Richard Hoffman of PC World longs for the days when he could upgrade the components within his Macs, getting impressive useful longevity from his Apple computers. Alas, those days are gone:
”Let’s jump forward to June 2012, when Apple unveiled the new top-of-the-line 15-in. MacBook Pro, with its ground-breaking Retina display, a truly drool-worthy laptop if ever there was one. It’s fast, powerful and stylish, setting the standard for what a full-featured yet highly portable laptop can be. But that gorgeous package comes with a cost. iFixit, in its teardown analysis, gave the Retina MacBook Pro the lowest possible score, 1 out of 10, for its almost complete lack of upgradeability. There are no user-replaceable parts whatsoever, including the battery or even RAM, which, in a trend begun with the MacBook Air in 2008, is directly soldered to the logic board. What’s wrong with this picture?”
(Click here to read: “The ‘sealed-box’ Mac: Cutting-edge design or planned obsolescence?“)
What do you think? Do you think Apple is wrong to restrict user upgrades? Is the end product worth giving up the flexibility, or should users have more freedom? Let us know in the comments.
