Being able to swap out memory modules or the controller might make end user repairs easier without totally losing all data, but realistically this sort of thing goes contrary to all actions taken by major manufacturers in the past decade.
Everybody is soldering memory directly onto motherboards because it’s faster, cheaper (less supply chain) and forces people to buy entirely new systems for an upgrade. Storage has also been done many times especially with apple. Repairs often have to go back to a repair shop owned by the manufacturers so they do the lion’s share of repairs and capture profit there as well because you can’t just buy individual components and swap them out due to proprietary code and tooling with software locks.
Samsung is the only one doing this so far, so as-is it’s just proprietary crap that might force you into an upgrade path with compatible parts only available from them, which is perhaps the goal. Sell you a basic chip with low density and low performing controllers and charge you to upgrade over and over, rather than stick with the component you have or buy a whole new one from a competitor.
There another reason for soldering RAM, that being that the signal integrity of DIMMs is too low for use with LPDDR. There a reason why Dell spent R&D money on developing CAMM (and why JEDEC was very happy to refine it into the CAMM2 modules that are entering the market now).
Swappable RAM has its own advantages, such as being able to easily switch suppliers if necessary. I can see modular RAM making a comeback in laptops by means of LPDDR CAMMs.
Being able to swap out memory modules or the controller might make end user repairs easier without totally losing all data, but realistically this sort of thing goes contrary to all actions taken by major manufacturers in the past decade.
Everybody is soldering memory directly onto motherboards because it’s faster, cheaper (less supply chain) and forces people to buy entirely new systems for an upgrade. Storage has also been done many times especially with apple. Repairs often have to go back to a repair shop owned by the manufacturers so they do the lion’s share of repairs and capture profit there as well because you can’t just buy individual components and swap them out due to proprietary code and tooling with software locks.
Samsung is the only one doing this so far, so as-is it’s just proprietary crap that might force you into an upgrade path with compatible parts only available from them, which is perhaps the goal. Sell you a basic chip with low density and low performing controllers and charge you to upgrade over and over, rather than stick with the component you have or buy a whole new one from a competitor.
There another reason for soldering RAM, that being that the signal integrity of DIMMs is too low for use with LPDDR. There a reason why Dell spent R&D money on developing CAMM (and why JEDEC was very happy to refine it into the CAMM2 modules that are entering the market now).
Swappable RAM has its own advantages, such as being able to easily switch suppliers if necessary. I can see modular RAM making a comeback in laptops by means of LPDDR CAMMs.