“Starting at” is the Biggest Lie in Tech - The True Cost of "Entry-Level"

[@LinusTechTips]

Small correction: Apple does NOT use NVMe, but they DO use PCIe, and therefore COULD use NVMe, but they would rather use something proprietary. It doesn't change the point of the video (that all of this is about controlling their products and their users) but thought you might want to know. THere's a great post on the forum breaking down some of the... unique choices Apples makes to ensure you can't upgrade your stuff. linustechtips.com/topic/1521523-%E2%80%9Cstarting-at%E2%80%9D-is-the-biggest-lie-in-tech/?do=findComment&comment=16048101 -LS

[@vikrambalaji4126]

awful awful business tactics are key for trillion dollar companies

[@NeverGiveUpYo]

Very nice content Linus! I hope it triggered someone in the proper way ;-)

[@christhompson6010]

left out the fact you also cant repair it without paying a ridiculous price. simple parts that fail like hard drives and video cards are set so the consumer cant replace the part on their own.

[@Jan-xf8sk]

They're a TRIPLE-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY for a reason.

[@insertcreativenamehere492]

@@vikrambalaji4126 it's awful for the consumer, but absolutely great for apple

[@jonm4206]

Making manufacturers display the actual performance numbers for their "starting at" price would be so hugely helpful.

[@willsterjohnson]

@@CommanderBeefDev yup, Framework for laptops, diy builds for desktops, emulation for console. It's simply not worth it to go for anything else. And if you need Apple products for the proprietary software, you've already taken the bait.

[@valdir7426]

honestly for Apple they'd be very similar since there's only one CPU.

[@vocassen]

@@willsterjohnson Pretty much. As a student I can't go for DIY PC AND a framework, so only getting a framework for now (already a big investment), but I'm just not comfortable settling for a DIY PC + throwaway laptop. Already made that mistake.... a few too many times

[@jackburrows5850]

From a marketing standpoint, that’s never gonna happen.

[@penfold7800]

​@@CommanderBeefDev EXACTLY. Theyre trying to present thier machines at competitive prices to other non-brand higher-spec and usually easier upgradable machines. Its just as much hassle getting the extra bits needed for those branded machines as it would have been to build up from a non brand barebone. Of course, they dont want the consumer to know that. How many inexperienced consumers will look at the spec performance graphs on the same page as the base model theyre considering and not notice its not the performance of the machine theyre consodering? . ..probably a lot of them. ...then when they realise whats happened, theres going to be the added cost of buying the extras AND paying someone else to fit them, voiding any warranties. ...OR the added inconvenience and cost of sending it back to be upgraded -being without it for a few weeks ....or months.

[@Steamrick]

I hate that you pretty much always have to ask "and how much for an actually usable configuration?" when looking at mobile devices...

[@benchoflemons398]

It’s like buying a tract house and looking at the model home

[@ipohertroyanov464]

And given the price difference - yeah, you are not paying for additional memory, you are paying tax on wanting something useful

[@fVNzO]

I don't really use storage on my phone anymore. I guess if you're taking a lot of photos and videos or like having flac files on your phone you'd like more storage. But I don't really do that anymore.

[@stuner1337]

Maybe that's something that LMG and other reviewers could do: Never talk about the base price, only about a reasonable config.

[@colorona8456]

@@fVNzO memory and storage are two different things. Also storage mostly isn't a problem anymore, especially with phones, where even low tier ones come with 64GB or more.

[@stal2281]

I hope people now understand what people like Louis Rossman are fighting for. Right to repair and right to upgrade are a big deal. Even if you don't care about the money, think of the environment.

[@Idiomatick]

Even if you care about neither of those things, think about your data. With a non-apple laptop, if you drop it and smash it, or the graphics card dies, or the ram fails .... you can pull your drive and have all your data intact, you could be running on a new computer same day with nothing missing. On an apple, ANY OF THESE FAILURES RESULTS IN TOTAL DATA LOSS. Its a truly insane risk to take and the benefit is .... saving maybe 1~2 grams of metal and ~10c in price.

[@micglou]

@@Idiomatick Not if you opted for the 9,99 monthly 2TB iCloud subscription ;)

[@deblxdee]

"But Apple cares about environment, they already abolished chargers that come with the iPhone!" - An Apple fanboy probably

[@phyde1885]

@@micglou I prefer to keep MY Data in MY compy ! NOT on the NET ! Or a 2nd/3rd storage device that is Private,OFF-Line and Can't be Hacked.

[@Mopsie]

@@Idiomatickor just make a backup and use Time Machine. Literally 5 minutes of work

[@quitehandsomedude6412]

When Apple can charge 1000$ for a monitor stand, they can do anything.

[@willn8664]

And braindead consumers are willing to pay that price. Now imagine if consumers would get their head out of their rear and not get finessed by Apple?

[@fabrb26]

Or 700$ Mac Pro wheels 💀

[@mikethespike056]

​@@Endemoniadatrue but still. it's like they're laughing at us. well, not us. i don't buy apple products.

[@supertrexandroidx]

The only way to stop them from doing this kind of thing is to stop buying their shit - and since people will never stop buying their shit....

[@daisukekazumi2399]

There is a reason why they're a trillion dollar company

[@grasswarlock]

They should add an "Ending at" price for the amount of money that'll get you a fully functional, on-par experience on their overpriced products.

[@rukirgaming]

But then it won't be price competitive

[@adamfoxton6341]

There is always, always, always another option. If you have the money, a company will take it. And that doesn't allow subscriptions, which are essentially infinite if they go on forever.

[@MariaFernandaBT]

The most annoying thing for me is that sometimes companies *could* sell tablets, for instance, for a better price. There was a Samsung launch in Brazil which was announced to cost X BRL. Then, when it was officially released, it cost X + 500 BRL. When asked about why such an increase, Samsung answered they wanted to stay in the same price line of their competitors 🫠

[@MiGujack3]

Make it law.

[@pvic6959]

but then they cant bump it up later if they want to get them moneys

[@Bugaluggit]

I hope Framework succeeds and takes a large share in the market. It's the only way to have this trend slow down or reversed.

[@good-tn9sr]

they probably won’t, their costs are too high

[@Hyvelez]

I hope they will ship it with a smooth Linux distro that can take a shot at macOS.

[@RichardLionheart12]

Framework laptop doesn't have great GPU compared to ASUS, MSI and Dell(AlienWare).

[@davidlane1248]

​@@RichardLionheart12with the massive advances in integrated graphics and the option of external GPUs, I think the future of GPUs in laptops isn't going to matter much in the future As integrated graphics in laptops are going to get even better over the next decade, there's going to be less and less demand for discrete GPU's included in the box. Even today, you can get AMD Ryzen chips that can play RDR2 and Cyberpunk at acceptable frame rates in HD.

[@Dommifax]

​@@RichardLionheart12they just released their 16" laptop with (iirc) with a dedicated user upgradable gpu - I'd get one if I didn't already own the first gen framework laptop

[@bluegizmo1983]

Amazon is plagued with this crap now too! They are letting sellers list "item variations", and sellers are using that system to list a completely unrelated item at a much lower price, so that when you search for something, it shows up as way cheaper with a "starting from" price, then when you click the item you see that price is actually for a completely unrelated item and what your looking for is much more expensive.

[@VanquishedAgain]

100% amazon I'd the most frustrating place to look for any tech.

[@5punkybob]

Not wrong!!! You look for game console parts and they will list a ribbon cable for $2 when the part mentioned in the add is actually $50-100 so you can longer just sort by lowest to highest.

[@demonocolips]

that started on aliexpress and the same sellers got away with it there.

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

That's been going on on Ebay for years now

[@Cupzero007]

yeah this crap is on every marketplace now, I hate this trend so scammy

[@andrewgregory9981]

One very important point not mentioned is that SSDs have a write limit. Eventually you will reach that limit and if your SSD is soldered on, you'll be left with an expensive chunk of e-waste.

[@cameronbosch1213]

Bingo. Unless you know micro soldering, you need to have Apple replace the entire motherboard for you. And you'd better hope it's not an obsolete Mac, because then it's just e-waste and a brick.

[@mem7806]

do they have a hard cutoff ? or they just start failing at that point

[@araarathisyomama787]

​@@mem7806 I don't think there is a way to reliably predict failure. On my PC - one day SSD just died while I was working (BSOD and Windows didn't boot anymore). It was almost impossible to recover any data. Accessing 90% of files caused both the drive and OS to lock up when I accessed it from another PC. The drive was like 1 year old and I wasn't even stressing it. I was so lucky my projects files were recoverable. I pulled a spare HDD and set up my environment back to working state in about an hour. I got a new SSD the next day - I wouldn't be able to do any of this with Apple. The general advice for SSD (or any storage device really) is - if you have important data on it - have a backup plan in case it dies tomorrow. Then there I have that one 120GB Intel SSD from 2011 and it still works just fine! It's even faster than some new SATA SSDs I bought later, but it too may die one day and I just don't know when. I don't put any important data on it anymore because of this and if I did I would put it somewhere else too.

[@cameronbosch1213]

@mem7806 They generally have a certain amount of write cycles before they become read-only. On most systems, you would only need to remove the drive and clone it, but on a Mac, you can't.

[@STNKbone]

yes, but even cheap SSDs can have thousands of terabytes written to them before they fail. I used to be concerned about longevity, but it really isn't as big of a problem as one would think. Unless you're doing something irresponsible like using it as a scratch drive, SSDs should be able to last decades. But of course, the drive could fail for other reasons much sooner, so the soldering is still hard to defend. And the firmware shenanigans are downright heinous!

[@zacharyKewDenniss]

Encountered this with a friend's mum this week. She has a 2018 HP all in one and on the surface it looked good with an 8th gen i5 and 1TB nvms SSD. But it was really slowed down, and then I noticed. 4GB of ram. Thankfully, it wasn't soldered on and it has two SODIMM slots so I upgraded it to 16GB for £30

[@VanquishedAgain]

8th gen i5 is pretty bad too though

[@vgamesx1]

@@VanquishedAgain You think an 8th gen i5 is bad? You must be rather spoiled dude... Like a mobile 4th gen i5 is still fairly usable for most things your average person would want to do on a computer and those aren't very good.

[@skylinehfb9517]

​​@@VanquishedAgain use a 1st gen i5 in my think pad and it works fine for 1080p video and brpsing the internet

[@russotusso1695]

​@@VanquishedAgain8th gen I5 is more then enough for normal use, like browsing the web, watching movies, stuff like that, as long as you aren't going with fully complex CAD models or high graphics gaming, its gonna get the job. Put simply, it gets the job done for most people.

[@mystery_pond]

@@VanquishedAgain 8th gen mobile i5 is decent. Basically minimal difference from the i5 from 8th to 11th gen, they're all 14nm 4-core chips. The big jumps were Skylake in 6th gen, quad-core in 8th gen, and 12th gen (arguably, some of the 10nm 10/11th gen stuff too, but in my experience the only advantage with those is thermals which are mostly limited by laptop design anyway).

[@zacksstuff]

An extra 8 gigs of soldered RAM has cost $200 from Apple since the original retina MacBook Pro in 2012. It's insane.

[@makojuicedaniel9307]

What is insane is anyone buying an apple anything

[@666Tomato666]

@@makojuicedaniel9307 some people place looks and perception above anything else

[@bcuttytv]

the last macbook i own is the pro from mid 2012, the last one with replaceable ram and hdd’s! now it’s a linux machine i use to run my 3d printers😂

[@monketok141]

If you factor in inflation, that $200 is actually cheaper now than it was then. Bravo Apple! /s

[@lucasklaassen135]

@@makojuicedaniel9307 Well, actually it isn't. There still are very few laptops on the market that are actually competitive to MacBooks.

[@DeathInTheSnow]

Funny how the company who removed chargers to prevent e-waste sells entire laptops, tablets and phones that go straight in the dustbin due to being deliberately underpowered and incapable of being upgraded. _It's almost as if that was never the point._

[@teajay74]

Or they'll do you a 'favour' by 'recycling' it into landfill for free!

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

« _It's almost as if that was never the point_ » Yup, sport on ! *It never was* ... 😏🙄

[@TheRealBOBlibob]

They removed the charging brick but kept the charging cable, which doesn't even work with older power bricks because it's USB-C til Lightning

[@nonamex6536]

It is funny they care about E waste because of the environment because its impact on people. Because not letting someone swap out a battery when they need a phone could put them in serious danger. It is impossible to say someone died or had something horrible happen because of that because it is there fault they got into that situation sure. But really we all know that's probably killed alot of people traveling, camping or in emergency situations. Maybe its not normal to carry an extra battery but I definitely used to when I had to travel alot and I never had to think about it because company's didn't have bring your kid to work day and let there 5 year old go crazy with the super glue at the factory. Well... maybe it wasn't bring your kid to work day and they just where "young" employees but still.

[@jlatoo]

@@nonamex6536 pretty sure carrying an extra battery is more dangerous than having just the one

[@OnTheNerdySide]

I miss the days when just about every laptop had doors you could open using one screw (no clips) and replace the ram and storage without removing the entire bottom plate of the chassis.

[@watercat1248]

I have a netbook like this but sadly this netbook it doesn't work right now

[@sihamhamda47]

Plus socketed CPU and swappable GPU module

[@Hybris51129]

The problem is that everyone is pushing "thin and light" as the standard laptop type instead of the separate class it started out and should have remained.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Having to remove the entire bottom cover isn't even an issue, if the components are replaceable then what harm is that even doing?

[@gileee]

​@@cbacbacba09 Because they had hdd's, cheap build materials and the tech simply wasn't as miniaturized as it is now. The Framework laptop that's fully modular is 1.3kg at 1.5cm or something like that. That's definitely a thin and light and you can swap everything.

[@tramcrazy]

This is genuinely one of the best LTT videos I’ve ever seen. So honest and thorough, I fully agree with everything here. I’m even thinking about making a browser extension that tells you the top possible prices and reasonable prices for each ‘starting at’

[@johnathanclayton2887]

If you make the browser extension, let me know, that sounds great!

[@OriginalJokerFMJ]

​@@michael.petraeusstuff is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. So if it is selling then it isn't overpriced. To Linus' credit he did mention the company's gross operating margin when he was talking about Apple's.

[@johnathanclayton2887]

​@@michael.petraeusI think they did in a wan show. At least you could piece it together with his information from the free shipping promotion data. Anyway, they're designing their own stuff and not selling a lot, so it'll need to be quite a bit above bom cost to cover development. Plus, Linus is trying to fund labs, so any extra money gets sucked up there

[@johnathanclayton2887]

​@@michael.petraeus11:12 apparently he says in this video, about 40%

[@Petar98SRB]

​@@michael.petraeusyep 70 $ for the screwdriver hahaha no tnx...

[@gillsgills]

Thank god that we have someone with a real voice who is holding big companies accountable. Thanks LTT for clearly bringing this to the attention to millions of consumers, as you do.

[@treborrrrr]

@@georger5558 Your assumption that everyone already knows is... let's just call it hopeful. Go out and ask 20 people on the streets what the markup is for RAM and let me know how many get it right. No, I'm not saying people don't know there's a markup, I'm saying do they know how big it is?

[@Suppiluliuma-wd1hw]

​@@georger5558this is not obvious and most of apple users and not only have no clue about these things.

[@greenanubis]

@@georger5558 Kinda. All value is subjective. All that Linus has to do is slip in a few throw away feel-good sentiments to make these videos seem valuable. "Company bad, company should be less bad", lol. And everybody clapped :). Alex crazy cooler design videos are valuable to me, its fun. Linus throwing truisms and showing his overpriced screwdrivers and water bottles down my throat aint fun.

[@davidlane1248]

​@@treborrrrrgo out and ask those same 20 people if they watch Linus tech tips and I guarantee you the results will be very similar. People who don't care to know about this kind of stuff don't watch these kinds of shows This video will make zero difference in regards to the average Joe

[@gillsgills]

@@georger5558 for what it’s worth, I’m extremely tech literate and I didn’t know the Apple tax for RAM was as high as this video specified. From previous manual upgrades I’ve done via OWC, I thought it was only about a 30-50% up-charge from Apple. The numbers in this video are so crazy to me.

[@WeirdTippy]

I was hoping Framework would've sponsored this one given the fact we're talking about upgradability in this video and how they're one of the few who are actively pursuing consumer upgradable laptops

[@anish.t]

The program is even framework using terms such as "starting at" lol.

[@kerb755]

​​@@anish.there arent even any ram, ssd, modules, and chargers included in frameworks "starting at", its ludicrous. (diy ones. pre built is "only" missing an ssd)

[@aared]

@@kerb755 I personally think that makes sense for everything except the modules. I think most people who would specifically be interested in framework laptops, including myself, have some spare parts such as ssds and RAM and chargers, or at least know where to get ones we like/are cheap. For example I don't use the chargers that come with any of my devices, I use multi-port GaN chargers. And as Linus stated in the video the price of 2 TB ssds has gone down to less than $100 within the last year or two. I would rather use my existing chargers and buy a 2 TB SSD or use one I already have laying around rather than pay framework for a new one included in a higher starting price. The only difference is that you can't charge the laptop without a module, and you wouldn't have a module unless you were already a previous customer of framework specifically. They tell you you need to buy a USB c module, but how is it possible to buy any device that doesn't include any method of charging it?

[@ar4ys]

​@@aared Agree with you, just wanted to mention one "mistake" in your comment - you CAN charge Framework laptop without any module available because those modules are basically USB-C dongles. As such you can directly connect your charger to Framework board via "module slot". PS. I am not a Framework owner, but from various reviews on their laptops I noted this.

[@aared]

@@ar4ys oh! Thanks for the clarification! On their forums someone stated "You can do it, but we recommend using a USB-C Expansion Card to avoid putting strain on the internal USB-C receptacles"

[@brucepreston3927]

The sad part is that 99% of people do not need the performance benefits you get from the soldered on components...You will definitely notice a lack of capacity though! I would rather it be slightly slower but be able to upgrade it myself...I mean it's a few percent difference in certain workloads...If you are doing actual professional work it might makes sense to buy the more preformant soldered on chips but I can guarantee that most everyday people couldn't tell the difference in a blind test

[@RadioactiveBlueberry]

It matters for gaming though, if a game is demanding enough even with lowest settings. Not everyone owns an adaptive sync display to avoid stutters. I wouldn't personally buy a laptop for gaming, but I know some people do like saving space.

[@brucepreston3927]

@@RadioactiveBlueberry Even for gaming it will only give you a few percent more and only when you are cpu bound...You may be able to show a difference in benchmarks, but a little extra ram speed is not going to give you a noticeable difference in your gaming experience...The vast majority of people that buy laptops are gaming anyway...They surf the internet and use microsoft office and things like that...I can just about guarantee that the vast majority of those people couldn't tell the difference between a brand new laptop and one from 5 years ago...

[@queenbiscuit311]

​@@RadioactiveBlueberryissue is every gaming laptop or desktop I've ever seen is upgradeable to some extent. as much as apple wants to push gaming on mac's, most people who own one are never going to game seriously enough to encounter RAM-based cpu bottlenecks. same for ultrabooks or that Dell XPS. most gaming grade hardware already has the budget and size to not have to deal with needing soldered down components

[@BcuzAndy]

The real advantage of soldered on parts is in form and design than anything. You can make them thinner and get more space for other components.

Most of all, those low tier devices have no way of benefiting from it anyways. Obviously if you bought a laptop with 32GB of RAM you may think that extending it to 64GB will not make much of a difference but squeezing more throughput through it will. Selling high end devices with soldered components is just fine. After all, even if your Uber Pro laptop with 32GB of soldered DDR5+ will age, you can still use it just fine or you can sell it as it will still be a beast in a few years. There's nothing wrong with soldered components if they will last and are futureproof. But entry level? Come on, getting 4GB of RAM or 256GB of storage is just ridiculous and nobody will ever care about the bottleneck of socketed components with those amounts. This is just not justified. I'd say that the ideal model from customer perspective would be to get low-mid tier devices with sockets and highest tier without them. That's assuming that highest tier already got most of the potential of the device and until it fails, there will be no reason to upgrade anything.

[@Sashan2012]

The Apple tax is the biggest piss take. £200 for 8gig extra ram and the same for additional 256gig of storage is insane.

[@Tecnoc22]

The pricing has nothing to do with the actual cost of the upgraded parts, it's all about product segmentation. They know the users who actually need those upgrades can and will pay for them. It allows them to sell the same laptops to home users who want a $1,000 Facebook machine and professional users who can afford a $5,000 workstation. Might be annoying as a consumer, but it is good business.

[@kylehart8829]

​@@Tecnoc22A scam is not good business. Hopefully the EU continues to introduce laws to crush Apple's awful business practices, and hopefully the US govt sees the light and does the same.

[@abibirawa4119]

@@Tecnoc22 more like scam

[@renatosoares4338]

@@Tecnoc22 seems more a scam

[@Lee.S321]

And I was pi55ed off with Lenovo charging £130 for an extra 16GB...

[@apparentlynot1stLeonchubbs]

This video was FREAKING GREAT!!! From the subject matter.. to the messaging directed at the corporate tech world.. to the segway, to their sponsor. Absolutely loved all of this one folks 💪

[@CarsTechWood]

So did you like the video or??

[@SecretSauceyjuice]

Segue*

[@thesnowman2509]

Framework says "starting at"

[@jmanius1]

​@@thesnowman2509but they give performance numbers for specific part specs. The "starting at" is more of an issue if you don't know how much you need to upgrade to get that performance.

[@dovahkiin2108]

​@@thesnowman2509shhhh this is the part you can't say out loud ;)

[@Maurus200]

The worst part is that base configs can barely run the OS for many companies. 8GB of memory for windows is starting to become extremely limiting.

[@broadestsmiler]

I use a MacBook Air from 2015 which I dual booted Windows onto using BootCamp. I run Windows 10 perfectly fine here, even with 8GB of RAM and a fifth generation Intel CPU. I can play some decent games (albeit not much of the newer, intensive stuff) and I am able to work with no interruptions.

[@noobiamyes4853]

@@abeleria I have a Windows 11 surface with 8gb of ram and I can run some Adobe products like in design and photoshop, it does lag and crash every now and again but for light tasks it really isn't that bad

[@Pulstar232]

​@@abeleriaif memory serves its basically holding onto that for snappiness and quickly loading some things(i think?). But the moment any app asks for memory they drop it and hand it over. I think. I might be wrong though.

[@fireeraser2206]

@@Pulstar232 While memory is used like this, the Windows task manager reports the file cache as free and available memory. You can check this with Sysinternals RamMap. Mapped file storage in standby is the file system cache. It will fill most of the available RAM.

[@grn1]

@@Pulstar232 Sounds correct. I forget what they call it but the basic features been around since I believe Vista which actually caused a lot of false reports about it taking up a tremendous amount of memory when it was in fact just preloading crap. The old versions did suffer a bit from hardware and probably software limitations that made it lag sometimes when dropping unneeded data while newer hardware and OSes (pretty sure many Linux based systems use a similar technique) don't seem to have that issue.

[@shamringo7438]

The one thing you forget to mention is that Mac storage not only cannot be replaced, you straight up can't do any data rescue. When it breaks, there is ZERO way to rescue. Because the NAND chips are configured in raid 0. And no you can't just take out the NAND chips because they are also encrypted Want to boot to another os? Nope, even the bootloader is stored in the NAND. Your Mac literally turns into a brick when your storage breaks

[@estiennetaylor1260]

That's why I'll never buy their overpriced obsolesce hardware.

[@cheesetomatoes]

That wouldn't be a data loss concern if everyone had a couple backups, but we all know how common that is.

[@shamringo7438]

@@cheesetomatoes It still doesn't solve the issue that the bootloader is stored in NAND. Your Mac still turns into a brick

[@asdfjoe123]

Brick on fault . . . no repair or recovery options . . . what do you do? Fork out several thousand bucks on the next Mac. . . sounds like a good plan (for Apple's bottom line).

[@sihamhamda47]

"storing the bootloader inside the flash storage instead of using BIOS chip" is a very fatal flaw

[@andrewroes7942]

YES I've been saying for a while that the upcharge on RAM and SSD is the biggest scam of buying laptops these days, it's insane how much they charge.

[@rubiconnn]

A 2TB SSD is about $70 and Apple is charging EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS for the privilege of making their computers usable for anything besides looking at facebook.

[@davinnicode]

I swear buying a laptop that has upgradable features which was totally normal a couple of years ago while using the upgrade services and comparing the prices on the online shops of the manufactures is a nightmare these days. So many indirect and unclear information about parts being soldered and the price policy is just ridiculous.

[@bwofficial1776]

@@davinnicode I miss easy accessibility of old laptops. My first one had a removable battery. Take that out and unscrew two screws and you could remove the hard drive. Two more screws and you could get to the RAM. Now, everything is made to be disposed of at the first sign of trouble.

[@pirojfmifhghek566]

This is why I usually buy refurbished low-end laptops that have low specs on everything except for the CPU. Then I just got HAM on them, filling them up with secondary RAM and storage. It's amazing how much computer you can get for like five to six hundred bucks nowadays.

[@Shadowninja1200]

@@davinnicode Which is why I plan on getting a framework on my next go around with laptops. The philosophy behind making everything upgrade-able without locking parts (even the gpu!!) is something I wanted a long time from the laptop market. Expensive? yeah, it is but I can actually keep that laptop for a long ass time plus the old components can be repurposed for a emulator box or plex server or whatever else I wanted.

[@Peterstarzynskitech]

This is another reason why laptops aren't upgradable. Not just the size of laptops, but the fact that the companies see green when it comes to upgrading.

[@David_Quinn1995]

and it makes shareholders happy so they buy more shares or hold their current position because they show better data on EBITDA

[@XanderBE99]

Some laptops are upgradable. My Lenovo Legion had a 1tb hdd and a 1tb ssd. Also only 8gb ram. Was able to upgrade the ram up to 32 atm. Also removed the hdd and placed a 2tb ssd, and replaced the 1tb ssd with a 2tb one.

[@ErikTheAndroid]

It is not "another" reason. It is THE reason. All of this is about money and nothing else.

[@crestofhonor2349]

Most gaming laptops are still relatively upgradable as well as larger laptops in general

[@DoctorNemmo]

My MSI Titan is upgradeable. I've added storage and RAM. I bought it with a base configuration and then bought everything else as needed.

[@dmc41287]

The integrated SSD and RAM that Dell is pushing is what caused me to shift our company over to Lenovo as our brand of choice. They still provide soldered memory as part of their solution, but we still have the ability to upgrade in the future with RAM and SSD m.2 slots

[@godnyx117]

Smart choice if you ask me.

[@mkontent]

Lenovo has been getting crappier, unfortunately

[@godnyx117]

@@mkontent Sadly. It's about time there will be no decent companies left.

[@mudit1]

​@@godnyx117asus still provides upgradeable stuff

[@travellingslim]

If that works best for your company, all the power to ya! However all the large organizations I've been at and friends at other companies all prefer and/or are stuck with the way things currently are. Typically, when you get a sizable contract with someone like Dell for a lot of machines, it will come with particular language and warranty terms, I.E. if one of the machines break, they will replace it with another one shipped overnight, or in some cases even send a tech out to fix the issue, and the agreement often states you cannot modify or repair the machines yourself, nevermind future upgrades to ram/ssd. On one hand it's nicer for the IT team not having to spend time fixing hardware (especially Karens in accounting who have "computer issues" everyday), but on the other hand I'm sure there's a ton of waste and forced costs when it comes time to upgrade everyone to new hardware. Also, ideally when you do purchase a bunch of computers for typical office use, the RAM/CPU is just fine for many years and bulk storage in a corporate environment should be mainly on SANs anyway, not individual computers.

[@Ericmuires434]

This is why my ASUS A17 is so precious to me. I bought it with standard config, but slapped my own 64GB RAM in there for less than $100. To spec up to that would have cost nearly $1000 extra. Incredible manufacturing

[@bakedbeanfanclub]

Damn, 64gb/$100 is a hell of a deal

[@lars2894]

Same. Bought my ASUS VivoBook S laptop because it was one of the very few 15 inch slim ultrabooks that came with upgradeable memory slot. Pretty much every other OEM solders memory for this category.

[@ilovemeochan1396]

@@rustler08 my xps15 is pure BS, it has crap battery life(~3h), random screen freezes that forces me to sleep&login again, and keyboards that heat up while watching youtube videos

[@Skyline_NTR]

This is basically the thing holding me back from the zenbook s 13 oled (the 6800u one). Soldered ram (addressed in the video). Like, if i wanna get a very specific lappy with 64-128gb, they should give me that option (either a reasonably priced config OR just let me do it myself).

[@abcdefgh6121]

Some laptops have the 'Build your own' models, but they are already priced higher than the normal models, like the lenovo legion.

[@ajpetix]

Mad respect for not only talking about Apple here. It could have been so easy to pigeonhole all of these issues to one manufacturer, but this is an entire industry riding this wave because they've seen it work so well in other industries and with competitors in their own. Everyone is getting away with deceptive marketing and it needs to change.

[@bored78612]

Just like the removal of headphone jack, companies nowdays love to copy whatever evil stuff Apple does.

[@hamsterbrigade]

In fairness to Apple, they're the ones that made this popular. They're also the one the industry takes their cues from in terms of just how much they can get away with.

[@doomy_doomy2225]

​@@hamsterbrigadeapple did start it yes, but apples mac's are actually good compared to most window computers competing against them regarding pricing. It is hard to get a windows computer that has the same build like a MacBook and the M1 chips are so damn fast that the average consumers 8GB of ram will be more than enough. Windows even at 16GB of ram chugs on a laptop. I went to my local staples and they had a consumer laptop with 16GB of ram, 256GB of SSD, and an Intel i3 for $525. Like idk how that system will run.

[@pirojfmifhghek566]

Yeah... they saw it working so well in "other industries" because it's exactly what Apple has been doing since ~2012. Zero consumers wanted it, and it solved zero actual problems, but they did it anyway because "fuck you." And it made a stupid amount of money for them. The others have just been following their lead, like vultures. At least there are still modular options out there for people who aren't buying into the Apple ecosystem. But there are no DIY/third party options for anyone who does. Not that I have much sympathy for Apple users at this point. I dunno how many dead canaries y'all need to find in those coal mines to get the message.

[@nemtudom5074]

I mean, they do this the worst and they are the one most well-known for this, but they are not the only one, true

[@SaviorSix]

Honestly, I agree. When I go to Walmart and see the $5 DVD basket, I might browse it because I know it's $5. When I see a store show DVD's that are "Up to $20", I don't bother looking at them because I'm sure everything in there is $20 and not lower.

[@tiemenvanderbijl785]

I love how you guys keep the discussion on topic and on track by being transparant, either with the investor disclaimer or with the disclosre about your own simelar profit margens. This gives so much trust in your operating integratie.

[@HORNOMINATOR]

remember: you dont get _both_ SSDs for the price tag. that $200 is only for the upgrade of 256GB, so for half the capacity.

[@OctagonalSquare]

We need a lot of tech creators to come together and make a PAC to lobby FOR right to repair in opposition to those keeping it from happening. It’s ridiculous that it’s basically the only option at this point

[@alexisrivera200xable]

An interesting but futile idea. PACs are money sinks and even with all tech youtubers combined they can be outspent by a single tech giant. Apple can do it, and so can Google. Tech youtubers could probably successfully pressure smaller SIs or at most NVIDIA or AMD if they pool money and effort but not on the political lobbying game.

[@PvtAnonymous]

@@ilovefunnyamv2nd and you're acting like it is any better on the Windows side of things? Newer Lenovos are a pain in the bottom to work with as BIOS is tied to PCH and you need a ton of work to get it running again. Then we have the epidemic of plastic hinge threads that will cause catastrophic failure of the hinges on either side. Soldered RAM is common now. LCDs that are glued in where the pull tabs are not even accessible until you start prying the LCD up (which can cause it to break). A million different charging ports, sometimes with the same connector and reversed polarity (looking at you Acer). Stupid covers where you need to unfasten 25+ screws to even disconnect the battery (looking at you Huawei). It's a friggin mess mate. And my list is by far not conclusive. Working on MacBooks is a charm in comparison, because they all are built the same way. Once you learn to disassemble one, you learn to disassemble them all. Only thing that isn't very nice is the serialized parts and the glue, but you get used to it.

[@chubbysumo2230]

So this trend isn't going to stop, because Apple got away with it and was able to sell the SSD and RAM upgrades at obscene prices, others are now doing it because Apple sales haven't slowed down. I'm actually surprised we don't see more prebuilts with soldered components, I wouldn't be surprised to see Dell or HP start doing it more aggressively.

[@thedarkdragon89]

I hate Apple so much, the more influence they have, the more I fall out of love with tech, I wish Microsoft had let them die in the 90's.

[@PrograError]

@@thedarkdragon89 well... one thing... apple just works... Windows and Linux and Android has just too much complexity... but then again the complexity is a feature and not a bug...

[@m.f.3347]

​@@thedarkdragon89To be fair, if Apple wasn't doing it, someone else would be. They just provide a convenient scapegoat for other tech companies to be like "but Apple started it!". True, but that doesn't mean you had to copy them!

[@arnox4554]

@@PrograError Windows and Linux and Android has just too much complexity No, they don't. And especially Linux now, funnily enough. This isn't the 2000s anymore.

[@apricotmadness4850]

@@arnox4554 The ordinary person doesn’t even know Linux exists. Apple and windows still remains the most simple platform to use. Even the elderly can use apple.

[@mikejmcfarlane]

A really insightful video, and some great comments below too. It's really important we stay informed about this sort of issue as it has such an impact on our lives, our money and our planet. I was an Apple fanboy (and professional photographer using Apple) for most of a decade. A couple of years ago I started building my own PCs again, and these sort of issues were a primary driver. The closest I now have to none upgradeable is a Surface Pro 9, and that has a published repair manual and I've already upgraded the SSD myself, easily. It almost feel like building a PC (and running Linux) is a form of rebellion now!

[@ukrdima]

I've realized I've been taking Linus for granted for too long. We need people like him to be our voice if we want to have a chance of standing up against these hypocrites. Linus, you've a good man with a team of good people. Please keep up and take care!

[@ukrdima]

This did not age well xD

[@TonyCoculuzzi]

These are hands-down the best kinds of LTT videos. Actual investigative journalism into anti-consumer practices in the tech industry is always going to be necessary.

[@NaviUpgrade]

This is literally why I was so excited about the Framework laptop and ordered one immediately. Now I can't wait to preorder the 16" version.

[@JulietKilo-X86]

And too add to your enthusiasm: the preorder is open now! Go ahead and enjoy it!

[@NaviUpgrade]

@@JulietKilo-X86 OH HELL YEAH. I'm an awful fan lmao. Thanks for letting me know, just put in my fully loaded preorder 😎 wife will def be getting my old framework for school!

[@Komatik_]

Framework would've been my next laptop had they sold in my country. I guess they still will be if they're still in business when the current one croaks.

[@indian-tech-support]

​@@NaviUpgradedon't worry I ordered one as well , but no one needs to know.

[@adez13]

​@@cbacbacba09i just priced a mac 15" to framework 16 for the same specs and they were the same price almost exactly. The difference being when something breaks on the framework you don't get done for half the cost again in repairs. It's possible to get other OEM for half price but they'll last half as long so ends up same lifetime cost roughly. I'd prefer to support framework for the same money but understand that some can't pay that much up front. Also bear in mind you can upgrade the framework to make it better rather than just fix it.

[@annihilator247x]

They should give out the location and configurations of the strap resistors. Those are the resistors that tell the computer what RAM is currently soldered to it so it knows how to interact with it. Doing this and not intentionally trying to stop us from upgrading it with software locks would be all we need. A good SMD rework station isn't too much and it is pretty fun to do this when you have the right tools.

[@animeloveer97]

Sure for enthusiasts but normal people want to do upgrades too. They shouldn't have to buy a whole jig to resolder stuff and learn how to do it when all they want is more memory and storage

[@LimeymanZero]

This video feels so much more personal and professional than the ones where it cuts away to a camera you aren't looking at, great video, this is what I would expect from you guys!

[@SkywardKing]

Modularity has to be the endgoal for any person or corporation claiming to be for a environmentally friendly tech industry. Even if that results in an initial loss in performance (even though its the last thing the average user needs with current roided up tech blowing up all over the place) All new tech needs an investment in time and money to become its best, this no different. Awesome video. Love seeing such important topics talked about.

[@dschwartz783]

Yeah, if we're being honest, slightly higher DRAM speeds is not a thing the end-user knows or cares about. They wouldn't understand it anyway. Marketers looking for data points to put on a spec sheet, that's why we're in the soldered hell we're in today. Sure, few people understand what any of it means, but they can use it to generate sales, and that's all that matters.

[@w41g87]

You know what's more modular than anything we have today? Vacuum tubes - since each transistor is individually modular. Thus, your criterion, it would naturally conclude that if we were to be truly environmentally friendly, we need to first eliminate IC altogether.

[@andrewlalis]

@@w41g87 transistors on a breadboard are also modular.

[@freedustin]

@@w41g87 Sorry but IC is what gave us performance. Go ahead and wire up a trillion tubes, you won't get near 1 GHz stable. If signals have to travel far...inside the CPU...then its a slow AF computer even if it technically implements all modern features.

[@Sup3rman1c]

hmm yeees just find a way to not follow laws of physics hmm very good insight

[@LTdan457]

One thing I like about framework is the fact I can opt out of RAM, Storage, and even the OS so I can add my own at a much lower price than they offer. Can’t wait for my Framework 16 to arrive.

[@toddchisolm1271]

I think upgradeablity will be huge for countering e-waste

[@marianmarkovic5881]

I thing thats why, even if companies dont want to, politicians schould step in.

[@TheRogueBro]

I remember watching a (I think it was) Strange Parts episode where he was talking about how cheap the chips were in the iPhone but how much a difference in price there was between the different models. These practices of HUGE markup on a cheap storage chip is not new, they are just finding new ways to capitalize on the idea.

[@annfranksus1531]

The integrated ssd storage is like fountain drinks for fast food, cheap to produce, and highly profitable with the markups

[@zakofrx]

Ans when they die you don't just lose your data but your whole computer..

[@Tahngarthor]

Would you like some data storage with that?

[@MariaFernandaBT]

Usually selling the "starting at" models are a bad idea. There will always be people with a restricted budget buying the low price, unusable product. And because it's such a bad configuration, they'll say "this product line sucks" and will get a bad impression of the brand. It doesn't happen with Apple because they don't have customers, they have *really* loyal fans

[@moddaudio]

I think the upgrade prices are a bad idea. They are so expensive that is seems that the people who pay them are subsidizing the price of the base model config. I got a base model 14" M1 MBP because it had 16Gb of memory. Unfortunately the similar M2 config now halves the SSD speed without a $200 upgrade.

[@GameDevMadeEasy]

I bought an M2 macbook Pro because i'm a software developer and need to make sure my stuff works on Linux, Mac and Windows. I am an Apple Customer, not a fan boy.

[@Plznojudge]

@@GameDevMadeEasyvery good to know

[@GameDevMadeEasy]

​@@cbacbacba09 With Web Browsers and every other bit of software taking up higher and higher resource counts, base models can barely last 2 or 3 years without significant performance decrease. That's what is meant by base model is unusable.

[@GameDevMadeEasy]

@@Plznojudge My iphone 11 pro max is my daily driver for phone, Ipad is my daily driver tablet (and let's be honest, the ipad is probably the best tablet on the market), my M2 Macbook Pro is not my daily driver personal or dev machine, but works nice on the go or when testing compatibility.

[@tbuk8350]

These practices are why my next laptop is probably going to be the upcoming Framework 16. I am in love with the fact that they have hotswappable modular input devices now, and especially the swappable GPU. I really love how open they are as well, and how reasonable the markups on the hardware they sell is.

[@Windguy5691]

I like that you balanced it with their profitability margins. But it also shows I’m in the wrong industry when 40% profit is a low profit percentage from goods and services😳

[@Iznogood_DK]

40 procent is low for any original producer of tech and equipment. If your want to see high margins look at the clothing industry😅

[@ddxx8113]

@@Iznogood_DK Before Apple made M series SoCs, they are not any more original than Dell or Lenovo in the laptop sector, both of which run with single digit gross margin.

[@dominikhanus9320]

@@ddxx8113actually Dell or Lenovo’s gross margins has been in mid 20% for years. What you probably meant is that their profit margins are single digit % which yes they are, but Apples profit margins are in low 20s if I remember correctly which is really not obscene. mainly considering how well managed their supply chain and distribution is.

[@kyohiromitsu4010]

Car manufacturers profit is 10% or tesla almost 0%

[@astroganov]

They have very high r&d costs, so 40% margin barely covers it up. At the end they only survive by sales scale

[@elsanmiguel7717]

That last bit Linus said about recycling and trade in is absolutely correct. It's ironic that a company like Apple that prides itself on sustainability can turn around and produce thousands of laptops with poultry ram and storage, because they rather make a huge profit selling better spec models that should actually be the standard

[@jasonstephen7564]

Because it was never about sustainability and being environmentally friendly. They are just marketing buzzwords to make consumers feel better about buying the $1000+ device they really don't need to keep these companies profits up

[@thrace_bot1012]

Paltry not poultry kek

[@XandarYT]

They just lie about caring about sustainability so they can remove chargers and do other stuff like this.

[@HeretixAevum]

This is the most sensible thing that Carlos has ever said.

[@friendlybane]

Almost as if they are lying about caring about sustainability.

[@strikey706]

Apple would probably find a way to integrate their chargers into their devices

[@przemysawgumienny2621]

every phone has an integrated charger

[@TMTGD]

But then they can’t sell their $20 charging bricks!

[@nubnubbud]

if they hadn't already found a way to sell them separately at an upmarked price, and call it "environmentally friendly"

[@JTCF]

Yep, you need a wire with a proprietary plug and the charger needs to be installed inside the wall with a custom electrician job, connecting directly to your incoming electricity wires, no regular plugs involved!

[@W0Rd0n32sTre3T]

That's just a psu..

[@jjb2244]

This is why I am hoping framework comes out with a budget chassis for like $400-$500

[@kec2222]

It's unlikely they can reach that price point without seriously compromising upgradeability/repairability. That kind of design has a price and there's only so much you can save on hardware.They can offer lower-end hardware, but that won't bring down the price that much. And honestly with a budget of $500 or less it makes no sense to buy a new laptop, since everything in that range is absolute garbage. An older higher-end laptop will have the same performance but be better in every other aspect.

[@jesselioce]

Not gonna happen

[@aquaponieee]

i have just accepted that i will never ever be able to afford a framework laptop and moved on. i currently have an ideapad 3 15alc6 with amd rzyen 3 5300u that costed me 300 something $, because my previous emachines e720 with intel pentium t4200 broke

[@falkenvir]

​@@KellyWu04they are starting out thus the more expensive cost

[@Stormface16]

I think one of the biggest problems is the complete disconnect between offer and go-to configurations. Even our "regular" office clients now are equipped with 16GBs of RAM and 512GB SSDs for 600€...

[@harrytsang1501]

My last job provisioned MacBooks to us. Aside from heat, noise and keyboard of the Intel models, we only have 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD. You literally can't have the backend dev server and frontend running at the same time because the tools will not fit in the SSD

[@yourfavoritelawnguy2722]

@@harrytsang1501 god that is pitiful, good ole apple..

[@itsapersonn]

And this is why I, and so many others (like Linus) fell in love with devices like the Framework Laptop 13 and 16, the NovaCustom laptops, the Fairphone 3 and 4, and the Pinephone and Pinephone Pro. It's mesmerizing how accustomed we've gotten to tightly integrated devices.

[@ghost-user559]

All of those are great ideas with janky Os, or terrible weak hardware, or next to zero support. Every single one of those except framework is not ready to daily drive at all, and framework is more expensive to upgrade than it would be to just buy a whole new laptop in five years anyway, so even that is not ready for practical use yet. So it’s not even a comparison yet to any flagship product unless you literally just want to make phone calls and basic web browsing. And Framework is an amazing idea that just doesn’t sell enough yet to be worth the cost.

[@TheFallingFlamingo]

Linus switched his whole team to Mac because they couldn't stand the extra 5 seconds it takes to turn on a modern windows laptop versus waking it up from sleep...

[@MrRedinator_]

@@TheFallingFlamingo citation needed (I know that some people in the team use Macs but I have yet to hear about their *entire* team switching to Macs)

[@ComeAllYouWeary]

Doesn't Framework also have a pretty brutal 'starting at..' configuration on their site?

[@itsapersonn]

@@ghost-user559 The only device that isn't quite ready yet is the Pinephone; all of the rest are definitely ready. And NovaCustom has some awesome powerful laptops.

[@flowerfloc]

I really like the current content atm, and linus seems so enthusiastic about everything he does, can't wait to see how the future of this channel will go :)

[@Cyber-Roaming]

are you new here ?

[@arwo1143]

@@Cyber-Roaming Linus was noticeably worn out by his responsibilities as CEO and all the work that came with THAT which prevented him from doing what he really liked doing, which is these videos Now that he is no longer CEO, he is much more enthusiastic in the videos

[@Fr_g]

@@arwo1143 Don't be too sure about that, the new CEO isn't in the office yet, so he still holds a lot of responsibilities.

[@Fr_g]

@@AndersHass Yeah he mentioned that on the WAN show. People are just seeing things that aren't happening

[@patemathic]

I wonder if EU could mandate a bootable NVMe slot on laptops. Manufacturers could use soldered SSDs if they wanted to, but would have to include at least one user-replaceable fully functional storage solution.

[@marianmarkovic5881]

Yeah, well I am not picky, even 2230 compatible slot can make big difference(well in most devices there is definetly place for 2280)

[@joshg87]

What made it worse for me was the fact that I had to go to them for repair AND the customer experience was terrible. If you design your product in a way that forces the end user back to you it better be a smooth experience.

[@KillahMate]

But if the customer doesn't have a choice, then there's no reason for them to invest resources and effort into making it a smooth experience is there? What's the customer gonna do, go somewhere else?

[@joshg87]

@@KillahMate Yes! I’ll stop using Mac products. The entire schtick for Apple is user experience. I like that aspect of their products. I like that I don’t have to endlessly tinker with it like I do my PC build. If that experience is gone there is no point in paying the premium IMO.

[@afelias]

The only laptop I ever bought for myself came with empty slots for an M.2 SSD and a second SODIMM RAM stick. Bought the extra parts alongside the laptop same-day once I confirmed the inside of the model when I asked it be opened up in store. Shame that's not as standard anymore. I don't think I'd buy another laptop unless it's something like Framework.

[@_nut_ella_]

I bought an ROG laptop in 2022 with more slots for ram and storage, and thankfully I don't think Asus is getting rid of those options anytime soon

[@ghost-user559]

People have done the math and they cost *MORE* than just buying a whole new computer in a few years. So besides making a statement you are paying more than even Apple prices for an inferior machine that you will have to pay a lot to upgrade anyway. It’s not ready for practical reasons yet, but in theory framework is a great concept.

[@mycosys]

You can find them, but it means paying more for a bigger laptop. And specifically looking

[@spicyweasel]

I did the same thing for mine, I bought a couple of years ago, simply shipped the laptop through Amazon and bought the upgrade parts locally and installed them myself on day 1.

[@awii.neocities]

@@ghost-user559 Since when? Who's "people" How does it cost more to buy a ram stick and a hard drive down the line instead of buying a whole new laptop (I mean unless the laptop is extremely cheap, which is not the case)

[@doctechno2241]

The easy solution here would be to take a page from the 1980s and simply add on-board sockets for the memory chips themselves. They are called ball grid array interposer sockets, and are available for all chips that are usually soldered directly on a board.

[@me2olive]

@@cbacbacba09 Maybe not for ram, but phones *have* become unnecessarily ridiculous and wasteful. Luckily there are still companies like Fairphone and Framework making modular phones and laptops to facilitate upgrades and/or repairs.

[@vgamesx1]

@@cbacbacba09 Ever heard of an artificial limitation? It's not as if a phone or laptop has some requirement to be exactly 5mm thick, thinner might make it look more appealing, but it's not as if it's just impossible to add an extra 0.5mm to accommodate things like this ....and still be insanely thin by the way, this push to have things as thin as possible is a joke.

[@emptyshirt]

This isn't a technical problem. Its a producer vs consumer problem. Consumers have almost no influence on what gets produced. If producers all decide that headphone jacks are bad for business headphone jacks go away. Demand for good value products does little to ensure that good value products are produced.

[@arkhikun]

​@@cbacbacba09laptops dont have space restrictions. macbooks are unnecessarily thin and owe worse protection to the screen

[@anynomous11111]

Or just use a regular so dimm slot.

[@Motti22]

Thank you, this is so true. And one problem aswell is if the ram or the ssd breaks on the board you cant "just" swap it. I've seen so many ~5 year old Macbooks with broken ram that are doomed to be landfill.

[@AlexGlanville]

This isn’t even limited to computers, I’ve been noticing the same with EVs. They state 330mi starting at, say, $30,000 but then you go and configure and it’s like 210mi for that price. Then it’s $65k+ for a 330mi range EV.

[@homie_z16]

Absolutely true. It has always bothered me that major companies constrain end users with such tactics in broad daylight. Tech is a necessity and people should not be taken advantage of so brazenly. Nicely done LTT.

[@joeblogs6598]

Lack of competition. Due to government regulations there are few competing companies. Result is idiocy like this.

[@OneMindNoLimit]

Would it be possible going forward for LMG to start benchmarking the base models alongside the top tier/ normals units they do, to show the kind of performance buyers would get at the advertised price?

[@Tom-zz2yy]

This is a great idea. Is it cost effective for LTT though? Thats a lot of complexity to add.

[@OneMindNoLimit]

@@Tom-zz2yy lol, I know that cost will always be a factor. Plus, I’m sure that no company will be providing a baseline model as a review sample.

[@OneMindNoLimit]

@@Tom-zz2yy, it most probably would not. I just thought that it would be cool.

[@benjaminslayton4335]

I would be happy to pay $8 more for a RAM socket. I would be happy to have a chonky laptop that I can upgrade the RAM and SSD in. When I see things like a socketed processor, I get excited! I even wish upgradable graphics cards were common in laptops. Sometimes, chonk factor is a good thing.

[@mr.kenway4554]

I guess you hate having any batter life in a laptop then.

[@ProAvgeek6328]

Performance and upgradability>thickness

[@ProAvgeek6328]

@@mr.kenway4554 Thicker laptop=bigger battery, plus performance>battery life

[@Gr4pefru1t]

It's the same for the car industry, with starting at the base model and then tacking on things like alloy wheels (which some packages don't allow you to forego), mats, etc.

[@brunoais]

In my case, I got the "starting at" model for my car and it's an excellent cheap car.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

My favorite is cruise control still not being standard on Chevy trucks. No dealer will sell a unit without it, but you must buy an expensive premium package to get it. GM gets to claim a "starting price" below $30k, dealer gets to charge at least $40k, customer still thinks he's getting a good deal because it's a lot cheaper than the $90K Denali on the lot across the street. "Everyone" wins.

[@Gr4pefru1t]

@@brunoais same here. On top of the fact that the starting prices for '24s are cheaper than most used cars (which dealerships ofc make more on their used cars)...

[@GENKI_INU]

Except for cars, most dealership options are easily upgradable and cheaper from third parties. But in the case of laptops, if they don't give you a slot (everything is soldered), you can't do anything.

[@Gr4pefru1t]

@@GENKI_INU totally agree, and while it's hard for me to see that ever changing I'm sure that it could happen somehow

[@Cyber_vir]

This is why I love the idea of the framework laptop. As long as Linus keeps his promise of publicly dropping them if they go Anti-consumer, I would say that there is no problem if he invests more into the framework inc. as he was talking about in the WAN show

[@PrograError]

I wonder will he ask the CEO to make it the official laptop of the company?

[@coldblade2000]

@@PrograError I seriously doubt it. It would still be a massive conflict of interest. He's already afraid of stepping on the audience's toes by just growing his investment after having shown off the company in LTT videos, there's no way he would jump to making an official exclusivity partnership. Not to mention customizable laptops aren't always the best laptops to give for dozens of employees, it's a logistics nightmare. Finally, Framework does charge a premium for the customizability, and doesn't yet have enough scale to compete in bulk sales with something like Dell

[@VanquishedAgain]

I just spec'd a framework to similar specs to my Legion 7 Slim (minus the dedicated GPU). I got mine with a 6800H and 6800S GPU for $1,050 brand new on sale. The framework was over 1700... and didn't have a GPU. It's not a good value. You're paying for the ability to pay more to upgrade it down the line. I'd rather just pocket that 700 bucks and buy a whole new system in 3-5 years...

[@levygaming3133]

@@coldblade2000not to mention some of their employees might just need something with decent specs but major battery life like the writers, or they might even have Quadro equipped laptops for the engineering team. And don’t forget all the MacOS users they have.

[@pabl0sauced0]

"You'll own nothing and be happy with it" is becoming more and more true every year

[@Ryan-093]

the greed of capitalists knows no bounds

[@MirrorSound95]

I loved the cute graphs and music that was used to illustrate towards the beginning. made a usual tech vid nice and relaxing

[@mekkatrippz7954]

Cool to see that framework has the same slight upcharge but allows the option to bring your own upgrades

[@thrownsofaraway9978]

Yes! Someone commented that they bought one without an ssd, ram or the windows install and bought them all 3rd party for dirt cheap.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

@@thrownsofaraway9978 It's great that buying all the secondary components separately is an option. But as long as they're the under dogs, I'd rather pay the premium to help ensure their continued existence.

[@raymondshiner1046]

@@rightwingsafetysquad9872Me too. Like linus said, most people will still just do the upgrade because they don't have the skill, time, or desire to do it themselves. But just having the option for the 10% or however many want to goes a big way

[@MaxReiAT]

@@thrownsofaraway9978 Yes, I did exactly that with my framework. Bought it without an OS, RAM or SSD. I bought both the RAM and SSD from local shops at a discount and a sketchy windows key from those sites where they cost 5 bucks. Luckily that key worked so I basically got top of the line specs without any markup. But I gotta give credit to framework, their hardware was only a few euros above the lowest I could find. The only thing that really saved me money was buying a Windows Key, and even that could have been sourced for free from an old laptop.

[@joseevb04]

I think that's the most compelling part about gaming laptops. Most of them today still have replaceable ram and storage, making buying a base ram and storage configuration not as bad. Sadly that comes at the cost of weight, size and other factors (not taking into consideration that you might actually want to game on it). And even worse, some of them are coming with soldered components now. We really need brands like framework to disrupt the market and change the current trends, because if not, then there will be a lot of e-waste and a lot of unhappy consumers in the future

[@PhatAssObese]

Microsoft Surface Go (Intel Pentium Gold, 4GB RAM, 64GB) $149 renewed. Is this a good buy?

[@vocassen]

@@PhatAssObese That does not contain any information about what generation or what CPU power. But that's like bottom of the barrel stuff, even when it was released, and definitely not worth 150$ today. Ofc if you just browse the web, sure. But I'd much rather go with a used Thinkpad, you can go some generations back and still get a pretty solid experience. Bit more effort required to see what is a good deal, but used thinkpads is a well-established market

[@stuner1337]

So true, it's a total grift. I was also really annoyed at the limited number of available options. For a high-end notebook I was only able to configure up to 1 TB of storage. So I just bought a 2 TB SSD and installed it in my 5-year-old machine.

[@RNorthex]

I like that the tone of the video is less so anger and demand and more so suggestions and plea for compromise and jabs where it is warranted

[@Psytherea]

Still rocking with (imo) the last best Dell XPS 15, the 7590 with pretty amazing IO. Over the years did an upgrade to a Optane SSD, 2x 16GB, and replaced the spent battery. Will continue to rock it until it literally breaks.

[@THE_Game_Mental]

This entire video is what im gonna show my parents to get a new framework laptop instead of some random dell one. Thanks for the help guys ❤❤❤.

[@benargee]

Framework pricing hit me pretty hard, but I followed through because of what they represent.

[@willm5032]

Agree, I want to get one to replace my current laptop but I'll take that hit because I love them as a company

[@walterfehn8624]

I love to see Linus in videos so often. Seems like the change in LTT was a good one.

[@johnlg91]

The change hasn’t even happened yet. The new CEO isn’t in office yet.

[@walterfehn8624]

@@johnlg91 Hmm that's strange...

[@mingzhezhang2992]

It's definitely not just the tech industry. All industries have "starting at" and "up to" lies.

[@TheFPSPower]

*cof* *cof* cars... "Oh cool, this electric car costs 35k€ with 500km range and 4seg 0 to 60, wow! Oh that's base price, oh the advertised model costs 60k€.... Every time.

[@stitchfinger7678]

@@TheFPSPower Yeah I feel like you should literally only be able to advertise features and stats that are true for the whole line of cars, unless you explicitly state you're talking about a more expensive model.

[@levygaming3133]

@@stitchfinger7678car manufacturers are generally required to admit “price as tested”/“price as configured”/“price as shown”

[@dracer35]

I felt this when I configured a Framemwork 16 DIY "starting at $1399". Even using the lower spec CPU and it was a little over $2000 and wont even be available until the end of the year when the hardware is already a getting close to be last gen. Ultimately decided I will wait and maybe check back later to see what prices and availability looks like in the future.

[@dracer35]

@compilationhub54 Ya, I like the idea of the framework but if it ends up costing almost double the price of a comparable laptop, it's not worth it.

[@m.f.3347]

​@@dracer35 None of what you said is wrong, but i think the value proposition is different. For one, you could argue that while the upfront cost is cheaper, being able to carry over your laptop chassis/screen/keyboard means that over 2 or 3 upgrade cycles, you could save money by not having to buy those parts again every time you want a faster CPU. Even then, some might also argue that the ethical mission is worth paying the extra cost - but again, that's something you have to decide for yourself, and I'm not gonna look down on someone who's main target is price above all else.

[@coldblade2000]

@@dracer35 Framework's cost is a bit different though. So far it seems Framework is fully upgradeable, even the CPU and main board. Future upgrades would cost way less than having to buy a whole new laptop. Also repair costs if a part is damaged will probably be equal or lower, especially compared to companies that solder all their components on the expensive main board

[@dracer35]

@@m.f.3347 I agree with all your points which is why I was looking at the framework laptop in the first place. I was mainly using it in context to the video about the "Starting at" price because that was the topic of the video. Even at the basic starting at price of $1399, that doesn't even include a single usb-c expansion card to power the laptop. When I add the 6 expansion cards, a power adapter and a keyboard numpad(necessity for me) it's already up to $1581 and that's not including m.2 storage, ram or an O.S. to get it up and running on a basic laptop with only integrated graphics. Not a very good deal at all even if you can upgrade in the future. So basically what I was saying at the very least Framework is still doing the same thing Linus is complaining about in the video to an extent. At the absolute very minimum, I think one usb-c expansion card for charging and one more expansion card of choice should be included with the base price of the unit.

[@VanquishedAgain]

​@@m.f.3347but nobody wants that. We want new laptops. If it costs the same to buy a new laptop as it does to buy a framework and upgrade it, I'll take the new one every time.

[@DigitalJedi]

On the point of repair shops doing upgrades, I used to do that. I did GPU vram upgrades from the GTX 700 series right up until my final project ever, a 48GB 3090. I also did laptop RAM upgrades and a full chip transplant to upgrade a laptop from a 6th gen i3 to the highest-end i7 that would fit the BGA pads. I didn't have a robotic arm to do it, but I did have a set of lab machines for things like lining up solder masks and heating PCBs. I even had a jig that let me move the soldering iron in perfectly straight lines for doing rows of components.

[@chosenArchitec]

Impressive!

[@ddxx8113]

There's a industry now in China to BGA upgrade storage for iphones. Also, since the economy is bad now and we are using phones for longer, there has been more reliability problems of the CPU getting loose and needs to re-soldered. So replacing the phone's CPU is also popular.

[@DigitalJedi]

@@ddxx8113 I've thought about reviving my little operation for some phone repairs since I still have all the tools for bga soldering, but sadly my PhD work is eating up all my time anymore. Had to let it go before I could try it out myself.

[@DaGing3rBr3dMan]

the small animations in this video were really good, i would love to see more stuff like this!

[@justdoingitjim7095]

The same could be said for automobiles. When they say "starting at..." the vehicle they're referring to comes without seats, without carpet, without a steering wheel, without tires and without any of the trim features that distinguishes one model from another. They're referring to the 'base' vehicle as it sits before a customer decides which trim package they want and what 'options' they'd like.

[@chiyolate]

I remember I upgraded my vram from 1MB to 2MB so I can use 1024 x 768 resolution in true color mode. The store owner just picked a random stuff inside his drawer and put it on my VGA, I thought oh that's the memory! went back home only to find out the color was distorted, went back to the store and he said oops.. he grabbed another random memory and put it on, this time it worked! lol I forgot how much I paid for that 1MB memory 😁 The graphics card was S3 Trio something I believe.

[@mycosys]

wow, that REALLY wanst worth upgrading - i regret my Virge more than just about any other PC purchase XD

[@Autunite]

My 10 year old ThinkPad (T440s) is still going strong with a memory and SSD upgrade. I bet it will serve me five more years at least, and depending on Windows 10 support, I might have to go over to Linux to give it another five years, so 20 years in total. I bought it second-hand refurbished from a company, and I don't regret it one bit. The only thing I regret is that I didn't go ThinkPad earlier.

[@flameshana9]

If only more people were interested in longevity instead of "But it's 5% faster than anything you have! Who cares if it costs 87% more for that 5%. It's still technically the best!" I mean look at how many people buy 4090's. In this last decade the price of top end electronics has more than doubled, and yet they still continue to sell.

[@davinnicode]

Sadly Lenovo followed this trend for a lot of laptops of the Thinkpad series. There are still some models out there with full upgradability and easy repairability but these are way more pricy. My T420 finally broke down earlier this year after 10+ years in service and I thought about just buying a new Thinkpad since the last one gave me great longevity. I ended up buying a HP Elitebook since at my budget I didn’t want to support Lenovo using this stupid product policy even on their business laptops.

[@harrytsang1501]

​@@davinnicodemind to elaborate on Lenovo's stupid policy? I recently bought a T480s for a family member and I myself use a Lenovo legion. Both of which have upgradable memory and storage

[@ahumeniy]

@@harrytsang1501 T490 and newer don't have upgradable memory anymore

[@Autunite]

@@davinnicode that's true and it's a shame. I'd love me a chonkier ThinkPad with the ability to change components.

[@jayg339]

Excellent video on a topic that should be getting more conversation. When a gen 4 2tb Samsung 980 ssd at times costs $99, it’s absurd to see Apple asking $200 to increase storage from 256gb to 512gb. When I’ve gotten Apple products, I’ve always upgraded the ram and dealt with the absurd markup, but anymore storage I would need would come from external drives.

[@thetheeser659]

I´m so happy that someone is finally talking about this. The way manufacturers are "intentionally out of touch" with real world is astounding. It seems that all around the market the prices are all manners of wrong. I can barely find a laptop with more than 32 gigs of ram at even 2500usd+ If you are creative 3D graphic designer or someone who needs rtx, ram and storage, you are in a rough spot with these prices today.

[@PrograError]

well... the advice is to get a gaming laptop TBH , also why ain't ya using a desktop ???

[@thetheeser659]

@@PrograErrorOf course one should get a gaming laptop but nvidias outrageous pricing and stupid high margins described in this video means that either you are paying manufacturers extortionate fee or you are digging way deep into specs which modules are upgradable, how many slots avaliable some which are not always clearly listed. It´s unnecessary pain for the customers. And as for the second question, yes desktop is great and can be used as a slave to be worked on from a weaker laptop, but that doesn´t really resolve issue described beforehand

[@jondonnelly3]

7840U definitely supports ddr5 5600MHz 32gb SODIMMS, (total 64)but it's quite new. Laptops should be coming with it soon.

[@spunkysamuel]

@@PrograError Do you want every single reason why someone would use a laptop over a desktop?

[@iGPR3]

sadly repairability is definitely becoming a thing of the past.. hopefully companies like framework can bring it back into mainstream products

[@cameronbosch1213]

It isn't. That is, if the Framework Laptop 16 pre-orders are to be believed.

[@robertmusil1107]

Framework is too expensive. Would be nice if they make normal prices.

[@chronometer9931]

Repaiability has to be in the present, there is no other option that's viable is a long-term...

[@cameronbosch1213]

@@robertmusil1107 What's worse: Spending more for less later or less now for more later?

[@Zensaitv]

I'll Glady back framework if they stay this way just sucks that down the road that might change due to manipulation of power.

[@dotapark]

Finally, video without click baiting title or thumbnail, no nonsense argument at all. Love to feel like you guys taking fair criticism, as a company making fair criticism. Great video.

[@OneMomentPls]

nah mate, they address this. video geared towards enthusiast would have relatively tamed title. But video aim to attract people to new subject matter would have clickbaity stuff

[@dotapark]

@@OneMomentPls you mean this video doesn’t click bait only because of its subject?

[@alvirarahman1559]

I have been literally saying this for the past 4 years now. Finally someone spoke up.

[@1mlb704]

Apple's biggest "innovation" trend is coming up with solutions nobody was asking for (ie. non-upgradable storage, removal of ports, etc) in order to profit on accessories, cloud subscriptions, and more frequent device upgrades. Then these other manufacturers like Dell and Samsung go ahead and copy what they're doing. Now we have laptops with soldered memory and two ports and smartphones with no headphone jacks or expandable memory. Thanks Apple.

[@colinjames4230]

I remember buying a Mac mini waaaay back and you could take bottom panel off WITHOUT tools and upgrade your ram in seconds.

[@callumcharalambides1832]

And this is exactly why getting a desktop with a futureproof case/motherboard is the way to go

[@adredy]

yes and power consumption = 650wat not 25w

[@surfntrucks]

This is actually a great video. Glad you guys mentioned it. The 15" Macbook Air should come with no less than 16GB of Ram since it's shared. Storage should start at 512GB. Disappointed that Apple went that direction.

[@mr.kenway4554]

Soon we will get 4GB and 128GB storage for 1000

[@Stealth_Pilot]

@@mr.kenway4554 the m3 air macbook wil maybe come with 12 gb ram

[@velber1925]

@@Stealth_Pilothaha

[@Stealth_Pilot]

@@velber1925 that comment dint age well

[@nigelhall6714]

Security is also used as a 'reason' for such approaches by such companies. Also important to call them out when they hide behind such...Louis Ros does a sterling job here.

[@260830107]

the ssd sure is "securely" soldered onto the motherboard alright

[@benjaminoechsli1941]

Being sponsored by MSI's laptop sale in a video all about the sucky part of buying laptops made me chuckle. Otherwise, excellent video, LMG! Framework's approach to allowing cheap(er) upgrades to an existing machine means I'll be looking forward to picking one up in the next year or so. As Linus said, it's better for the environment to just make a bunch of chips to upgrade an old laptop than to make a new laptop altogether.

[@jericho86]

It’s not just consumer electronics. I have a friend who bought a brand new Nissan Sentra a few years ago. He specifically sought out the only one in the region with the manual transmission, not just because it was cheaper, but also because it was his transmission of choice. After the third transmission in 120k miles, we concluded that Nissan never actually intended to sell any manual transmission cars. They were banking the North American aversion to clutch pedals to cover the fact that they put in a transmission unsuitable for the car just to advertise a lower base price.

[@noname7271]

Nissan CVTs aren't much better. Performance is great but longevity and repairability is trash.

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

The autos are just as crap, don't buy a Nissan unless it's a Z, it's that simple

[@levygaming3133]

@@My_Old_YT_Accountdid you forget the GT-R?

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

@@levygaming3133 I thought they stopped making them

[@jericho86]

@Mica-bh7dm I think there are some decent Nissans, but you can't buy the cheap ones. I had an infinity G37x coupe that was a decent car, and I've had some frontiers as company trucks that were tough even if they were dated, but with anything nissan, you get what you pay for.

[@jakthebomb]

I have been saying this for years. The starting at configurations are underspeced for the price being listed. Apple should have doubled the SSD and RAM and kept the same starting price. But instead they force buyers to pay more for the spec it should be.

[@jakthebomb]

@@qtsssim I manage a Corporate fleet of MacBook Pros, we order them with 32GB of RAM. I think a company would be hardpressed to live with 8GB of RAM.

[@mako9673]

I would say, tell people not to buy these models/brands to vote this practice out with their dollar. But I know a lot of people don't know any better, and will just pay those high prices for incremental upgrades.

[@PrograError]

funny enough my ex company brought a macbook M1 for graphic design. but the mac is painfully lacking in RAM. just browsing with bout 20 tabs (with sleeping tab extensions) while working on Adobe Ai is ... *P . A . I . N* , especially when you decided to design something a bit more "ambitious"...

[@Devo_gx]

Indeed! Apple is absolutely insane with the 15" MacBook Air. In Canada, the $1749 base config comes with 8GB of RAM.

[@yo.adrian]

That's why I always go for the model with "middle of the road" specifications. It'll have better specs than the base model, and usually the highest-end models has too much things I mostly won't use.

[@steveharper2857]

Me too. I have never been disappointed.

[@fastfiddler1625]

One of several reasons I don't buy apple anything. But thank you, LTT, for giving me a new step in laptop buying. Asking customer service if this is a user upgradeable device before I buy. But even my MSI (your sponsor), had a "warranty void" sticker over the center screw back in 2016. Which is pathetic considering you can't always properly clear dust in a laptop from the outside.

[@philipread8733]

As usual it's the consumer that gets ripped off by big businesses. What's worse is people are prepared to pay these exorbitant prices. Great video.

[@PompaTG]

They do it because they can. People still buy it, so why wouldn't they? You're supposed to buy now overpriced units, not refurbish, repair, upgrade and maintain your old machine...

[@K-dis_Boher]

let's change your use of "prepared" to "manipulated"

[@classicrockonly]

My next laptop will easily be a Framework. My Thinkpad is feeling really slow so it is about time to get some more modern hardware

[@manny9323]

My laptop for most of college was a 2012 MacBook (4-6 years old when I bought it) and it worked beautifully well with an SSD and RAM upgrade. The biggest challenge with it today is the battery has no capacity and the screen sucks - otherwise I’d still be using that thing.

[@PrestoJacobson]

It isn't loud and hot as hell, like the 2013 MacBook pro 15"?

[@NotABaldMan]

@@PrestoJacobsoni also own a 2012 MacBook and I can say that when gaming on low-end games, it does get hot enough to cause discomfort on my lap but it's indeed not that noisy

[@aared]

You are bad for Apple's bottom line

[@ZubinB]

I still have 3 old Windows laptops laying around in the house back since 2012, all functional. Bought my only MacBook in 2014, thing was dead 4 years later. Apple quotes a ridiculous price and wants to replace the whole motherboard because guess what, the storage is soldered in. I paid for it anyway because you could hardly get the thinness and feel it offered back then, until Dell came out with the XPS line. Aaaand 6 months later the battery dies. I now have a thin, light, premium bi fold block of useless metal. The Windows laptops still run fine, the oldest got laggy but that's a simple fix, put linux on it and called it a day. Yes, the battery has gone to shit also, but if I were upgrade any of these at least with a new battery I would also be able to swap and put a faster SSD or add RAM.

[@animeloveer97]

​@@PrestoJacobsonright? I remember hearing the batteries exploded and they caught fire and stuff like that

[@zahirig]

This is one of my favorite videos you've done. Thanks.