Not in my experience. You don't get that $400 to $500 in upgrades back out (moving to 512 / 16) when you trade.
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I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM
- Thread starter Booji
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I used to swear by 16+ GB, but now I'm on an 8 GB M1 and it runs fine.
I'm seriously wondering if macOS is doing something special with unified memory architecture and the super-fast SSD. Maybe instead of treating RAM and swap as two separate pools within virtual memory (and needing to move/copy between them), what if the macOS kernel uses RAM to transparently cache all of the virtual memory address space?
I'm seriously wondering if macOS is doing something special with unified memory architecture and the super-fast SSD. Maybe instead of treating RAM and swap as two separate pools within virtual memory (and needing to move/copy between them), what if the macOS kernel uses RAM to transparently cache all of the virtual memory address space?
Actually, I am quite fine with the two ports. I really like using a docking station when at home, and just one cord to pull out before I drop it in my bag is a huge plus. For most of my mobile work, I generally do not need a lot of devices connected to it.
I don't mean just the two ports. If you remember correctly the Intel two port vs Intel four port had other differences. One was considered basicly a better version of the MacBook Air (What the current M1 is now) and the other was supposed to be the real "Pro". If you wait for the high end Pro it might have a faster processor and some other things. Of course if your budget and needs are closer to the current model then this isn't important. I'm just saying this so when the better one comes out you don't feel sad about buying it. If I was going to buy one today I would get the Air because from the benchmarks I've seen the fans on the Pro only seem to help with longer tasks that take more then ten minutes. There is a slightly brighter screen on the Pro but I love that beveled base of the Air... So many choices so few dollars (In my case) lol
I am looking at a two year cycle until my next upgrade, so at this point I am stuck primarily at the 8GB vs 16GB decision. When I upgrade, I generally hand my old machine down to my family. I guess you could say I am still stuck in the rut of thinking that my two year old Android phone has 8GB.
I am biased to the Pro for the sum of everything and not just the fan. A larger trackpad and battery are definitely plusses for me. The better audio and mics seem to be a rather small benefit but they are there.
I'm less torn by the memory. I'm a developer and have a CS degree. I'm not a pro with the low level stuff, but I can at least follow the conversation. I'm completely convinced 8GB would be more than enough for me. I do primarily web browsing, and fooling around with Xcode and iOS / MacOS stuff. My "video editing" needs are confined to trimming videos from my iPhone with Quicktime. Professionally (web developer) I log into work over VMWare and use their machines or I log into AWS and use theirs, so it does't really matter what MY specs are so much. And I hate having tons of apps / tabs open. I like to have just what I need at the time. I prefer neat and tidy. I'm convinced 8GB would be more than enough for me. Absolutely sure.
With that said, I'm old enough and dumb enough that I'd spend the extra on the Pro with 16GB. To be fair, my last Macbook lasted me 7 years. So it's easy to justify that decision.
The decision that's killing me right now is what to do with the 2020 MacBook Pro (16GB, 1TB) sitting in my drawer? I've never sold something like this before nearly brand new, but if I was going to, sooner seems better than later. But for what? At this point I'm working at home. My iMac gets 99% of my daily use. Usually I have to type my password into my laptop because it just sits around unused. Of course it's also in fantastic condition because of that. Who knows what the future holds, but for now, I just keep it updated and charged. I was using it for the Big Sur beta over the summer, but I'm less interested at this point. If I used it routinely, it would be an easier decision to make. But at this point, I'm just lost. It's a lot of hassle to get a niftier laptop that will sit in my drawer. But if I hold on to it another 7 years, I suppose it won't always just be sitting around.
That's my dilemma. Do I try to sell now and use the money for an M1 system? Honestly, I think if I could sell mine and get a new one without needing to kick in more than $200-$300, it might be worth it. I'm not used to selling things, so I'm not sure if that's a realistic goal or not. Or do I just suck it up and keep my perfectly good laptop? Knowing that I might have it another 7 years. 7 years of wanting the M1 system over what I have does seem like an eternity here in year 1.
With that said, I'm old enough and dumb enough that I'd spend the extra on the Pro with 16GB. To be fair, my last Macbook lasted me 7 years. So it's easy to justify that decision.
The decision that's killing me right now is what to do with the 2020 MacBook Pro (16GB, 1TB) sitting in my drawer? I've never sold something like this before nearly brand new, but if I was going to, sooner seems better than later. But for what? At this point I'm working at home. My iMac gets 99% of my daily use. Usually I have to type my password into my laptop because it just sits around unused. Of course it's also in fantastic condition because of that. Who knows what the future holds, but for now, I just keep it updated and charged. I was using it for the Big Sur beta over the summer, but I'm less interested at this point. If I used it routinely, it would be an easier decision to make. But at this point, I'm just lost. It's a lot of hassle to get a niftier laptop that will sit in my drawer. But if I hold on to it another 7 years, I suppose it won't always just be sitting around.
That's my dilemma. Do I try to sell now and use the money for an M1 system? Honestly, I think if I could sell mine and get a new one without needing to kick in more than $200-$300, it might be worth it. I'm not used to selling things, so I'm not sure if that's a realistic goal or not. Or do I just suck it up and keep my perfectly good laptop? Knowing that I might have it another 7 years. 7 years of wanting the M1 system over what I have does seem like an eternity here in year 1.
Sounds like you may have the disposable income to get whichever you want without too much regret. Except that in a year or two you might want an M2!
But if the money matters, the one in the drawer will no doubt be fine for its 1% of use. On the other hand, you could probably get closer to your $200-$300 margin if you got 512GB instead of 1TB, if you sell directly with no fees.
In a year or two, I can replace my iMac and get just that! ?
Seriously, I think I might investigate the selling option. While articulating my thoughts in my previous post, I kinda talked myself into it. It really came down to "Do I want to spend the next 5-7 years wishing I had an M1 system instead of an Intel system?" Knowing myself fairly well, I suspect it would drive me nuts at least 250 days out of any given year. If I only kept my laptops for a year or two, I'd have a little patience to be honest. But expecting myself to be patient for the next 5-7 years feels a bit unreasonable. If I can get a price for it that puts me close enough to an M1 system that I don't mind paying the difference, why not? If not, I keep it. Easy peasy.
One other thing I didn't mention is my job subsidized $500 of my laptop (they do that once every three years). So I didn't actually pay full price. If I sold it for $500 less than what it sells for today, I'd still be breaking even.
MEJHarrison,
You bought a laptop just to keep in your drawer? Are you adopting? I'm available.
You bought a laptop just to keep in your drawer? Are you adopting? I'm available.
I'm sure he has a drawer available for you.
?
No, I bought a laptop, then a pandemic came along. Since I never go anywhere these days, and have an iMac, it's currently hard to find many use cases for it. I was doing some development on it over the summer. But now that Big Sur is out, I can even do that on my iMac. It was poor timing on getting a new laptop both technically speaking and otherwise. But that far back, I didn't foresee the M1 being so tempting.
I've had one of those 12" MacBooks for almost three years but I can't use it, it's unacceptably slow, and just sits in a drawer unused. My wife has one too and typically keeps a similar number of browser tabs and apps open, and on the rare occasions that I use that laptop to help her with something I find it annoyingly, painfully slow. If you're okay with the performance of that laptop then you probably haven't experienced what something substantially faster feels like. It's night and day different.
I went from my macbook 2020 i5 10th gen/16gb/1TB to the M1 Macbook Air 8 core / 8gb RAM model and i am super happy.
It is way faster!
I still think: should i return it for a 16Gb model but,, why? It works amazing with everything i throw at it.
i work at a computerstore where we get 7 year old macbooks in and we are still amazed how fast they are at that age.
stick to the 8GB RAM and you will be fine.
It is way faster!
I still think: should i return it for a 16Gb model but,, why? It works amazing with everything i throw at it.
i work at a computerstore where we get 7 year old macbooks in and we are still amazed how fast they are at that age.
stick to the 8GB RAM and you will be fine.
Nothing beats enough memory.
AS and OS11 somehow mask that 8GB is not much, but if you look at Activity Monitor you'll see a fair amount of memory being used after startup. To make your Mac more future-proof I'd always take the 16GB. But I always try to use my Macs as long a possible...
AS and OS11 somehow mask that 8GB is not much, but if you look at Activity Monitor you'll see a fair amount of memory being used after startup. To make your Mac more future-proof I'd always take the 16GB. But I always try to use my Macs as long a possible...
If you participate actively on this forum then you're more likely to need 16GB or more memory.
Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. I’m currently in the process of selling my i5 10th gen with 16 GB and have been debating whether I should get the base MBA or upgrade the RAM.
I’ve been leaning towards the base model based on everything I’ve read and heard so far and it’s great to read the experience of someone coming from the same machine.
Now I just hope I’ll find someone who buys my current MBP for a reasonable price. ?
it is kind of funny you said that. RAM has always been a hot topic in Macrumors across devices. Apple has always designed their platforms with the minimum of RAM even on premium devices like iPad, and sometimes not always for the better.
Anyone who signs up and regularly posts on a forum does more heavily lifting on their Mac than someone who does not.
So 8GB for most non-members and 16GB or more for most members.
Everyone frothing in the mouth over the M1 not having X, Y or Z because the M1 Macs are designed for lowest-end use case is kinda funny enough for me to point out the obvious.
Between January and WWDC 2021 expect to see higher-end Macs with X, Y or Z.
I've stopped watching M1 vs all computers YouTube videos as the results are all the same that A, B and C have doubled or better.
Macs needing chips with more than 15W TDP will perform better in the first half of 2021.
Selling is the hard part!
I am even debating selling my Desktop computer at the moment since it's specs are just out of this world and buy a Mac mini instead. I can game perfectly fine on this machine..
Specs of my PC:
Ryzen 3900x 12-core processor
128GB RAM ( I know it is ridiculous)
2TB SSD NVMe
8TB Hard Disk 7200rpm
AMD RX5700XT 8GB Graphic card
And this all in an Apple G5 Case!
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I think that in a year from now the Intel machines will tank in price (2nd hand) hard , for now you might be able to sell in a reasonable price for folks who must have an Intel machine ASAP and to those who are not aware that there is an M1 machines in the wild , come next year it will be well established fact that your machine is a "relic" , while being competent computer it will be eclipsed by everything AS , so can't argue with the "SELL NOW" strategy.
Absolutely agree. That’s exactly why I want to sell it immediately as long as I still get some reasonable amount of money. The loss in value already seems pretty extreme at this point.
The base MBA is an absolute bargain and should have a better resale value in comparison to the Intel machines. So even if I should realize eventually that 8 GB doesn’t suffice for my use case (which I doubt), all in all I get a machine that’s better in every single regard and some cash back right now, which is pretty good deal.
Off topic: And in comparison to my MBP I’m really looking forward to getting rid of that Touch Bar. ?
me tempting after my base 2017 kaboom and i also developer. The only i tempting is mac mini the reason is hdmi . I hate 2017 because dongle usb hub c to hdmi. Now bought huawei ryzen d15 . For xcode temp will used old macbook 2011. In my country , apple intel drop price a lot after m1 release there is also tempting. For now maybe next year we can get m1 .haish
** not available in apple website
** not available at shop authorised also
I decided to go with the 8GB Air.
I've seen a lot of people say that it's better to get more memory rather than less so you have it if you need it later. At first this is a reasonable claim, but when you think about it, it makes little sense. If you use more computational power in your computers and you depend on it for your work, then you'll want to wait for the higher-end models or get the 16GB M1 now, which will pay for itself through your work anyway so in this case you don't really have a dilemma as you don't have the luxury of putting your work in the balance.
If, however, you are torn between these two options, it means you are not guaranteed to need 16GB so in that case I don't think it makes sense to say you should go for the 16GB just in case and for future-proofing. The logic that you should future-proof your device this way fails to account for the very real possibility that you will not actually know if someday you've made any gains with the extra RAM, so in reality you're agreeing to pay more money immediately while also agreeing to an outcome that you may not be able to quantify. This is not just illogical, but also out of line with how you'd usually value the device you're buying. Every time a new device comes out, people gauge the features in the context of the price, so how does it make sense to make a purchase decision based on the potential for a return that will be difficult to determine if it ever came to fruition and even more difficult to gauge if it did.
CTO availability is less with these machines, which suggests Apple is not working hard to get the 16GB into people's hands, which by extension suggests that they are confident the 8GB is plenty enough for a vast majority of users. Then consider the reviews which have exceeded expectations, and these machines were already built-up too much. When it turns out that an 8GB machine outperforms a 16GB or higher machine handily, it would be sensible to at least consider that there has been a shift in the way specs should be viewed.
It seems to me that going for the 16GB model because you're in doubt how much you need essentially means you're discarding the reviews and user experience so far (so basically all of the info you have available) out of worry, and that is an expensive way to make purchasing decisions.
To clarify, I went from basically already deciding on the 16GB Pro even before the Apple event to ultimately deciding on the 8GB Air now. Ever since the event I've been contemplating all of this, reading this forum, the reviews and keeping a close eye on the Activity Monitor in my 2017 Air. So after this "journey" I cannot find a single reason to justify the 16GB purchase as I cannot see where I would need it, and I also cannot reasonably expect that something will happen a few years from now that will change RAM requirements to my disadvantage. Apparently 16GB a month ago is not superior to 8GB today, and this is coming from people who are currently handling these machines. So I'm gonna say "Thanks Apple, nice one" and spend half of the price difference to the initially planned 16Gb Pro on the Airpods Pro instead.
Rant over.
Disclaimer: this is not to say it's stupid to buy the 16GB version even if you don't necessarily need it, because if money is not an issue, then go ahead and max it out and enjoy it, good for you. I just wanted to pitch in to analyse the thought-process of deciding on the 16GB model for the people who are actually weighing it against their needs and cost as I think it's very easy to fall into this "maybe I'll need it" line of thought.
I've seen a lot of people say that it's better to get more memory rather than less so you have it if you need it later. At first this is a reasonable claim, but when you think about it, it makes little sense. If you use more computational power in your computers and you depend on it for your work, then you'll want to wait for the higher-end models or get the 16GB M1 now, which will pay for itself through your work anyway so in this case you don't really have a dilemma as you don't have the luxury of putting your work in the balance.
If, however, you are torn between these two options, it means you are not guaranteed to need 16GB so in that case I don't think it makes sense to say you should go for the 16GB just in case and for future-proofing. The logic that you should future-proof your device this way fails to account for the very real possibility that you will not actually know if someday you've made any gains with the extra RAM, so in reality you're agreeing to pay more money immediately while also agreeing to an outcome that you may not be able to quantify. This is not just illogical, but also out of line with how you'd usually value the device you're buying. Every time a new device comes out, people gauge the features in the context of the price, so how does it make sense to make a purchase decision based on the potential for a return that will be difficult to determine if it ever came to fruition and even more difficult to gauge if it did.
CTO availability is less with these machines, which suggests Apple is not working hard to get the 16GB into people's hands, which by extension suggests that they are confident the 8GB is plenty enough for a vast majority of users. Then consider the reviews which have exceeded expectations, and these machines were already built-up too much. When it turns out that an 8GB machine outperforms a 16GB or higher machine handily, it would be sensible to at least consider that there has been a shift in the way specs should be viewed.
It seems to me that going for the 16GB model because you're in doubt how much you need essentially means you're discarding the reviews and user experience so far (so basically all of the info you have available) out of worry, and that is an expensive way to make purchasing decisions.
To clarify, I went from basically already deciding on the 16GB Pro even before the Apple event to ultimately deciding on the 8GB Air now. Ever since the event I've been contemplating all of this, reading this forum, the reviews and keeping a close eye on the Activity Monitor in my 2017 Air. So after this "journey" I cannot find a single reason to justify the 16GB purchase as I cannot see where I would need it, and I also cannot reasonably expect that something will happen a few years from now that will change RAM requirements to my disadvantage. Apparently 16GB a month ago is not superior to 8GB today, and this is coming from people who are currently handling these machines. So I'm gonna say "Thanks Apple, nice one" and spend half of the price difference to the initially planned 16Gb Pro on the Airpods Pro instead.
Rant over.
Disclaimer: this is not to say it's stupid to buy the 16GB version even if you don't necessarily need it, because if money is not an issue, then go ahead and max it out and enjoy it, good for you. I just wanted to pitch in to analyse the thought-process of deciding on the 16GB model for the people who are actually weighing it against their needs and cost as I think it's very easy to fall into this "maybe I'll need it" line of thought.
The base 8GB RAM MBA can do 80+ tracks in Logic Pro. How many forum members do you honestly believe need more than that?