And the month after that, 90% of the posts will be back complaining 16GB is not enough
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Is 8GB of RAM Enough for a Mac in 2024?
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Buying tech for longevity is a tough bet. Not saying it's impossible, but I generally think in terms of 5 years, because:
Personally, my M1 Air never gets past maybe 7 GB with *all* my apps going, so I could say it's ok. But without a way to upgrade later, it's absolutely too little for longevity.
- Apple's typical model redesign cycle (after 5 years there are almost always new features that I value; MagSafe, 1080p camera, M processor, longer battery life, fanless operation, etc..)
- Apple's typical duration for OS update eligibility (having the current OS takes fullest advantage of the Apple ecosystem)
- Accidents, theft, wear, and tear might force replacement anyway
- New Tech paradigm could change the game
One thing that is very often overlooked is that in many places in the world you don't have an Apple Store and you can't go to Apple's website and place an order. Instead, you deal with stores who may or may not stock your prefered configuration, and if not, then you depend on whether that particular reseller offers custom configurations for that particular model at the time you want to buy the machine. In my country in the EU, we don't have an Apple Store, but we have Premium Resellers and I can do a custom spec for most Macs, but not for all and not always.
When I was buying my 2020 M1 MBP, I wanted 16GB but couldn't buy it as it wasn't offered at the time. That was during COVID with all the supply chain issues and everything. I would have paid for a 16GB MBP if I could get one, instead I bought the 8GB model.
I'm not so sure. I'm not arguing against the economic principles of it, but they have this price point to attract buyers. The reason prices are for example 999 instead of just saying 1.000 is because three digits look better / seem less expensive than four. Apple wants a lower price to stick in the ads and you lose that by simply deleting the base configuration. I don't think it would be so straightforward, instead they'd have to replace that with something, like for instance a 12GB model with the same price tag or just slightly higher. You don't just eliminate the lowest price point like that.
I guess both things are true. Apple is upselling with the base spec, but that only works for people who know what they want to buy and who will consider their RAM needs versus the price (and also, as per the beginning of my post, who know where to go to actually spec the thing up). The base spec is stocked to sell it to people who don't know about these things. People walk into the store not knowing what is on offer, there is some "What kind of car do you drive? A white one." level of understanding going on there and I was surprised how many times I saw people walk into a thousand-euro purchase not knowing anything about the various options on offer so they ask the staff to explain the most basic things. For those customers, you need to have these laptops stocked because it wouldn't be good if you plaster the base price all over the store entrance and then not have that model available.
When I was buying my 2020 M1 MBP, I wanted 16GB but couldn't buy it as it wasn't offered at the time. That was during COVID with all the supply chain issues and everything. I would have paid for a 16GB MBP if I could get one, instead I bought the 8GB model.
I'm not so sure. I'm not arguing against the economic principles of it, but they have this price point to attract buyers. The reason prices are for example 999 instead of just saying 1.000 is because three digits look better / seem less expensive than four. Apple wants a lower price to stick in the ads and you lose that by simply deleting the base configuration. I don't think it would be so straightforward, instead they'd have to replace that with something, like for instance a 12GB model with the same price tag or just slightly higher. You don't just eliminate the lowest price point like that.
I guess both things are true. Apple is upselling with the base spec, but that only works for people who know what they want to buy and who will consider their RAM needs versus the price (and also, as per the beginning of my post, who know where to go to actually spec the thing up). The base spec is stocked to sell it to people who don't know about these things. People walk into the store not knowing what is on offer, there is some "What kind of car do you drive? A white one." level of understanding going on there and I was surprised how many times I saw people walk into a thousand-euro purchase not knowing anything about the various options on offer so they ask the staff to explain the most basic things. For those customers, you need to have these laptops stocked because it wouldn't be good if you plaster the base price all over the store entrance and then not have that model available.
Consider that:
1. The M processors (M1,2,3) are based on the architecture of the A series (used in iPhones). What says more RAM is needed to improve the experience?
2. Most people's laptop computing demands are not high: a browser, Outlook, Spotify … and generally not intense multi-tasking.
For the people Apple makes most their money off of (majority-market consumers), the base specs just have to be good enough … and they are.
For the M3 MacBook Air, 16 GB is a standard configuration, and it is available off the shelf at regular retail stores.
For the M1 and M2 MacBook Airs, only the 8 GB was available. 16 GB was a configure-to-order configuration.
I really hope there is a way to only load 8GB on boot from CLI for a 16GB machine, and people could then see 8GB is fine for most, even some "power users".
My gripe is base 256GB and slow SSD.
512 should be the entry.
My gripe is base 256GB and slow SSD.
512 should be the entry.
The simplest explanation is likely also the most likely one.
Apple is “getting away with it” because the reality is that 8 gb ram on the MBA suffices for over 90% of its target user base. While a small group of very vocal users here quibble over how Apple is ripping users off, countless other people are buying the entry level model, finding that it works pretty well for them (great performance, long battery life), and and generally just getting on with their lives.
You can point to some windows laptop out there with more ram for cheaper, but it likely also loses to the MBA in some area which matters enough to the buyer. It may have worse build quality, or worse battery life, but the overall point is that people here attempting to paint the MBA as an objectively worse product by focusing solely on price and specs are overlooking how Apple is able to use its control over hardware and software to create a unique and sufficiently differentiated product.
Or to put it another way, Apple gets away with it by creating a product appeals to their actual paying customers, and no amount of threads bemoaning this is going to change that.
I believe the Dell has soldered RAM but what is the base RAM on this model? Isn't it 16Gb? So rather irrelevant to suggest costs parity when the whole point has been about 8Gb base as opposed to 16Gb base when the Dell machine has a 16Gb base anyway.This is for a Dell XPS 16 laptop. I don't know if the Dell machines can be upgraded after the purchase. The cost to go from 16GB to 32GB is $600.00. The cost to go from 32GB to 64GB is $900.00. Those prices are more than Apple's prices.
The costs for increases in storage are a little more reasonable, but still costly. Check it out for yourself.
XPS 16 Laptop | Dell USA
Shop the Dell XPS 16 powerful laptop with Intel Core Ultra processor, Windows 11 and 4K+ resolution. View on Dell.comwww.dell.com
For the M3 MacBook Air, the 256 GB model is basically the same speed as the 512 GB.
Not wishful thinking. My company along with many others sees a massive difference based on scale. You try ordering say 4 bespoke items, you pay a massive premium compared to buying 40,000.
You are also making an assumption "It does not make sense to over-spec the machine when most of your user base doesn't need it" SAYS WHO? Show me any facts to back this up when the operating system alone needs at least 4Gb, let alone growing software RAM requirements.
It maybe is (becoming) standard, but 8GB is still base and this is, for example, what my local store has right now, for both the 13 and 15 inch M3 MBA. They have 16GB options listed, but those are currently unavailable and no custom configurations are offered. Base configs are always available, hence my comment that upping the base RAM would make certain that people who want or need more RAM have access to it.
In any case, it is definitely positive that Apple is moving in the direction of stocking higher RAM configs, but we'll see how that spreads worldwide.
When Apple are making it clear their intention to go into gaming, AI, VR, etc., and with a basic operating system requiring at least 4Gb I think you can certainly foresee RAM requirements are going to rise, not drop.
The point has always been about the cost of upgrades; if Apple only charged $50 for the 16GB upgrade the majority of people would not be complaining about 8GB in the base?
A Dell server with 8GB of memory in the base configuration.
| Dell USA
www.dell.com
Cost to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB is $236.00. To upgrade to 32GB is $442.00. Both prices are more than what Apple charges.
So, yes, the 8GB base is relevant.
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I see that there is a paragraph about professional and creative workloads needing more RAM for "intensive" workloads.
If you're a "professional" or a "creative" with intensive/massive workloads, you should be making enough money that you can afford $200-$400 for the bigger packages. It's a write-off anyhow.
If you're a "professional" or a "creative" with intensive/massive workloads, you should be making enough money that you can afford $200-$400 for the bigger packages. It's a write-off anyhow.
Yep.
What's making me laugh now are the people being steamed about buying enough memory for the future. And believing 8 GB won't be cutting it.
The many millions of Apple customers having minimal/modest/basic computing needs today (Safari, Pages, Notes, Music, Email, etc, etc) where 8 GB of memory in an M3 MBA works great, will find they'll be working just as good 5-10 years from now.
And likely won't be jumping to processing large Photoshop/Publisher/Logic/etc projects jut a few years from now. The relatively few who do will probably want a new and faster MacPro or Studio with more memory/storage and ports.
Perhaps. But given most customers likely go for the 8GB model, they wouldn’t make many sales.
On the contrary, they are the core customers, just as airlines sell a lot more economy tickets than 1st class. There’s only so many rich people.
The XPS has DDR5 ram. I took a Best Buy 32GB/1TB i9, with 4060/8GB graphics card, upgraded it to 64GB RAM myself, put in two 8TB SSD's (they have two slots), $4200 total cost. And the i9 is the H class version, not the mobile version cheaper laptops have.
When watching ram usage on my M2 Mac Mini it reminds me of my old PowerPC G4 running Tiger. 10.4 after boot was only using like 500 mb of ram. Sonoma after booting hovers around 700 mb and the rest of the usage is cached data. The M2 is impressive.
Ram is relevant when opening large files at the same time in video and audio and publishing apps. Or lots of browser tabs.
Ram is relevant when opening large files at the same time in video and audio and publishing apps. Or lots of browser tabs.
Surely, that has to be a rhetorical question because the answer is plainly obvious.
A Dell server with 8GB of memory in the base configuration.
| Dell USA
www.dell.com
Cost to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB is $236.00. To upgrade to 32GB is $442.00. Both prices are more than what Apple charges.
So, yes, the 8GB base is relevant.
What a bizarre point of comparison.
40000?!? For 8 GB Macs, we talking about way, way bigger numbers than this. That argument makes no sense.
It's not the Steves operating out of a garage anymore.
Theory vs. real world. Real world consumers buy 8 GB machines all the time, and they work just fine for lighter users. In fact unless this year, you usually couldn't even buy 16 GB MacBook Airs from mainstream retail chains, yet they were huge sellers, and the customers used them to get their stuff done just fine. See below:
Which country? Here in Canada for example, with M3 it is the first time the 16 GB MBA is available at Best Buy. With M2 and earlier, only 8 GB was available.
Well, what's the alternative for Apple? Should they stop making laptops because the ones from 15 years ago were good enough for basic tasks? The reality is that "basic computing needs" have been met for a long time, and you can find a decent laptop for $0-$100 at a garage sale. You might even have an old one that still works fine, just needing a battery replacement or an SSD and RAM upgrade. And yes, Apple made it harder to upgrade these components in later models, a move that's been very profitable for them.
The new chips are a different story. They run cool, don't need a fan, offer fantastic battery life, and are fast. For many users, that's more than enough. But when it comes to needing more storage and RAM, the costs can get absurd. However, I get why Apple does it. They're protecting billions in upgrade profits across their product lines. It's their strategy, and it's been working for them.