Should I buy the 512 gb or 16 gb of ram for the new M2 MacBook Air? I can only afford one

[trevpimp]

Go for the higher spec of RAM

There's nothing too little of 8GB RAM unless you have a need for performance then 16GB will work

 

[DavidChoux]

Crippled is a bit hyperbolic. Sure it is slower than the 256 GB of the previous generation and I think that is pretty bad on Apple's part but crippled when talking about 1500 MB/s is a bit much.

I'm glad someone else pointed this out before me. "Crippled" in this context, is both hilariously inaccurate & woefully off-target. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of users would have never even felt a difference, had they not heard/read about it first.

Have you two not seen Max Tech's latest videos where he actually tests an M1 Pro and M2 Pro side by side (both with 256GB) doing real tasks while also having a few Chrome tabs open???

 

[Asiatic Black Hebrew]

Have you two not seen Max Tech's latest videos where he actually tests an M1 Pro and M2 Pro side by side (both with 256GB) doing real tasks while also having a few Chrome tabs open???

I have not, but I can assume it will show a speed difference between the two laptops? That has already been acknowledged. While I'm certainly not excusing Apple's decision with the M2, I simply cannot label 1500 mb/s as slow or "crippled" for the average user. Two things can be true at once. The machine can be both slower than M1, but not slow in general. That is all I'm saying.

 

[DavidChoux]

I have not, but I can assume it will show a speed difference between the two laptops? That has already been acknowledged. While I'm certainly not excusing Apple's decision with the M2, I simply cannot label 1500 mb/s as slow or "crippled" for the average user. Two things can be true at once. The machine can be both slower than M1, but not slow in general. That is all I'm saying.

Have a look then. It's not all about the benchmarks.

 

[DavidChoux]

I think OP should wait until we see whether or not the M2 Air has gone the single NAND chip of SSD route before deciding on 16GB vs 512GB.

If it is indeed a single NAND chip, as it seems it likely will be, I'd highly advise OP listen to the seemingly more knowledgeable users on here. That is, those who have suggested the 512GB option, which would use both NAND slots and therefore bring a much larger performance increase than 16GB of RAM would.

 

[svenmany]

I'd go with 16GB.

I just watched the Max Tech video where they were discussing the shortcomings of the M2 pro. Basically, he made sure that memory was fully consumed to guarantee swapping; that exposed the problem. Probably, with 16GB of RAM, given the usage the OP is describing, swapping won't be occurring. The disk limitations (if they exist in the Air) won't be that noticeable.

 

[Muttznuttz]

Go for the memory. As the others have stated.
However... Consider I recently acquired a fully loaded M1 Air from the refurb store for £1399. They come up often. 16GB 8/8 core and 1TB. That is a great deal

 

[dog.cow]

I’m a computer science major who will have big coding assignments but nothing crazy. I don’t do a lot of high end editing on a regular basis. My only professional use would be these coding projects, other than that, maybe a light gaming(not a big gamer at all), Netflix and everyday things on the laptop. I can only afford one of the above, my only thing is I could get an external hard drive later on but I can’t upgrade Internal Memory and I hope to use this laptop Atleast 4-5 years. I need y’alls help to decide what upgrade will be worth the most of my money.

16GB RAM - you can always plug in a USB-C/TB4 SSD Hard Drive if you need more capacity.

 

[mr_jomo]

Go for the memory. As the others have stated.
However... Consider I recently acquired a fully loaded M1 Air from the refurb store for £1399. They come up often. 16GB 8/8 core and 1TB. That is a great deal

that is the deal!

 

[jav6454]

Go for the memory. As the others have stated.
However... Consider I recently acquired a fully loaded M1 Air from the refurb store for £1399. They come up often. 16GB 8/8 core and 1TB. That is a great deal

This is a good advice. The M1 will deliver exception performance even today.

 

[MajorFubar]

Crippled is a bit hyperbolic. Sure it is slower than the 256 GB of the previous generation and I think that is pretty bad on Apple's part but crippled when talking about 1500 MB/s is a bit much.

This depends on your definition of hyperbolic. In real-life tests the 256GB M2 Pro has been proved to be nearly 50% slower than it's predecessor in some instance, especially the 8GB model which will spend more time using swap. Now whether you consider that relative-slowness to be a good enough reason to use the term 'crippled', that's going to be down to your individual definition. But I think the term is quite justified for a new computer that's provably-slower than its predecessor due to a design choice.

 

[estabya]

This depends on your definition of hyperbolic. In real-life tests the 256GB M2 Pro has been proved to be nearly 50% slower than it's predecessor in some instance, especially the 8GB model which will spend more time using swap. Now whether you consider that relative-slowness to be a good enough reason to use the term 'crippled', that's going to be down to your individual definition. But I think the term is quite justified for a new computer that's provably-slower than its predecessor due to a design choice.

There is a single spec on a subset of the new Macs that is slower than the M1. Asserting the 256GB M2 is crippled, and slower than the M1 because of this, especially before the machine is even out, is disingenuous and could be completely misrepresentative of real world performance. Sure, it will probably affect the experience for some users in very specific work flows/use cases because of a slower SSD, but it’s gonna be faster for most, 99% of the time, due to faster single and multicore CPU performance, higher memory bandwidth, significantly larger L2 caches, faster memory, etc….

To say that it is “probably slower“ is pure speculation, and poor speculation at that.

 

[MajorFubar]

To say that it is “probably slower“ is pure speculation, and poor speculation at that.

Guessed you totally missed this article then:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-has-slower-ssd-speeds-in-benchmarks.2351010/

Loving you fanbois who think it's OK Apple put slower SSD's into the base models of their M2 Macs compared to the M1 as long as the buyers don't notice.

 

[MajorFubar]

sorry double post, now deleted. Blame my cr-p internet.

 

[MajorFubar]

I think OP should wait until we see whether or not the M2 Air has gone the single NAND chip of SSD route before deciding on 16GB vs 512GB.

If it is indeed a single NAND chip, as it seems it likely will be, I'd highly advise OP listen to the seemingly more knowledgeable users on here. That is, those who have suggested the 512GB option, which would use both NAND slots and therefore bring a much larger performance increase than 16GB of RAM would.

Unfortunately we're p*ssing against the tide. Those who know the right answer are always ignored in favour of the loudest shouters, whether or not the loudest shouters are shouting the right answers. It's the view that 'majority opinion must be the right one' mindset, even though sometimes it's not.

 

[OasisNYK]

Personally I would wait to purchase until you have saved enough to get both. I wouldn’t compromise on storage or ram.

 

[estabya]

Unfortunately we're p*ssing against the tide. Those who know the right answer are always ignored in favour of the loudest shouters, whether or not the loudest shouters are shouting the right answers. It's the view that 'majority opinion must be the right one' mindset, even though sometimes it's not.

Nobody is denying the fact that the 256GB SSD has slower reads and writes due to a single NAND chip. Sucks that Apple cut that corner. But one inferior spec does not a slow machine make, and fixating on a single figure to claim the machine is subpar (and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fan boy) doesn’t do anyone any good. Plus it’s not true.

 

[svenmany]

Unfortunately we're p*ssing against the tide. Those who know the right answer are always ignored in favour of the loudest shouters, whether or not the loudest shouters are shouting the right answers. It's the view that 'majority opinion must be the right one' mindset, even though sometimes it's not.

Your posts have the most vitriol. You are the loudest shouter.

The only fact is that the disk is slower. Everything else is emotion, people injecting their own values and expectations into the discussion and then yelling at each other when they differ. In your case you sunk so low as to call people names.

Every company makes decisions about how to spend money on a product. Apple chose to compromise the disk at that price point. Unfortunately, Apple chose something that is an easy target of criticism. It's a complete guess whether any particular individual would notice the speed difference or how they value that speed difference when compared to the price difference of upgrading.

Apple is very much at fault for not being up front about it. When you spec out the machine, they don't mention disk speed as a consideration when choosing disk size. Had they done that, no one would have had anything to complain about. I'm finding it hard to excuse them in this.

 

[Pugly]

16GB is probably more important generally, but if you need the storage having only 256GB is tedious. You'll need to know how much your IDE and other programing tools need. I think Xcode needs 20GB or so and games can be pretty big too.

The more portable the Macs get the more storage I want on it, since you don't necessarily need to even bring a charger with you... having to lug around external storage gets annoying. And the lack of ports, then you need to use a dongle to have external storage and charge at the same time. It's just really cumbersome.

8GB is manageable too, if you run up to the limit you can close some apps and such. Or just get used to a few beach balls here and there, with the slower base ssd speed it's probably more important to get 16GB though.

 

[Davidnguyen_89]

get the m1 with 16gb tbh

is that enough gb if you have alot of photos on your phone and you want to integrate into the laptop? maybe more memory is better. pay extra. if your budget allows. im just set on getting the m2 over the m1. havent used a laptop since forever. more of a desktop person but i like to try something diffferent. went ot the store again LOL. looked at the colors and saw the pro macbook 14 inch man is that thing heavy.

 

[FattKingHugeman]

is that enough gb if you have alot of photos on your phone and you want to integrate into the laptop? maybe more memory is better. pay extra. if your budget allows. im just set on getting the m2 over the m1. havent used a laptop since forever. more of a desktop person but i like to try something diffferent. went ot the store again LOL. looked at the colors and saw the pro macbook 14 inch man is that thing heavy.

yeah the 14 is heavy compare to the M2 Air.

 

[Davidnguyen_89]

yeah the 14 is heavy compare to the M2 Air.

so whats a good specs. 256gb 8gb combo.?

 

[FattKingHugeman]

so whats a good specs. 256gb 8gb combo.?

I got the 16gb 512gb. 8 CPU core.

 

[Davidnguyen_89]

I got the 16gb 512gb. 8 CPU core.

8 gpu or 10 for yours??

 

[Isamilis]

I would say, go with 512mb. Just remember, how much improvement in the old days, when Hard Drive was replaced by SSD. Also, it will be worsen if disk encryption was activated.