[jmisavage]

I do miss user-upgradable RAM and storage, which seems to be absent on many laptops these days. However, I don’t share the same sentiments about the other minor features that have been integrated onto the motherboard. Anyone else remember squeezing in a modem, network card, SoundBlaster, and a video card into their case? Or the frustration of discovering that the power supply couldn’t reliably power all those components. Or wanting to upgrade your CPU only for them to change the socket again.

What I really want is something like the Samsung Dex, where you can dock a portable device into something and make it more powerful.

[chneu]

In terms of the sound card, nic, etc, all of these components have essentially reached parity or the point where nobody is really upgrading them. Back in the day your sound card could be regularly upgraded, along with nic and whatnot. Nobody is doing that nowadays outside of niche circumstances.

Ram has held on because it's been increasing in capacity like crazy, and software has taken advantage of that.

Samsung Dex is great, tbh. It easily outperforms most Chromebooks and is really simple to use.

[gessha]

I’ve recently wanted to upgrade my network card to support the latest WiFi standards but the upgrade cycle is definitelu longer.

[gessha]

Some of the newest laptops now have LPCAMM2 memory which is user upgradable.

Also, I would so much rather change the motherboard/PCU on my laptop than get the latest unit my manufacturer has released.

I spent a good amount of money on my current laptop in 2016 and often times I’m reluctant to upgrade because I would have to pay a similar amount or downgrade.