Sadly, comparable PC laptops are following the same trend. (this could be like the headphone jack, where Apple leads the way and others follow even if consumers aren't happy). The other week I was looking at alternatives to a 13" MacbookPro that were known to run Linux well. My shortlist was a Dell XPS 13 and a Razer Blade Stealth--both have soldered on RAM (I was also looking at Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga and Dell Precision 7xxx, but I never got far enough to see if they had replaceable memory).