Raspberry Pi is actively preventing enthusiasts from upgrading soldered memory to a larger configuration even when the replacement chip is technically compatible. The company says the restriction is intended to discourage unofficial high-capacity resales.
  • Godort@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    the measure is primarily intended to prevent third parties from buying lower-capacity boards, replacing their RAM with cheaper parts of uncertain origin and then reselling the modified hardware as a higher-capacity model. The company argues that such modified boards have not undergone its validation process and could subsequently generate support requests if unstable memory is blamed on the company.

    The solution to this decidedly rare problem is authorized resellers, not an arbitrary block on a very technically demanding upgrade.

    That’s assuming this is the actual problem though. If the problem is actually “We want to make more money by charging extra for ‘enthusiast models’” then this is the correct tactic to ensure that you aren’t undercut by cheap labor.

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Their excuse definitely smells like bullshit. It just seems they want to do the Apple thing of making sure they get the money for the upgrade, plus a premium. Except even Apple has a technical reason they don’t allow upgrades, which Raspberry Pi doesn’t.

      • trolololol@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        16 days ago

        I’d love to hear the technical reasons.

        If I have a honest repair shop that I trust, with proper knowledge and tools, and with ram that I provide, I should be able to do whatever I want. And should be the same for fingerprint reader, and screen, and CPU.