I agree. But don't forget-
3) Customers will return to buy a new MacBook in 3 years because 8GB is proving too little.
Apple bank on that... literally!
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Is 8GB of RAM Enough for MacBook Pro?
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3) Customers will return to buy a new MacBook in 3 years because 8GB is proving too little.
Apple bank on that... literally!
You are going to pay for that memory or SSD either way. I don't understand why everyone assumes it is going to be free.
The Office applications and Teams run fine on 8Gb of RAM. I have teams open now and it uses 700Mb, Excel is using about 450Mb with one spreadsheet open.
macOS will force some of the application into swap if it's starting to use to much memory.
I think so too. But they won't double it to 16GB in my opinion. Probably 12Gb, similar to the 18GB M Pro.
Macbook Pro. For pro browsing, pro checking emails, pro document editing, pro watching YouTube etc 8GB of ram is sufficient for those pro tasks.
Bring back user accessible RAM and this problem goes away.
Agreed. A professional who undertakes those tasks can certainly achieve what they need with that capability.
Oh I don’t disagree on the $2,000 price. It’s well worth the money for what it does.
I’m just not a fan of creating a very specific product purely to market the product line. I don’t think Apple intends to sell many of the $1600 model relative to the $2000 model.
This was always a fun conversation when I was selling Macs. The conversation mattered a lot more back when HDDs were still the standard and memory compression wasn't that great. Several models back then could also have the RAM be upgraded later, so that was also part of the conversation. Swaps hurt performance a lot more than they do now. SSDs in modern Macs are so fast that it's almost imperceivable when it happens.
I got a baseline MacBook Air for a few trips I took recently because I needed something quick and cheaper than the 14" Pro that I actually want. I work from home, so I don't use a laptop all that often. I can't justify the $2k+ Pro. My Mac mini has 32GB of RAM and I'm constantly at 25GB+ with my daily workload. I used the Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD and my iPad as a secondary monitor with the same workload and it ran just as smooth if not smoother. The main downside with that is the SSD will degrade faster because it's being used more often for swaps.
I got a baseline MacBook Air for a few trips I took recently because I needed something quick and cheaper than the 14" Pro that I actually want. I work from home, so I don't use a laptop all that often. I can't justify the $2k+ Pro. My Mac mini has 32GB of RAM and I'm constantly at 25GB+ with my daily workload. I used the Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD and my iPad as a secondary monitor with the same workload and it ran just as smooth if not smoother. The main downside with that is the SSD will degrade faster because it's being used more often for swaps.
I once asked why fellow students were buying $1300 base pros when they could buy base air for $900 - the reply was astounding: "I don't know, i guess pro is a better device, i never had issues with the Pros bought and owned for many years".
Why worry about what other people choose to do? That doesn't seem healthy.
The good news is, if you don't like Apple's decisions on how they choose to segment their products, simply find a different manufacturer for your tech needs.
Rather than fret over how Apple conducts their business, simply choose a different manufacturer for computers and find happiness.
But will it have PRO on the nameplate? How can I possibly show my face at Starbucks or Panera if it doesn’t say PRO on the nameplate of my laptop?
Try not to fret so much on how Apple chooses to segment their products. Simply buy what you need. Why get wound up worrying about other peoples' decisions?
Apple seems to be doing a good job with that by giving people many options - and not requiring them to spend more for memory they don't need for their particular situation.
Choose is good. No doubt that has propelled the company to being one of the most successful tech companies in the world.
Not fretting, just holding onto a naive hope that maybe one day Tim will see this post and figure out how to make substantial profits without the blatant 900% markups on essential components like RAM and storage. 🤞
Why does that annoy you? It's Apple's decision so that their GPM comes in at an average 42%.
For many people 8 GB RAM is perfectly fine. No reason for them to pay for extra RAM they'll never use.
The good news is there are many computer manufacturers out there. Simply pick one whose business practices align with yours. And find happiness.
I sure would not want a boss buying me a machine with only 8 gigs of ram lol. Thankfully my current boss pretty much maxes out our setups. I did work for a place years ago where the guy bought the cheapest PCs he could get and called them design machines lol