Does Dell reserve consumers in their products with proprietary DDR5 laptop memory?

Hot Potato: The upcoming Dell Precision 7670 laptop features a new DDR5 memory form factor that it describes as useful for consumers, but which many will likely see as a way to lock up buyers in the company’s products.

Twitter user iGPU Extreme Tweet images of the Dell Precision 7670 specs. The workstation features powerful hardware including a desktop-class Intel Alder Lake-HX 55W processor, RTX A5000 or Intel Arc Pro 90W graphics in a Dell Graphics Form Factor (DGFF) and a 16-inch monitor with a panel 16:10 4K HDR500 OLED.

But it’s DDR5 laptop memory that gets the most attention, and not for positive reasons. Dell uses an exclusive CAMM (Compression Attached Memory Module) form factor that replaces SO-DIMM memory slots. The marketing image (top) shows a one-sided, two-zone module with eight integrated circuits each. Dell wrote that the laptop supports 128GB of DDR5-4800.

While the new form factor is expected to make the Dell Precision 7670 thinner, lighter and smaller, it will likely limit users looking for a future upgrade path if Dell keeps the CAMM technology to itself, which it likely will. This means that anyone who wants to upgrade their memory will have to buy directly from Dell and pay for what they feel is charging.

We can undoubtedly expect the Dell Precision 7670 to be expensive. Other highlights include 500 nits brightness, 100% DCI-P3 spectrum coverage, three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots for up to 12TB of storage with RAID support, shutter and proximity and ambient light sensors, and Intel Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. No word yet on a launch date.

h/t: tom material