I guess you didn't check the latest memory prices. 64 GB used to be dirt cheap, but not anymore.

Well thankfully I don't buy hardware every year, my laptop is from 2021.

Also the difference to Apple tax in SSDs and RAM remains, or do you think Apple will let go of their beloved margins on top?

if you're buying 'gaming' laptops - sure, but in business laptop world, Lenovo/Dell/HP premiums on RAM and SSD can be much higher than Apple's.

As Thinkpad owner since 2005 of multiple models, that hasn't been the case so far.

Contrary to Apple, we can still add RAM and SSDs in many models, and chose which brands we buy.

Most if them still offer laptops with memory slots, so at least for individuals it's quite easy to upgrade (companys often don't upgrade, labor is more expensive then bto). The thinner devices often have onboard memory, but even there it's not Apple-bad.

For example Lenovo US store. Thinkpad X1 carbon has an i5+16gb as base, and i7+32gb for +289$. P15s (2x sodimm) comes with 16gb in base, 32/64gb is +199/399$. Completely reasonable.

Thankfully you can upgrade it with more memory after buying for most laptop models. I recently needed a memory upgrade for my work laptop, and all the company had to do was order the memory module.

I thought the newer LPDDR5 RAM was notorious for usually being soldered on / non removable? There's the new CAMM thing but adoption has been spotty.

CAMM is adopted by the more expensive business class laptops. I think Thinkpad P1 / X1E adopted them first.

I've just put a stick of memory into my company thinkpad.

Been there. Back then memory was so cheap, that I didn't even bother of taking it out when i had to return it.

The Toshiba (!?) laptops that got sold to one of my clients at nearly $1100/ea are pathetic. Basically the same kit you can get for $600-700 at Best Buy. The equivalent MacBook would have been miles better, in terms of build quality and specs. Although, I’m using a ThinkPad E16v2 right now that I am quite pleased with that was $899 with 32GB/1TB. There are reports Apple is getting ready to launch a less expensive MacBook soon. I think the <$1000 options for laptops is about to get rather interesting.

I’m still disappointed to see the days of easy RAM/storage upgrades have largely gone. I was initially suspicious of the reasons offered for why soldering memory directly to the motherboard is necessary, but with a few years of academic engineering experience (I don’t use much of my EE education in my day job), it’s not illogical—as frequency increases, the circuit’s sensitivity to parasitic inductance and capacitance also increases, and connectors/interfaces are a big source of parasitic effects and general nonlinearity. That said, my desktop has traditional DIMM slots, and it’s technically running faster DDR5 than any of my other devices with soldered DDR4 modules.

I charitably assume the difference is laptop’s need for greater efficiencies, but either way it would be nice if the manufacturers hadn’t instantly taken advantage of this new “necessity” to jack up prices on memory and storage quite so aggressively. It’s probably also worth noting that Apple was first to really do this widely, as far as I’m aware, with the M1 chipset. Also worth noting the M1 was groundbreaking, and it’s seemingly magical memory management made it so an Apple M device with ~60% of the memory of its x86 equivalent can perform just as well (if not better). I have an 8GB M1 Mac Mini that’s still quite functional for routine work. 16GB still provides great performance.

But then, my AMD desktop that cost ~$1200 a year ago (with a capable GPU) is sporting 48GB because I could pay a reasonable price for DIMMs that I can plug-in myself. Similar specs on a mass-market machine probably would have run that price up to near $2000.