Soldered RAM is a dealbreaker in gaming laptops.

Yes, absolutely. Don’t buy one.

Gaming laptops age fast. Three years from now, games will need 32 GB where 16 GB was plenty. With soldered RAM, you’re stuck. No upgrade. No trade-in. You’ll be shopping for a whole new machine just to get more memory.

Some brands (looking at you, Apple and some thin-and-lights) get away with soldered RAM because the rest of the package justifies it. But a gaming laptop? You’re paying a premium for performance today and zero flexibility tomorrow. That’s a bad deal.

Look for laptops with two SO-DIMM slots. Even if you only use one now, you can upgrade later. It’s not hard, and it saves hundreds when the time comes.

Future-proofing a gaming laptop means accepting it’s a compromise. Don’t compromise the one part that literally determines whether your next game will run.