Who’s 8GB/256GB good for in 2024?

[avro707]

I think the best answer is no answer because someone will get upset and outraged if they don't agree with the option.

That said when I was looking at new laptop computer options last year many of the PC laptops also came with pitiful specs at the low end.

So I ended up biting the bullet and getting 15" M2 Macbook Air with 16gb and 1TB SSD. I only use it when I'm overseas or otherwise mobile, otherwise I have a 6,1 Mac Pro or a 28 core Xeon Mac Pro 7,1 which is much, much nicer to use.

I know using an Intel Mac Pro makes me a traitor these days - but that thing is very powerful. It's crazy how much you can throw at it and that machine just treats it like it is nothing.

 

[Kal Madda]

I think the best answer is no answer because someone will get upset and outraged if they don't agree with the option.

That said when I was looking at new laptop computer options last year many of the PC laptops also came with pitiful specs at the low end.

So I ended up biting the bullet and getting 15" M2 Macbook Air with 16gb and 1TB SSD. I only use it when I'm overseas or otherwise mobile, otherwise I have a 6,1 Mac Pro or a 28 core Xeon Mac Pro 7,1 which is much, much nicer to use.

I know using an Intel Mac Pro makes me a traitor these days - but that thing is very powerful. It's crazy how much you can throw at it and that machine just treats it like it is nothing.

Using an Intel Mac doesn’t make you a traitor at all. Intel Macs are still great for plenty of people. If it’s still working great for you, why fix it if it isn’t broken? 👍🏻

 

[LavaLevel]

That is a normal sized truck vehicle in the US.

That truck is a size small here in Texas.

speaking of size small...

My wife has a MacBook Pro M3max with 32gb ram/4tb storage. I have a brand new Mac Mini M2 16gb ram/256 storage. I feel inferior. But I love my new Mac mini M2 and plan to make many iPhone Apps with it. But I still feel rather small.

Sometime I just ask the wife if I can look at her MacBook Pro and she opens it up for me. 😍🫦😜

 

[Badger.with.hat]

I think it’s the wrong question. It isn’t so much “who is this good for” but “is this acceptable at this price point.” Because it can be true that this is sufficient for plenty of people, but equally true that at $1100 (or $1300 for the 15” MBA or the most egregious, $1600 14” MBP, granted that one is 8/512), it isn’t at all acceptable in today’s pricing.

Exactly. I'm not surprised that apple offers an 8gb laptop as standard, but I am miffed at how my mother chirps happily at her nearly $2,000 laptop that has the same specs as a $300 thinkpad from 2019.

"who cares? It works fine!" absolves Apple of its duty to the customer, and years of coddling them has gotten us to the point we're at today, getting less and less value per dollar AFTER swathes of non-enthusiasts are locked into the ecosystem. People accept 8gb macbooks at these prices today and they'll keep bumping the price up by 10% a year. It's not cool that our first bit of advice to shoppers is to buy 4-year old used machines, that's an indictment of the value metric apple offers out the gate.

Whether it works or not upon release is less important to me as whether it's a good value throughout the life of the machine - I doubt that the people happy with an 8gb RAM macbook in 2024 will be using it unchanged in 2034. It's funny to imagine apple HASN'T learned from so many customers holding on to Iphone 6's for so long. There's going to be a catch in the long run.

 

[Chuckeee]

I think it’s the wrong question. It isn’t so much “who is this good for” but “is this acceptable at this price point.” Because it can be true that this is sufficient for plenty of people, but equally true that at $1100 (or $1300 for the 15” MBA or the most egregious, $1600 14” MBP, granted that one is 8/512), it isn’t at all acceptable in today’s pricing.

And if your response to that statement is, “you can get an M2 or $100 less or an M1 for $700,” that’s exactly my point. I think you can make an argument that at $700, the late-2020 M1 MacBook Air is a decent value. I think dropping the M2 to $999 is closer, but not quite there, but if you can find that under $1000, I think that’s getting in the right realm.

I don’t think, regardless of use case, that $1100 in 2024 for an 8/256 laptop is something appropriate to sell. Especially when it would cost dollars to bump this up to 16GB/512. Hell, keep the SSD at 256. But keeping the memory at 8GB is just the epitome of greed. Apple products almost always commander a premium. That’s fine. The premium here required not just for the base models, but even worse, the upgrade costs, is what feels like robbery.

I believe it is two separate issues. The first is if the configuration is a useful configuration in 2024 based on a computer that people need to perform (what they consider) to be necessary task.

Then, only if the configuration is viable, there is the question if the cost is justified. If the configuration is not viable then the cost does not matter.

 

[avro707]

Exactly. I'm not surprised that apple offers an 8gb laptop as standard, but I am miffed at how my mother chirps happily at her nearly $2,000 laptop that has the same specs as a $300 thinkpad from 2019.

Microsoft Surface devices had 8gb standard for a while too. I used one for a period and always grumbled at it. But it was not my machine so I just put up with it. it was a very sluggish machine.

I suspect on Apple front there are lot of things they can get away with because the product has the Apple logo and Apple external design. If it was another manufacturer it wouldn't pass.

 

[JustAnExpat]

This raises the question - what isn't a Mac with 8gb ram sufficient for, and who are the people who specifically need more and for some reason can't get the MBP with the M3 Pro chip or better?

Great question. These are people who:

1. Play video games (or emulated games). Sometimes I use a now banned video game emulator to play a game where you're a plumber who throws his hat around. I get about 40 FPS on my computer, and the videos (I don't think they are pre-rendered) get about 10 FPS. I think the RAM is the bottle neck, and 16 GB will greatly improve the experience.

2. Use Windows 11. Windows likes having 8GB of RAM, and the most it can have on a 8GB MacBook Air is 5GB (3GB is reserved for MacOS use). Windows 11 still works, but just very very slowly.

3. If you know you need more than 8 GB of RAM. People who use a computer may use it for intensive video processing (think professional wedding videos, etc), edit photos with multiple layers, for scientific research, etc. I believe these people fall under the "professional" category though - and these people shouldn't be asking "what Mac should I get" on this forum.

 

[Zest28]

Let's sell computers that comes with less RAM and storage than Android smartphones and charge people $200 if they want an additional 8GB RAM or additional 256 GB storage.


No wonder Apple was the richest company in the world.


Well played Tim Cook, well played. **applauses**

 

[Sami13496]

Let's sell computers that comes with less RAM and storage than Android smartphones and charge people $200 if they want an additional 8GB RAM or additional 256 GB storage.

No wonder Apple was the richest company in the world.

Well played Tim Cook, well played. **applauses**

Let's make Android and Windows machines that are so inefficient and badly optimized that they need tons of RAM just to perform normal tasks without hiccups. Then lets blame Apple for using 8 GB and offering a well optimized performance that runs much better than any Android or Windows machine with 16 GB.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Microsoft Surface devices had 8gb standard for a while too. I used one for a period and always grumbled at it. But it was not my machine so I just put up with it. it was a very sluggish machine.

I suspect on Apple front there are lot of things they can get away with because the product has the Apple logo and Apple external design. If it was another manufacturer it wouldn't pass.

One sluggish Microsoft Surface with 8GB RAM and undefined usage is very poor supporting evidence for saying Silicon MacBooks with 8/256 is Apple “getting away with it because of its logo”. As widely reported by Silicon Mac 8/256 users, it is anything but sluggish.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Trucks make a great analogy for this. The Ford Maverick is enough for 75% of people that are interested in a truck. For those that need more than that, there's the F150, F250, etc.

The people that drive Ford Raptors to their office job are the same folks buying 16" MBPs for watching Netflix.

 

[Sweet_Caroline]

Trucks make a great analogy for this. The Ford Maverick is enough for 75% of people that are interested in a truck. For those that need more than that, there's the F150, F250, etc.

The people that drive Ford Raptors to their office job are the same folks buying 16" MBPs for watching Netflix.

How do you know when they are using the F150 for what it’s made for? Just because a person in a 150 is just driving around with it empty, doesn’t mean that’s all they use it for. My husband has a Tundra and while he doesn’t use it 100% of them time hauling stuff, he does drive it to the store to get groceries also.

Whats wrong watching Netflix on a 16 inch? It’s definitely better than watching movies on a smaller screen.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

How do you know when they are using the F150 for what it’s made for? Just because a person in a 150 is just driving around with it empty, doesn’t mean that’s all they use it for. My husband has a Tundra and while he doesn’t use it 100% of them time hauling stuff, he does drive it to the store to get groceries also.

Whats wrong watching Netflix on a 16 inch? It’s definitely better than watching movies on a smaller screen.

I didn't once say it's wrong or anything. Buying more tool than you need is comforting, I understand that. What I'm saying is that the people that need more truck know that they need more truck, and the people that don't need more truck always have the option of more truck.

Your husband takes a Tundra to do groceries - great, I'm happy for you guys, and I'm happy we live in a world where that option exists. Options are only ever good to have.

 

[ChrisA]

Lots and lots of discussion so let’s vote:
(You can have upto 2 votes)

This is about as silly as what my Math professor did some years ago (in a Number Theory class). He wrote a theorm on the whiteboard and asked us to vote if it was true or not. I think the "no" votes won.

3rd and 4th year math students knew enough to laugh at the idea that we could decide this by voting. The theorem is true even if not one person on Earth thinks it is. We all knew he was joking. He actually wanted to show us something that would surprise most of us.

Deciding RAM by letting a VERY biased sample of Apple fans vote is almost up there with voting on a theorem.

The problem with voting is that the people whose opinions matter are not here to vote. 90% of Mac users don't even use a word processor. They are looking at YouTube and ordering from Amazon. Even "professionals" are barely using the Mac. Most Mac users would do well to buy a Chromebook. Yes, some are using the Make to make those YouTube videos but they are a tiny minority.

Then there are the "experts" who know how to run Apple's activity meter and notice that their RAM is almost totally in use and think this means they need more. But macOS ALWAYS will find a way to use all the RAM it has

 

[Chuckeee]

…
Deciding RAM by letting a VERY biased sample of Apple fans vote is almost up there with voting on a theorem.

The problem with voting is that the people whose opinions matter are not here to vote. 90% of Mac users don't even use a word processor. They are looking at YouTube and ordering from Amazon. Even "professionals" are barely using the Mac. Most Mac users would do well to buy a Chromebook. Yes, some are using the Make to make those YouTube videos but they are a tiny minority.

Then there are the "experts" who know how to run Apple's activity meter and notice that their RAM is almost totally in use and think this means they need more. But macOS ALWAYS will find a way to use all the RAM it has

I think you misunderstood my intention of this poll. I was trying to illustrate that even in this biased community the concept that a 8/256 machine is inadequate for everyone is clearly a minority opinion being forwarded by a few very prolific members.

 

[LavaLevel]

One sluggish Microsoft Surface with 8GB RAM and undefined usage is very poor supporting evidence for saying Silicon MacBooks with 8/256 is Apple “getting away with it because of its logo”. As widely reported by Silicon Mac 8/256 users, it is anything but sluggish.

THAT is the best point about an apple with 8gb ram. I used a loaned 8gb M1 Air and that thing was amazing. Smooth as glass for web browsing and Xcode that I was using it for. It even ran the basics of Blender well. It used Blender really well! It sometimes required swap ram, but I only knew that because I was checking with Activity Monitor. It is what convinced me to get an M2.

 

[mysticmanix]

Apple shareholders

 

[zach-coleman]

If you know what RAM is, it’s probably not enough for you. If you do not, it probably is. Not a 1:1 correlation, but…

I think we are at an interesting point in technology where the difference between what a normal user and what a pro/prosumer user needs is becoming more wide. I really do not think there is any use case most of my non-technical friends would have for more than 8GB, they mostly just do light web browsing and occasionally use iMovie or a drawing program or whatever. You really don’t need more than 8GB for that at the moment… for basic video editing keep in mind that iPhones still ship with 1080@30 as the default recording settings, but even 4k@30 would work decently with 8.

I have a friend that uses Blender with a 8/256, however they’ll be upgrading to a 24/1TB shortly so they can use stuff like Parallels and worry less about iCloud offloading files.

On storage, I think 256GB is a little low but it’s workable if the user mostly uses web apps or just does simple tasks like messing with documents. (Which I think is a large chunk of users…) Should probably be bumped to 512 in the near future, though.

In general it would be nice if they bumped both, but I also think when you compare to windows laptops of the same price point the MacBook Air is still winning over the XPS/etc… for now…

 

[avro707]

One sluggish Microsoft Surface with 8GB RAM and undefined usage is very poor supporting evidence for saying Silicon MacBooks with 8/256 is Apple “getting away with it because of its logo”. As widely reported by Silicon Mac 8/256 users, it is anything but sluggish.

All of those surface laptops (and we had huge numbers of them) were pretty lousy.

And our devs always run Macbook Pros that are optioned up with more ram and faster CPUs.

In any case, it depends on what you are doing with the computer. For me, no, 8/256 is not enough so I went for a much higher spec laptop which in case you didn't notice is an Apple M2.

256GB storage is lousy these days, should be at least 512GB especially for the $$$ being charged by Apple.

 

[klasma]

[x] Tim Apple’s earning reports.