Buy a laptop with 16GB of RAM today, and for most current consumer models, that’s the RAM you’ll have for the life of the machine — not because it’s technically impossible to change, but because the memory chips are soldered directly to the motherboard rather than sitting in swappable slots. It’s worth knowing before you buy, not after you’ve outgrown it.
What’s Inside
Why Manufacturers Solder RAM in the First Place
Soldered RAM (typically LPDDR-family memory) sits physically closer to the processor than traditional swappable SO-DIMM modules, which genuinely improves power efficiency and battery life — a real engineering trade-off, not just cost-cutting. The honest downside: once it’s soldered, the memory configuration is locked in for the device’s entire lifespan. Neither you nor, in most cases, a repair technician can change it without specialist equipment most people don’t have access to.
Which Laptops Still Let You Upgrade RAM
It depends heavily on brand and tier. iFixit’s 2026 repairability rankings show Framework and Lenovo’s business lines scoring highest, largely because their product strategy assumes repairability from the start — screws instead of adhesive, and socketed rather than soldered memory. Dell’s Latitude line follows a similar philosophy. At the other end, most consumer-focused laptops from Samsung and ASUS score poorly specifically because nearly everything, RAM included, is soldered down.
Even within a single brand, it varies by product line: Lenovo’s ThinkPad P-series workstations and its IdeaPad budget line both keep SO-DIMM slots, while its ultraportable consumer lines increasingly don’t. The general pattern: workstation and business-focused models tend to keep upgradeable memory; thin, consumer-focused ultrabooks increasingly don’t, regardless of brand.
The Real Cost of Soldered Everything
This isn’t just about RAM specifically — it’s part of a broader repairability pattern, and the cost difference is real money. A damaged USB-C port costs roughly $50 to replace in a modular system, versus around $1,500 for a full motherboard replacement when that same port is soldered directly to the board with no independent repair path. The same logic applies to RAM: a system that let you add memory as your needs grew costs a repair-shop visit and a module; a soldered system that’s run out of memory means replacing the entire laptop.
LPCAMM2: A Genuine Fix Finally Arriving
There’s a real, current development worth knowing about here. LPCAMM2 is a new memory standard that combines LPDDR’s power efficiency with genuine swappable modularity — it uses the same low-power memory chips as soldered designs, but in a compact, removable module instead of solder points. Lenovo’s newest T-series ThinkPads (the T14 G7 and T16 G5) are among the first mainstream laptops shipping with it, and both earned a 10/10 repairability score from iFixit as a result — matching Framework’s laptops, long considered the gold standard for repairable design.
It’s early — LPCAMM2 adoption is still limited to a handful of models — but it’s a real signal that the “repairability can’t coexist with thin, efficient design” argument manufacturers have leaned on for years is starting to break down.
How to Check Before You Buy
Don’t assume — check the specific model’s teardown before buying if RAM upgradeability matters to you. iFixit’s repairability database covers most current laptops and explicitly notes whether memory is “readily repairable/upgradeable using industry-standard parts” or soldered. If you know you’ll want more RAM down the line — running local AI models, heavier multitasking, video editing — buying the higher-RAM configuration upfront is the safer call on a soldered laptop, since there’s no upgrading your way out of an undersized choice later.
Also worth knowing: the EU’s right-to-repair directive, with a compliance deadline of July 31, 2026, now mandates 7-10 years of repair support and parts availability for covered devices — a regulatory push that’s likely part of why LPCAMM2 and higher repairability scores are showing up now rather than being purely voluntary.
If you’re shopping with repairability and upgradeability in mind, our buying guides note RAM configuration options where they matter for each use case.
