash to the motherboard for a disk drive rather than have a 9mm thick 2.5" wide 3" long metal box with yet another circuit board in it? It's more profitable to just integrate everything on one board.
2) We're in a state of development where hardware is a decade or more ahead of software. There is too much computer and not enough problem. My Athlon X2 from 2005 does everything I need it to do, and will do so for years to come. So, why bother with upgrades anymore? They are unnecessary unless you're a hardcore gamer, in which case you're not buying a laptop.
As genie for today, I will grant you your wish: Apple Recycling Program. Not only do they pay shipping, you get a gift card, too.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sweetheart, a market research person placed rather high up in a Fortune 500 company. She's a smart cookie. I consider myself to not be too stupid either. Anyway here's the gist of the argument.
I'm an old dinosaur, having been around the PC since it took off in the 70's. I've always had a PC since my teenage years - Apple II, PC XT, AT, and all the way across the upgrade path to the current i7 quad core I'm writing this on. As a dinosaur, I always have in the back of my mind the modular design of the computer. PC's were originally sold to us on expandability - the ISA slots. With those 8 slots you could increase the memory, add in a co-processor, a graphics card - hard drives, when those came out. The sky was the limit. And no one wanted to buy a computer that had few ISA slots - I mean, why shoot yourself in the foot right at the beginning? Compatibility was also paramount. It had to be IBM-compatible, because that was the "gold standard".
But the market has changed. Kids nowadays, and Joe Public who isn't a computer expert at all - well they really don't give a damn about keeping their options open. They want a neat little package that works with as little hassle as possible. The things I value in a computer are not the things they value in a computer. And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.
Of course I think the current trend is wrong. I am dead set against the top-down model that manufacturers are desperate to impose on people - buy this machine, and then only buy from my store, and only run apps that I say, and eventually, don't run apps at all - lease CPU time from us "in the cloud" (which is just another way of saying the old mainfraime/client model). I think there is great danger in this route - because no one will look after your data, and you can be denied access to your data. And of course you will have to pay to access your data. Without even mentioning security problems. Personal computers had broken through that top-down model and everyone had a mini supercomputer (at least what passed for one in the 70's) on their desk and could do anything they wanted. Now you will only be able to do what you are allowed. But again, the market doesn't care. The market wants facebook and skype and angry birds and a camera and a phone and to be able to watch tv, and that's it.
Apple has seen this, and oh god are they ever cashing in. Others are catching up. But the direction of the technology is the same, be it apple or the competitors. A locked device, and pay for service. I think it's a shame, but I'll be dead soon.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The T and W-series ThinkPads have socketed CPUs.
And the displays can be upgraded.
And the drive is removable, so you can add Blu-Ray or whatever you'd like.
And Lenovo publishes complete manuals with step-by-step instructions detailing how to disassemble everything and how to replace pretty much any part (along with a list of the FRU numbers for said parts.)
And they let you order individual parts (or you can just get them from any number of third party suppliers.)
And replacing CRUs doesn't void the warranty.
Your turn.
The real litigious bastards...
If Apple were a monopoly I would get all the geek hand wringing over how serviceable their computers are, but they aren't by a long shot. As such this speculation makes no sense to me. Perhaps it's because I remember a time when a "PC" meant it came from IBM, or one of a few people who licensed bits of the technology from them. There was no choice.
Today I can build my own from Newegg. I can buy a generic pre-made box from Dell or HP, Acer or PacBell, or hundreds of others. I can buy sexy form-factor machines from Apple, Alienware (a dell company), Sony, Asus, and Shuttle. Tablets and phones that didn't exist even 5 years ago are now widely and cheaply available and have more power than a 10 year old "PC". Pogoplug and Raspberry PI are putting computers where people never thought they would exist.
The notion that an Apple Laptop's "sealed" nature is limiting consumer choice is laughable. Consumers have a lot of choice, and they are choosing a product that they like. Perhaps it's not the right laptop for much of Slashdot, but a lot of consumers are voting with their dollars.
It reminds me a lot about cars in the 80's when the new smog standards and computers came out. "I can't work on this in my driveway" all the old guys said. I need expensive computer gear to fix it that only a shop can own. Some of the new parts require specialized tools that are very expensive! Turns out most consumers didn't change their own oil or adjust their own timing, so the fact that the new computers and tech made a tune up every 50,000 or 100,000 miles rather than 3,000 with points and a carburetor more than offset the fact they couldn't work on it themselves. The benefits to consumers greatly outweighed any of the drawbacks.
I think the computer world is making the same transition. I remember a Toshiba laptop circa 1997 that had a NiCad battery that wouldn't even last an hour, and in less than a year of use wouldn't hold a charge at all. I kept two spares when traveling, and swapped them out. The battery better have been user replaceable in that thing. Now, with modern tech, folks are getting 10 hours out of Apple laptops and tablets, and seeing 5-7 year battery life with minimal degradation. People don't buy spare batteries anymore, even when they are modular. Tech has advanced, so now people want the thinner, lighter more than the replaceable battery.
As long as you can go to any of a hundred other vendors and get modular laptops and desktops complaining about one vendor who makes them non-serviceable is stupid. People have choice, and are voting with their dollars.
Seriously, it's great if laptop makers can truly build upgradeable machines that don't sacrifice reliability in the process. But I remember the era of Dell laptops with socketed CPUs and upgradable video cards, and it wasn't all roses and unicorns.
I believe it was the old Latitude CP series where the CPU used to work itself loose from its socket over time, resulting in a system that refused to boot. (One of the "fixes" that used to get one going again was pressing down hard with the palm of one's hand near the center of the keyboard. The keyboard assembly happened to be right over the CPU and would flex enough to allow re-seating the chip, at least for a while.)
The models with the supposedly upgradeable video cards turned out to be more hype than substance too, because the type of video boards they took were proprietary, and no longer manufactured at all after 2 or 3 variations went through their initial production runs.
Ultimately, even on desktop PCs, expansion capabilities really don't get people too far.... Sure, you can upgrade processors -- until AMD or Intel goes and changes the design of the socket and pin layout. Then you're just as stuck as the next guy with his CPU soldered onto the motherboard. Same issue with RAM. Most machines only provide between 2 and 4 DIMM sockets, with a motherboard chipset unable to map/use more than a certain amount of memory. So what usually happens? The RAM upgrade becomes a nice thing to have initially, for the folks who tried to go cheap on the initial system purchase and selected less RAM than was optimal to save a few bucks. They get the chance to "buy now and pay later" to put the RAM in that probably should have really been there from the start. But down the road? You wind up saying "Gee... I'd like to upgrade this PC to 16GB of RAM but the board only supports 8. Oh well...."
Don't get me wrong... I like having a machine I can service myself if I determine a part died. And I've usually upgraded hard drives in most machines I've owned, as well as adding RAM to some, or upgrading the video in my higher-end machines. But as we demand ever lighter weight, slimmer portables with more and more functionality - we're really demanding technology that doesn't have any room for spare sockets, cables and connectors. It all depends on what the goal is, really. Expandability and modularity comes at a price of taking up extra space. Apple is big on going "cutting edge" with the "how small can we make this?" question on their minds -- so it makes perfect sense they wound up where they did, with not even so much as a removable laptop battery.
The answer is simple enough....don't buy Apple. One of the reasons I bought my current portable, an Asus EEE E350 netbook, is because it has plenty of upgrade options. i was able to upgrade from the default 2Gb to 8Gb of faster RAM for less than $30, there are plenty of tutorials showing how to replace the screen with a touch if you like, or replace the HDD with an SSD, there are even tools to OC or UC the APU if I want more speed or battery life, as well as third party batteries that will let me have all day usage if I need it, although i find the 5-6 hours i get plenty.
Just because Apple is the hipster brand doesn't mean you have to buy it, its not like we don't have plenty of choices. This is why I've built my own desktops for over 15 years, because not only do I get a better quality system at a cheaper price, but I can have it the way I want it, not the way some OEM thinks is best.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.