the trade off are speed, cost and power consumption though. soldered lpddr today is significantly faster than sodimm ddr while consuming less power and (on paper) cheaper
It is not an issue. I suspect most people complaining want to upgrade to save money, that is, buy and upgrade the base with cheap modular RAM. The problem is that Core Ultra chips run the best, and LPDDR5X is the one you cannot buy modular. So why would Intel make it modular? As for upgrading to after RAM in 3-5 years, the reality is that it will also be soldered or based on a new design that is more efficient than the very ancient modular DIM. As for repairability, RAM is one of the most long-lasting components in PCs and will outlast most PCs by many years. Tech has to advance as well. Otherwise, we would not see the wonderful speed and performance we can achieve now.
@@andyH_England It's not just about saving money, it's about what will happen if the RAM goes bad. It can happen, I have personal experience, and that is not going to be fun to deal with if you have soldered RAM. Not fun at all.
@@TrusteftTech The rule in tech is that if the RAM does not fail in six months it is likely to last for as long as you need. As we have warranties, in the UK two years, then RAM failure is not something we should ever worry about in 2024. This is not the 1980s and component longevity of SSDs and RAM is now excellent. The failure rate is about 0.7% in the first year, yet afterwards, nominal. We could worry about dying in a motor accident, the chances in the US are about 1%, yet we still drive and do not worry about that low possibility. Sometimes you have to stop worrying about low possibility outcomes.
@@andyH_England I am into computers since the early 80s. RAM from the 80s till now can fail at any time. Whenever that happens, if it is soldered you are FRAKED. You can't just replace it yourself and keep on working. You have to send it for repairs, if it is under warranty, or if it is not under warranty pay who knows how much to have it repaired/replaced. Which means far more money than if you just bought new RAM, and definitely far more time wasted. If it is even possible of course. There is no real advantage for the end user. Any possible speed difference is a joke compared to the potential problem and at the very least time wasted waiting. You don't have to agree with me. It's fine to disagree. You buy what you want, I will continue not buying what I want.
Nice review Lon, will most likely be my next laptopm however, I'd be getting the 16gb version with a 2 or 4k resolution. It doesnt't make any sense in this day an age to have a laptop with less than 16 GB or ram, particularly given the low price of ram these days...
ASUS did not do this. Core Ultra uses the fastest LPDDR5X, and it is impossible to manufacture it in a modular form. Intel chose the fastest RAM as part of the new chipset so that they could highlight its performance. OEMs can use 14th-generation Intel chips if they want modular and slower RAM. Still, for obvious reasons, every OEM chooses Core Ultra for their ultrabooks, as most people value speed>upgradeability.
Honestly, this compares pretty favorably to something like the surface lineup in terms of value anyway. Seems to be trying to compete with those business grade ultra books.
Anything with 8GB of non-upgradable ram or less should simply not be considered… Most midrange laptops in 2020 had 16GB paired with i5s and that was usually upgradable as well. This is a 2024 laptop with 8GB of soldered on RAM, it’s borderline e waste.
Lon, it is a scam that every laptop manufacturer sells soldered to motherboard memory , not upgradeable and 8gb is not enough, they want us to trash it in 2 years and that is NOT how people think when they take their money to buy a new laptop. Win10 just stock with a browser and a couple of tabs consumes more than 6gb or ram. I think 32gb of ram should be the right number if you want a laptop that lasts for 5 or 6 years or even more. If a laptop does not have 32gb of ram...i would not even consider to buy it, it is a scam
From my experience with laptops with soldered to motherboard memory, i would just stay away, specially because you are paying more than 800 dollars for something you can´t fix easy, sadly every manufacturer is doing the same thing and leaves no options to consumers. I had really bad experience with a ryzen lenovo E14 laptop where a ram chip went bad and you were not even able to finish the windows 10 install!. There are ways and tools to skip the bad sectors using memtest and linux, but windows is a different thing because you are required to install windows10 first and then run the tools. A complete cat and mice situation where i had to do a win10 install on virtualbox , clone image it in virtual box, restore to nvme using another desktop PC with an nvme to usb adapter, just to prepare it to make it work on the lenovo with bad ram areas. After all that i just hate soldered to motherboard memory
I knew you would get to reviewing the Zenbook with the OLED! I bought the same unit, and love it! Mine came with the Intel 17-13700H with 16 gb of RAM and the 512 Samsung SSD. The display can be 60 or 120 mHz (selectable). The laptop is dark gray vs your light color. This was a special for $699 around Christmas. I think I lucked out on the price, as the specs are a bit higher than the review example. That said, the Asus Zenbook 14 is one of the best laptops, it looks fantastic and very fast.. Great review!
That is an amazing price for such a quality laptop and with OLED to boot. Really impressed. Would love to see similar laptops and prices for Qualcomm and AMD laptops one day.
Thank you for the review! I've been enjoying your reviews for many years (possibly more than a decade), and I'm so glad you reviewed this laptop. I had trouble finding good reviews, if any, on this laptop, and the amount of detail you put in your review didn't let me down!
Thank you very much for your video. Could you confirm 8gb version does not come with arc igpu, instead comes with Intel Graphics? I was not able to confirm this information and what igpu is that. Thanks
The limitation, or worry about burn in, would easily make me not want to have such a panel. Just having that in my mind all the time it would drive me more crazy. Otherwise it looks like a fine laptop, as long as you get it with more RAM. Good video.
Burn in is usually not an issue as long as you follow the recommendations. My 2020 Vivobook 15 OLED with relatively heavy daily use has no signs of burn in to this day, still looks a beautiful as ever.
I've never had burn in in my life and I've probably owned a dozen OLED devices. Obviously that's not a big enough sample size to say it never happens or anything but wouldn't be a huge concern of mine
Expensive laptops are going to stay on the shelves people are hitting rock bottom out here thanks to inflation.while it's nice to see new products most people are not going to spend over $200 on something.Under 17% say there are considering to buy a house and some say a crash is coming in some states.
