8Gb will be fine in 5 years for workloads it's fine today. RAM requirements are increasing much slower now then a decade ago.
16Gb is a good idea, but if they are fine with 8 now, they'll be fine for years to come.
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How much RAM on M2 :)
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8Gb will be fine in 5 years for workloads it's fine today. RAM requirements are increasing much slower now then a decade ago.
16Gb is a good idea, but if they are fine with 8 now, they'll be fine for years to come.
Don’t forget the M2 MBA also only has TB3 ports, and not TB4.
The M2 MBA misses alot of stuff.
Get the 14” Pro, unless you prefer the light weight form factor of the Air. By the time you spec up the Air to something useable, there really is only a $200-400 price difference between the M2 and the 14” Pro.
With the Pro you get HDR, multi display support, and more ports.
So unless you prefer the lightweight of the Air or are getting the base 8GB model, just get the 14” Pro.
Edit: if you are keeping the laptop 5 years, get 16GB of RAM. It will make the experience in those last few years much more pleasant. And as a student, you will probably find your use case/demands increasing anyway.
Basic stuff like editing PDF and using the OCR in Acrobat will use a few hundred MB per file. Same thing if you start injecting high resolution photos and videos into a PowerPoint presentation.
Many universities give students and staff a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.
PowerPoint alone for me would sometimes be many hundreds of MB per file loaded, and I'd sometimes have a few of them loaded. Depends on the content. If they were just plain text slides then they wouldn't be big files but if they were multimedia content heavy then the files could be very large obviously.
By my estimation with my workloads, most of the time 8 GB was enough, but sometimes it wasn't. 12 GB would have been fine but that wasn't an option so I went 16. Going to 24 GB on my other machine didn't help at all over 16.
Gotta love these clickbait videos where they "review" the product without having one in hand.
This is a meaningless distinction for 99% of people. TB4 is essentially the same as TB3, it's just a branding thing to indicate the port has fairly high specs. Those specs are possible, but not required, in TB3. For example, if your port only provides 16 Gbps of PCIe bandwidth (equivalent to x2 Gen 3), you can't call it TB4. TB4 requires a minimum of 32 Gbps PCIe (x4 Gen 3).
Most people, especially light duty computer users like the OP, are unlikely to ever use TB's PCIe capability at all.
I could debate the opposing point. Any model base will have better resale value than any model upgraded. Most 2nd buyers are not pro users or niche users. They're usually older folks, or highschoolers/students. Therefore they're looking for the cheapest option that is "newest".
For these reasons a listing for "2022 MacBook Air, Base Model, $999" (in 2024) will have way more hits than a listing for "2021 MacBook Pro, upgraded RAM, $2000".
Even if an Air and Pro get the same percentage value back on the used market, you'll lose more money on the Pro simply because it cost more.
However, the OP states he can get the Pro on sale, so the cost is much closer to the Air than it is normally.
I disagree. Getting 16GB of RAM should be the minimum to hedge not just against RAM requirements but also avoiding SSD swap.
Also 5 years is a loooong time in the tech world. Saying that 8GB is enough for 5 years is advice without anything to back it up.
I would advise the user to get 8GB only if they plan to replace their machine in a year or two.
I'd like to share again the funny story about how I found out I've been using an 8GB RAM M1 Mac mini for almost two years without noticing any performance deficiencies. I have the money for the next step up in RAM capacity and routinely have specified 16GB RAM for all machines — we have six M1 Macs. We bought one 8GB RAM model because I planned to stick it on the desk of some sucker who wouldn't notice the difference. It turns out I am that sucker.
Even if Carl gets 8GB RAM, things will be just fine.
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I know you were asking about RAM, but: Another important difference is the M1 Pro can drive two external monitors; the M1/M2 can drive only one. Also, the internal display on the M1 Pro is really nice and super-sharp. If you're considering the M2 Air vs the M1 Pro, you might want to compare the models in person before you make your decision (unless you feel you need to order the M2 Air tomorrow morning in order to beat the wait).
A 14-inch MacBook Pro is overkill for your uses. An M1 Air will serve you fine. If you are aiming for an M2, then I'd say get a minimum of 16GB of RAM; 24GB if you are worried about not being able to up it later. The whole "but if I spend close to $1900, I might as well get a 14-inch MacBook Pro" line of thought is a little ridiculous, especially since (a) the extra power is overkill for anyone who would be otherwise considering a non-Pro/non-Max/non-Ultra M-series Mac, (b) the battery life is worse, and (c) the thermal performance under relative load is the worst of all the Apple Silicon Mac notebooks.
At this moment and in the € area I'd say yes.
Apple clearly does not want change prices on "current" products ever and such they choose a $/€ rate at release they feel comfortable to be profitable for the next 12-18 months.
When the 14/16" came out that rate was so much better then the one they choose for the M2 MacBooks that it make little sense to buy them unless you stick with the base config.
That’s how the pricing ladder works! You can get a $999 M1 MacBook Air, but if you spend just 200 more, you can have the M2 MacBook Air with the new design and chip. And just 200 more and you have 16GB RAM. More storage is also nice, and 512GB is just 200 more. And at $1599, you're just 400 from the 14" MacBook Pro which will be way better with the fantastic screen and incredible performance!
The result is that you spend $1999 on a laptop when the 999$ is actually already overkill for your needs.
Imagine however, that Apple would only sell the $999 M1 MacBook Air and the $1999 14" MacBook Pro. In this case, almost everyone would recommend to buy the MacBook Air.
Sure, thats how it works when currency fluctuations don't come in (a.k.a. in the US) but with the current situation and if buying in € it is even worse.
Would the OP be o.k. with a base MBA? Maybe even the M1 variant? Probably....
Whatever he decides, sticking with a base config (MBA or MBP, M1,M2 or M1Pro) is always a good idea:
- value/performance is good on these
- any BTO option is way overpriced
- resale value is always best for the stock config
- far easier to find stock config on sale at resellers
16 GB will be more than sufficient. I‘ve run all of what you’ve described with a base model 14” M1 Pro MBP - with Xcode and the iOS Simulator too. I still don’t end up using any swap and memory pressure rarely gets above 50%.
Apple has a nice support page about that: https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/actmntr34865/mac
Yours is all green, which means “Your computer is using all its RAM efficiently”. So 8GB RAM is perfect for you.
Before the supply of Apple-laptops dried out in Sweden a month ago you could actually get the 14-inch MBP for $2050. 😞 Amazon is now the only place in Sweden it seems that have either the 14 inch MacBook Pro or the M1 MacBook Air in stock, intermittently that is.
I wouldn't simply because the M2 MBA is a much nicer looking machine. But yes that's a completely reasonable option if cost is the first concern.