It also means when something inevitably does go wrong, you throw the entire thing away and get a new one. I do not consider this a reasonable or sustainable approach, particularly when out of warranty.
That’s true but if integration means that it’s very rare for anything to go wrong within the product’s lifetime that may not matter and in fact be a net win.
I’ve never had anything break on a laptop[1] I’ve owned regardless of brand since 2005.
I can’t be that atypical.
1. Apart from maybe the wifi on my XPS13 which I can just about live with by turning wifi on and off.
Meanwhile I have a stack of 6-7 old broken laptops that are unlikely to be repairable.
What's broken on them and are they made with discrete components vs highly integrated ones?
If they are made with discrete components and still can't be repaired then you'd loose nothing by going to a higher level of integration.
I have a Dell XPS 13 Dev Edition 9370 and tried to replace the Killer brand wifi unit that’s about 80% reliable waking from sleep.
Turns out wifi is soldered in on that edition forward.
I think the same is true for RAM, although it came with 16Gb, which is the mac its processor supports.
Anyone else remember the days of socketed chips that would work themselves loose due to heat?
Putting everything into a single chip is a pain to upgrade but it does mean there’s less chance of things going wrong.