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8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests
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But models with more than 8 GB already exist. Your whine is “not cheap enough”. Not the same thing.
I'm far from being an Apple apologist as I own more Windows PC's laptops plus gaming rigs (7) than Macs (3). I have not encountered any problems with any of my Windows laptops or any of my Mac's that have 8GB of RAM. For most 8GB is fine, why? Simply, because casual users like myself vastly outnumber people like you or those that need more than 8GB of RAM. If that weren't the case Adobe and those selling specialized software that would require a Mac to "need more than 8GB of RAM" would need to sell tens of millions of copies per year of their specialized software. I'm convinced they are NOT selling tens of million of their software per year.
The question in this whole debate becomes, why 8GB instead of 16GB as a reference point when you are asking $1599 for a laptop you market as "Pro"? That right there is where most will raise an eyebrow with the asking price and I would have a problem with that as well. It's not a good look for Apple. I can get a carbon X1 ThinkPad with beefy specs for that price and probably far less when they are on sale. I have a spot spot for StinkPad's as i've used them when IBM introduced the StinkPad in the early 90's.
So the asking price by Apple along with the baseline specs is the issue and not if 8GB is enough for most users.
Sure, Dell charges $100 for their first RAM upgrade from 8GB RAM to 16GB RAM (I already stated this before, so hardly “ignoring it”), but the next steps up, they start charging more for these upgrades. Apple charges a consistent $200 between RAM upgrades, while Dell charges increasingly higher numbers. So that’s how it basically evens out in the wash. Besides, Dell must just be being evil by charging $100 for RAM that only costs them $20, right? 🙄. And we simply don’t actually know how much it costs Apple to produce their Unified Memory, everything I’ve heard from people who should have a higher chance of knowing, is that it’s more expensive to produce. I’ve heard that from several trusted, reputable sources, yet everyone keeps assuming that it’s exactly the same, when we just don’t know. I’m perfectly fine with Apple charging $200 for a RAM upgrade, especially when the high-end PC competition (which isn’t near as good on display, battery runtime, etc.) are charging close to that themselves.
Those analogies are nowhere near equivalent. In the scenarios you cited, progress happens because someone saw an opportunity where they could do it better, and so they did. They didn't just stamp their feet in a hissy fit and go "someone else should invent a touchscreen smartphone" and then take credit for mooting the idea when someone else proceed to do just that.
The ends do not justify the meanness, and I detest this sort of mob mentality.
Not true (and I say that as a big fan of OLED TVs). Laptop OLEDs don't hit even close to 1600 nits. And there are potential burn-in issues. And, also, most of these aren't color accurate, just flashy. Until Apple makes a bigger OLED display and hopefully mitigates these problems (like they did on iPhone), I'm sticking to my claim: one of the best (if not *the* best) laptop display on the market today.
Price whining is just silly. If you don’t like the price, then don’t buy it, it’s as simple as that! Nobodies holding a gun to anyone’s head telling them they have to buy a Mac, so if you think PCs are so much better priced, and the grass is greener on the other side, then go, hop the fence, nobody will stop you. Instead, people want to sit here moaning and groaning over pricing of a product that clearly many people don’t think are overpriced. Where was all this whining for the M1 Max MacBook Pros when they first were introduced? They’ve always been a bit more expensive, but that’s because they’re very high-end laptops that offer things none of the competition offers like they’re impressive battery runtime which is completely unmatched by their competitors, or the display quality that is higher than most of the competition. Or the sound system. Apple’s Pro machines have always come with a higher price tag, it’s part of how it works. If you don’t like it, you can always move on and get one of these PCs y’all are going on about that have “cheaper” RAM upgrades.
I'm aware of what UMA is, the context of the discussion was about pricing. The person I was responding to was implying that the PC world (by and large) charges the same price for upgrades on the basis of the fact that he could find some examples of some manufacturers charging the same prices.
This does not imply that the whole industry charges the same prices (only if one intentionally looks for a bad deal).
This kind of “I feel ashamed for sharing a planet and computing platform with the ‘8 gigs is fine for 1600 laptop camp’” argument is ridiculous. Maybe, newsflash, not everyone agrees with you. You have to share the planet with plenty of diverse opinions, imagine that, the horror of it all!!! 🙄
This problem here is that these are all apples to oranges comparisons. A. They’re not reverting back to something, they didn’t happen to drop an option that already existed, and exists on several competitors computers. B. Not everyone shares your use case and workflow, and for those people, it’s nice to be able to have an option that’s a bit cheaper. But I guess you don’t like sharing the planet with others who disagree with you, like you said earlier…
Possibly. There are (and were) 8 GB M1 MBAs that cost more than $1699. Your point?
I haven't seen anyone say 8 GB makes machines completely useless. People can get by with 8 GB like the MacBook Air. It is perfect for those who don't need more and it is appropriately priced.
The issue for me and most others is that this machine costs $1,600 so it should be capable of more than 8 GB can adequately provide.
That shouldn't be up for debate really. And telling people "Just spend another 200 bucks" is not a good solution. A $1600 laptop should have 16GB RAM standard.
The issue for me and most others is that this machine costs $1,600 so it should be capable of more than 8 GB can adequately provide.
That shouldn't be up for debate really. And telling people "Just spend another 200 bucks" is not a good solution. A $1600 laptop should have 16GB RAM standard.
The point is that Macs should offer more RAM at the same price tags.
The 2012 13-inch MBP started at 8 GiB RAM for $1,699. That was 11 years ago. A 2023 Mac for $1,599 shouldn’t have this little RAM.
Because 8GB is just unacceptable in 2023, even a crappy till we have in work with a Celeron CPU has 8GB RAM, this is just Apple being stingy as usual. 8GB is not pro, plus that RAM is shared with the GPU so even less RAM than that.
Plus with the constant swapping to the SSD that thing will be dead in no time. Just wait a year or two for a laptop recall because the SSD died from excessive writing.
You can tell the arguments from the "other side" are losing steam when they start bringing up prices from over a decade ago. Yeah, lets next check how much a computer cost in the 1980s and how much memory it had.
That is a HUGE price decrease in real terms
Spending $200 more is a good solution.
How does comparing to an 8gb Mac to 16gb Mac disprove the statement that it is as good as a pc with 16gb?
I believe this is called “the strawman fallacy”
Maybe next time they can prove to us that standard Tesla has less performance than the upgraded one, so it can’t be as good as the electric Mazda.
I believe this is called “the strawman fallacy”
Maybe next time they can prove to us that standard Tesla has less performance than the upgraded one, so it can’t be as good as the electric Mazda.
Besides the fact Vadim already said he plans to do the comparison you mentioned...
I've yet to see one video that proves what Apple claimed. Is there one?
This video does not disprove what Apple claimed either, which is why it's said this video is practically useless. Water is wet. More RAM performs better.
Exactly, this “test” was just made up to reinforce the personal narrative and bias of a YouTuber who has anything but a normal, average professional workflow. Not saying his professional workflow is invalid, but being real, someone in his kind of workflow would likely be getting an M3 Pro chip, or M3 Max chip for the extra GPU performance. The based spec M3 model isn’t really intended for his kind of workflow in the first place.
So $999 M1 MBA air is considered good value.
$999 M1(binned)/8/256 MBA
$1099 M2(binned)/8/256 MBA (bigger screen, new design)
$1199 M2(full)/8/256 MBA
$1399 M2(full)/8/512 MBA
$1599 M3(full)/8/512 MBP (more ports, better battery life + screen + speakers)
Other than the SSD upgrade, at which step did the cost/value proposition drastically shift?
$999 M1(binned)/8/256 MBA
$1099 M2(binned)/8/256 MBA (bigger screen, new design)
$1199 M2(full)/8/256 MBA
$1399 M2(full)/8/512 MBA
$1599 M3(full)/8/512 MBP (more ports, better battery life + screen + speakers)
Other than the SSD upgrade, at which step did the cost/value proposition drastically shift?