The Extinct Modular Machine
Soldered in place: Why you, the consumer, should care
There was a time when owning a computer meant something closer to stewardship than consumption. Acts such as lifting the back panel of your laptop or unscrewing the side of a desktop tower was not out of rebellion but a normal part of the experience. When upgrading your RAM or swapping out a failing hard drive felt less like a technical achievement and more like basic knowledge. That era has been engineered out of existence, replaced by a generation of devices that arrive sealed, soldered, and completely resistant to change.
What we are left with now are laptops that look beautiful on the outside and are fundamentally inaccessible on the inside. Batteries are glued in place, RAM is fused directly to the motherboard, and storage is a permanent decision rather than a flexible one (encouraging us to purchase more cloud storage). All of these decisions raise a question that is difficult to ignore.
When did we stop expecting to own the things we buy?
Thin, Fast, and Locked Down
The argument: ✨optimization✨
“Every millimeter of internal space has become valuable, and soldered components “require less space,” allowing engineers to design more compact systems that prioritize portability.”1
This justification is often presented as though the only path to better performance and efficiency is through permanence. In reality it is a trade-off, and one that is not often framed honestly to consumers. While soldering RAM and SSDs can reduce power consumption and improve thermal efficiency, it also eliminates the ability to upgrade or repair those components later. The device you buy on day one is the device you are stuck with for its entire lifespan (perhaps by design?).
Modern low-power memory configurations are chosen in part because they “take up less space” and allow room for “cooling or a bigger battery,” a statement that is technically true but conveniently a facade. What it does not emphasize is that this same design choice removes one of the most important freedoms users once had: the ability to adapt their machines over time. 2
From Ownership to Replacement
The deeper issue here is not just engineering, but philosophy. Soldered components change the relationship between user and device, turning what was once flexible into something closer to a disposable product.
When RAM is permanently attached it becomes impossible to upgrade, or even repair. A single limitation, such as insufficient memory, can render an otherwise functional laptop totally obsolete.
This is not a hypothetical concern, because as software continues to demand more resources over time, the inability to upgrade forces users into a cycle of premature replacement. The economic incentives are difficult to ignore, since a device that cannot be upgraded is far more likely to be replaced, and a shorter upgrade cycle benefits the companies producing the hardware.
Obviously
Learning to Build Your Own PC Matters
There is something almost radical about learning how to build your own computer. It reintroduces a level of agency that modern consumer hardware tries to abstract away.
Building a PC forces you to understand the relationship between components, to recognize that memory, storage, and processing power are not fixed attributes but interchangeable parts. More importantly, it teaches you that performance is not something you receive from a manufacturer, but something you actively shape and create based on your needs.
It is also one of the few remaining spaces in consumer technology where modularity is still the default rather than the exception. You can upgrade incrementally instead of replacing wholesale, extending the life of your system in a way that is both economically and environmentally meaningful.
As the broader industry continues to move in the opposite direction, normalizing sealed devices and framing them as progress rather than compromise, it’s important to continue to share and grow the community fighting against it.
Bring Back Modular Laptops
If desktops represent the last stronghold of modular computing, then laptops are where the battle is being lost.
There are already companies pushing back against this trend, most notably Framework Computer, which has built an entire product line around the idea that laptops should be upgradeable, repairable, and designed to evolve over time. Proving that modularity and modern performance are not mutually exclusive.
The disappearance of modular laptops is not purely a technical inevitability, but a series of choices. Choices about design, cost, and what manufacturers believe consumers will tolerate.
If those choices can be made in one direction, they can just as easily be made in another.
Acceptance
Ultimately, the shift toward soldered, sealed devices is not just about constraints or manufacturing efficiencies, but about expectation. The less we demand repairability and upgradeability, the easier it becomes for companies to remove them entirely.
The irony is that we are living in an era where devices are more powerful than ever, and yet in many ways, less flexible than the machines we had a decade ago.
Once the ability to open, upgrade, and truly own our devices disappears completely, it is unlikely to return on its own.
By then, we may have lost a skillset, a mindset, and a small but meaningful form of independence that shaped how an entire generation understood technology.
https://www.makeuseof.com/why-laptop-parts-soldered-instead-of-replaceable/
https://www.pcworld.com/article/394655/why-dont-more-laptops-have-upgradable-ram-ask-an-expert.html
Very well said, so much missing those days. Besides user freedom and waste avoidance, opening the tower PC and adding/removing/upgrading those pieces of electronics was such a joyful experience.
This feels less like modularity is disappearing and more like we quietly accepted a trade we don’t fully talk about.
Where we traded control for convenience.
Soldered RAM, sealed batteries, and non-replaceable storage absolutely improve things like power efficiency, thermals, and form factor. But unfortunately they also eliminate repairability and upgrade paths entirely. That compresses the lifecycle of the device whether people realize it or not. Once you hit a resource ceiling, replacement becomes the only option.
I think what’s more interesting (and a bit concerning) is how this shifts trust. As systems become more integrated and opaque, we lose visibility into the hardware layer and become increasingly dependent on vendors and closed ecosystems. You’re not really managing a system anymore.. but just operating within one.
And the reality is, this didn’t just happen to us. The market rewarded thinner, faster, and more “seamless” devices, so manufacturers optimized for exactly that. Most users didn’t want modularity, they wanted convenience.
But now we’re in a place where devices are more powerful than ever, yet less adaptable, less inspectable, and harder to control. From a security perspective, that’s a pretty significant shift.
I feel like the real question isn’t whether modularity is gone, but whether we’re okay with what we gave up to get here.