Soldered RAM is slightly more reliable.

Yes, but not by as much as you might think.

The main difference over 5+ years is connection stability. Soldered RAM has no physical contacts to corrode, loosen, or accumulate dust. That means fewer random crashes or boot failures from a bad connection. Socketed RAM can develop issues if the slot gets dirty or the clips wear out, especially in laptops that get moved around a lot.

That said, the chips themselves—the actual memory components—fail at about the same rate regardless of how they’re attached. And if a soldered stick dies, you’re replacing the whole motherboard. With socketed RAM, you just swap the stick. So soldered wins on day-to-day reliability, but socketed wins on repairability.

For most people, the practical reliability difference is negligible. Buy based on what you need: upgradability (socketed) or compactness/simplicity (soldered). Don’t lose sleep over it.

The real risk with soldered RAM is not reliability—it’s that you can’t fix it when it eventually does fail.