Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered (and hence "unrepairable"), but if it can't run Linux or *BSD it is a definite no go. We definitely don't need two closed hardware platform duopoly (Apple and Microsoft), as together they will dominate and kill the "open" platforms. But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms.
It depends - soldered RAM (LPDDR) on iPads and soldered SSD on Intel Mac Minis can be repaired by replacing the chip. (But obviously it requires skills and specialised tools). So you don't necessarily need to replace the whole board. But if it is some kind of "integrated" non-standard RAM, like Apple uses on its ARM series SoCs, it is near unrepairable. So yeah, one should think many times before buying a computer with soldered RAM. (On the positive side, I've never had to replace any RAM in any computers I've owned so far - the failure point has always been HDDs for me).
in case of macbooks even if something like usb port controller failed is most likely leads to board replacement as well so is high change that even if RAM is fine it could be useless because some $2 component failure
Some of the chips they use are designed for soldered chips. I’m not sure whether that’s because of signal degradation over longer PCB traces and sockets.
