Upgrading new MacBook Pro memory and hard drive?

Ok, so I'm thinking about buying the new MacBook Pro with Retina display but have a few questions/concerns:

1). If you buy the base model at $2200, can you upgrade the memory at a later date? Does it have regular memory modules that you can slip in or is it soldered to the main board?

2). Can you replace the hard drive with a conventional 2.5" hard drive at a later date if you want i.e. a 1TB hard drive?

The new MacBook is pretty spendy, so I'm wondering if I buy the base model now and upgrade later when I have the cash or is it impossible and I'm just better off forking over the cash now?

IvVaum said:

Ok, so I'm thinking about buying the new MacBook Pro with Retina display but have a few questions/concerns:

1). If you buy the base model at $2200, can you upgrade the memory at a later date? Does it have regular memory modules that you can slip in or is it soldered to the main board?

2). Can you replace the hard drive with a conventional 2.5" hard drive at a later date if you want i.e. a 1TB hard drive?

The new MacBook is pretty spendy, so I'm wondering if I buy the base model now and upgrade later when I have the cash or is it impossible and I'm just better off forking over the cash now?

Click to expand...

1) On the retina MacBooks the RAM is soldered onto the logic board
2) No

Nothing doing. the laptop is made like no body has been one before and the price goes with that.
here is the link.
Print Page - Analyzing the MacBook Pro with Retina display | ExtremeTech

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll have to shell out for the extra ram and larger hard drive but $200 just for the extra 8 gig? Dayem that is a steep price. Once again apple finds a way to squeeze you where it hurts most.

Currently, the SSD is limited to what Apple offers, but expect a replacement solution from OWC sometime in the future.

What is owc? I'm not familiar with some of the acronyms of this forum.

I'm assuming that if it's soldered, you're gonna have a hard time replacing the items at hand. You'll need a specialize heat gun to remove or add the rams and even if a tech were able to do this, they would charge up the wazoo.

I'm assuming that in apple's grand infinite wisdom of milking the public, they want u to purchase external thunderbolt drives and peripherals, heck, pretty soon they're gonna have an app store for hardware. Let me be the first to coin the term "ware store" - where u can mix and match components to your one piece integrated video/CPU/ram/display computer with no ports or power supply. The power will be inductively coupled, with all programs being "cloud" (no need for hard drives).

Imagine iPad with voice recognition for typing n navigating with the power of desktops, no keyboard just universal port that everything has to attach to. They would make a killing selling hardware, oh Wait they already do, i.e. iPad camera connect, credit card reader, SuperDrive, etc. Apple = money = evil = end of the world!!!!!

Stretch said:

Currently, the SSD is limited to what Apple offers, but expect a replacement solution from OWC sometime in the future.

Click to expand...

IvVaum said:

What is owc? I'm not familiar with some of the acronyms of this forum.

I'm assuming that if it's soldered, you're gonna have a hard time replacing the items at hand. You'll need a specialize heat gun to remove or add the rams and even if a tech were able to do this, they would charge up the wazoo.

I'm assuming that in apple's grand infinite wisdom of milking the public, they want u to purchase external thunderbolt drives and peripherals, heck, pretty soon they're gonna have an app store for hardware. Let me be the first to coin the term "ware store" - where u can mix and match components to your one piece integrated video/CPU/ram/display computer with no ports or power supply. The power will be inductively coupled, with all programs being "cloud" (no need for hard drives).

Imagine iPad with voice recognition for typing n navigating with the power of desktops, no keyboard just universal port that everything has to attach to. They would make a killing selling hardware, oh Wait they already do, i.e. iPad camera connect, credit card reader, SuperDrive, etc. Apple = money = evil = end of the world!!!!!

Click to expand...

this is the business where they are in business to make money.
if you felt you do not like their products do not buy. For right now the mbp 13 and 15"
they give you the option to buy the upgrade able hd and ram.
At this time all I can say is some Apple products are in demand and consumers are willing to spend money to buy them,

What is owc? I'm not familiar with some of the acronyms of this forum.

Click to expand...

OWC - Other World Computing: Performance Upgrades; FireWire USB SATA Storage; Memory, more at OWC

They eventually came up with a way to upgrade the Flash storage on the MBA so I would imagine if anyone is going to find a way it would be them, but as of now there is no way to upgrade or update afterwards.

Just a little bit for info on the MBP+R here's a link to the ifixit teardown: MacBook Pro with Retina Display Teardown - iFixit