this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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Yes, because Asus laptops all have non-soldered RAM...
A few do have non-soldered RAM, the most expensive workstation laptop and a couple of gaming laptops; all of which are >$2000.
I think what that poster was communicating is that shipping a laptop with 8GB of RAM would be okay if it was socketed (allowing for an upgrade by the user) or if the shipped unit with soldered RAM was greater than 8GB (16GB?, 32GB?,64GB? soldered).
Fair enough. Although Asus sells at least one laptop with 8 GB of soldered RAM, too.
Granted, it's "only" a Chromebook, but still.
Soldered RAM is almost always a bad thing, no matter the size. Maybe when it's the most the mainboard can support it's not too bad but even then you're out of luck if it ends up dying.
As far as I understand Apple is partly doing it because of the higher memory bandwidth, which is necessary for the way macOS manages memory. I still don't like it but at least they're doing it for a reason.
Chromebooks with low RAM are fine for many use cases. I've got a chromebook with only 4GB of RAM and its perfectly fine for web browsing or watching streaming which is the only things I use it for.
I used to think that too, but then I realized that the way I use computers (and it sounds like you do too) is to keep a unit a long time, take care of it, and use it to its limits (and perhaps beyond). There are millions of users that don't do what we do. They may be young kids that end up breaking the unit before 2 years pass. They may be a fashionista that has to change out their unit when the new fall color comes out (so they may not even own it a year). They may be an older person that only uses it to check facebook to keep up with their kids.
In all of these cases soldered RAM is just fine because the user will never reach the point they need to upgrade it. What they get in return for this is cost savings and likely a smaller (thinner?) unit, that is probably a bit more structurally sound (because it doesn't have to have a door or clips to have the RAM sockets accessible.
For users like you and me, soldered RAM is a bad thing. For most common users they don't care. They don't even know what soldered RAM is.
They should, because when it's time to sell the laptop one with soldered RAM is gonna be worth a lot less (at least to me).
Fair, but there's still the potential of it becoming a paperweight if the RAM chips give out or Google forces AI shit into ChromeOS.
There's an irony that the most valuable laptops for resale right now are the ones with soldered RAM. Why? Because the socketed units have their RAM stripped for resale separately from the unit. Even corporate fleets are doing this now and the bulk resale laptops are arriving without SSDs and RAM. Which units still have both? Units where both are soldered and not removable.
These sell for $149 USD brand new. A general user would not spend a second of time troubleshooting a failed one. They'd just buy whatever the current model is for $149 which would probably be 4x as fast and with more storage anyway, then pitch the old one in ewaste.