Now if people disagree with you, that just makes them delusional, I get it…😂🤣. 8GB of RAM is plenty reasonable for the majority of people, that’s why the 8GB RAM options sell as well as they do. If there were so many people that were having such a terrible experience with 8GB RAM configurations, we wouldn’t expect them to be selling as well as they do.
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Is 8GB of RAM Enough for MacBook Pro?
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I routinely see people on Reddit that get the 8 GB RAM and then ask how to fix beachball problems. The answer is usually to return it and get the 16 GB model.
No, they sell well because that's all that's offered at the base price, and an upgrade is $200. Do you think if the same laptop with 16GB sold at the same price people would go "well, that sounds good, but that's just too much RAM for me. Pass."
I've never seen anyone champion worse specs for a base machine before. It's......something else.
The problem is it wouldn’t be sold at the same price though. If Apple increased the base spec, the price would likely increase with it. And by that logic, we could argue “Do you think if the same laptop with 128GB sold at the same price people would go ‘well, that sounds good, but that’s just too much RAM for me. Pass’”. Every computer company charges more for more RAM. None of them charge the exact same for every RAM capacity. And a lot of computers that now start at 16GB of RAM also increased their pricing. So if Apple moved to 16GB of RAM as base spec (and understandably upped the pricing to reflect that), people would lose the cheaper option that currently does everything they want it to, and is more than enough for their needs.
Most Windows laptops have an open slot to add more RAM which you can buy for much less than what the company sells the RAM upgrade for. Sure, it's a pain in the neck to take your laptop apart to get to the slot but lots of people do buy the base and then do the upgrade themselves.
And Unified Memory relies on soldered RAM to support the high-bandwidth connection. RAM cards wouldn’t work, at least not with the current system, and you’d take a pretty big performance hit.
And I said likely. Besides, it’s very well informed “conjecture” since in the past when the base spec has increased so has the price…
Explain price decreases then? Bottom line, you've got no idea what Apple's margins are, and whether or not it's feasible to change the base RAM requirement. RAM prices, NAND storage prices etc change all the time. Maybe you didn't notice there's no 16GB iPhone anymore? When Apple is charging a premium for their machines, they should have a more premium base RAM amount.
All I'm saying is that a machine costing $1499 should have more base RAM in it than a machine costing $1499 ten years ago. It's insane that it doesn't.
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Not for any serious work. Maybe if all you do is use it like a Chromebook. I would want 32 as I tend to keep MBP’s for several years.
You have no idea what Apple’s margins are either, so why should we assume they could feasibly up the base RAM spec for the same price? Businesses have to maintain a certain level of profitability on products in order to justify their production. And we have precedent that tells us that prices go up when base specs go up.
Because, as I've said before, a MBP from 2014 had 8GB of base RAM. Why hasn't this improved in nearly ten years? It's unacceptable. You're telling me everything else has gotten better for the price, EXCEPT RAM? Right. Sure.
Because people’s RAM usage hasn’t really changed that much. A lot of software is actually becoming more efficient on the way it uses RAM. And other costs have increased in production as Apple has used higher-end hardware in their MacBooks, such as high-resolution Mini-LED displays.
Yeah and operating systems have stayed exactly the same since 2014 😀
So if I had a 2021 14”mbp M1 Pro, 16/512 base model and wanted to pass that along to family and replace for myself, the base model is now M3 8/512?
Yeah, and that’s basically irrelevant. macOS runs perfectly fine on 8GB MacBooks… And another fact you’re ignoring is that this base spec option is cheaper than what they charged the last two years, and all the rest of the hardware in these laptops is the same except chip, so this is actually a great bargain. They could have just stuck with the M3 Pro chips as the base spec and kept charging more for the base spec MacBook Pro, instead they offered us a cheaper entry model so that more people could benefit from all the nice hardware. This is actually a positive thing for consumers…
And the new base spec is also cheaper than the base MBP M1 Pro was, you can buy a M3 Pro configuration with 18GB of RAM and 512GB of Storage for exactly what the M1 Pro base model costed.
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I would agree that jumping from 8gb to 16gb at the cost of, what is it, about $200 is a rather HUGE and overpriced jump.
I'm thinking the products are priced this way in order to create a differentiated market, otherwise if the jump from 8 to 16 is only a some dollars, most would go for the 16 (e.g., 8gb to 16gb at the cost of $50). I'm not saying this is "right". I'm saying this is possibly what Apple is doing. But then again, I'm not in marketing; just trying to understand what they might be doing.
Funny. I don't think 16 is enough. But, mainly because Safari and some other apps awful memory hogs. Safari is using 22GB right now for me while on my Macrumors tab. My mail app is using 2.6GB, and my VPN app using 2.8GB. Seems high to me considering I have DaVinci Resolve open with small video project and it's only using 1.45GB right now. Yes, I should probably not use Sarfari. But, Chrome sucks too. I have been giving reports to Apple on Safari and a few times they actually responded and ask for me info. Then said to try an update.
My point is that when things run well, you can probably get away with 8GB. But, software (not just Apple's) have become more bloated and buggy, that you need more RAM. Sometimes I think it's a conspiracy/collusion to make software bloated on purpose or not as efficient to get you upgrade. I mean, if it was new features or logic to do more complex things, I'm for upgrading. But, doesn't always seem that way.
My point is that when things run well, you can probably get away with 8GB. But, software (not just Apple's) have become more bloated and buggy, that you need more RAM. Sometimes I think it's a conspiracy/collusion to make software bloated on purpose or not as efficient to get you upgrade. I mean, if it was new features or logic to do more complex things, I'm for upgrading. But, doesn't always seem that way.
I think the high price apple charges is carefully considered to maximize revenue. It is their trade off of selling fewer for higher profit per sale vs selling many for lower profit per sale but with more sales. AKA maximizing shareholder equity, or more commonly referred to as Greed.
The question whether greed is good or bad or something else is a separate moral question
You could do a second layer of memory, similar to cache hierarchies.
I'm running a 2015 iMac for office stuff. It's actually fine for that and a lot of other tasks. I run production on my Studio but the 2015 is still a decent system that would get the job done for most people. And at $200, it's a great deal too. I'm shopping for a 2020 right now and may put in 48 GB for running Intel Windows. We have another home that's being rehabbed and it would be nice to leave a Mac at the house.
But there likely would be several tradeoffs to that, such as lower battery runtime, lower performance more bulk to the computer to accommodate the slot, etc.
Possibly. But I'd be happy if they did that on the Mini and iMac where those aren't factors.
There's two sides to every argument. Only one side here is being sensible or logical though, and I can't tell if the other side genuinely believe the anti-consumer nonsense they spout, or they're just getting a kick out of annoying people. Either way, I'll never have to see any of their messages ever again now.
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Ya, and the side being sensible and logical isn’t yours…. Or maybe, just maybe, both sides have logical reasons for believing what they do, and maybe nuance exists…. Just calling the other side “non-sensible”, “non-logical”, “anti-consumer”, etc. isn’t A. an effective way to convince people on said side of argument that you’re right, and B. it’s not productive to actual discussion or debate. Ad hominems do nothing to bolster your side…