Soldered RAM is the price of thinness.

Thinness, mostly — and a dash of planned obsolescence.

Laptops with soldered RAM are designed to be as thin and light as possible. Soldering the memory directly to the motherboard saves space, reduces heat, and lets engineers cram in bigger batteries or thinner chassis. That’s the trade-off: you get a sleeker machine, but you lose the ability to upgrade or repair memory later.

Apple started the trend with the Retina MacBook Pro, and now most ultrabooks follow suit. It’s not about performance — soldered RAM actually can be faster in some cases, but the real reason is design constraints and, let’s be honest, profit. More soldered RAM at purchase costs a premium, and you can’t swap in cheap third-party sticks later.

If you value repairability and future-proofing, look for laptops with SODIMM slots (common on thicker business laptops and gaming machines). If you want the thinnest, lightest notebook and are willing to pay upfront for the memory you’ll need years from now, go soldered.

Pick your priority before you buy.