Already did that a few posts back on Lenovo. Apple charges 3-5x as much for storage/RAM upgrades.
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2024 MacBook Air still 8GB Unified Memory
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What? Haven’t you hear of Apple’s new law, the transistor half’s ever 2 years or so? if progress projections prove right for Apple, when the M4 comes out, expect 4GB ram and 128GB or disk in the base model. The 2024sis the new 2004s.
Resale value still takes a hit as your only likely to get an additional £50 at most with a 16GB variant vs an 8GB variant, that still looses an additional £150 in resale value.
Retailers stocking 16GB RAM variants has likely been a more recent thing, I was browsing late last year and it was only John Lewis who stocked 16GB with limited stock and only in one colour.
The issue with Apple having a base spec of 12GB or 16GB of RAM is that a very large % of the target market won’t bother upgrading the RAM at all at that, which ultimately looses Apple a lot of $$$$.
Personally, I think in 2024 8GB of RAM on a MBA is still plenty for what the target demographic will be using it for, these machines are not designed to be used to edit 4K videos every day etc… they are merely designed for basic day to day use, web surfing, checking social media, typing up docs, checking email etc…
Apple will continue to push people who want to do more than that to either opt for a MBP or upgrade their RAM… with 8GB RAM currently it puts Apple in a very strong position to get people to upgrade, because it’s just enough RAM for the laptop to work well for the target demographic with basic needs for at least 5 years, but just not quite enough for those who dabble regularly in photo/video editing etc…
Personally, I do think M4 will continue with 8GB RAM, I think it will be M5 before we see 12GB coming as a base spec, but along with that we will likely see a £100 increase in price across the board.
That’s Apple’s new SMoors law. Every 2 years the transistor count is halved. So expects 4GB ram and 128GB ssd soon.
a valid reason to choose a Mac with 16Gb ram would be resale value. No one wants to buy your Air with 8Gb memory, in let's say 4 years from now if you plan to sell it.
When you buy a 16GB machine, Apple is not upgrading the RAM, they are soldering two 8GB chips instead of two 4GB chips to the SoC.
Dell Latitude 5540 8GB RAM: $1079
Dell Latitude 5540 16GB RAM: $1149
Difference: $70
And in this case you are actually adding an additional RAM module.
Obviously Apple charges whatever they want for their products, but their price for extra RAM and storage is nothing but ridiculous.
This not how iCloud backups of iPhones work. My 256Gb iPhone backup uses 24GB of iCloud.
Not “everyone” …only the vocal minority here who don't recognise that MR readers are a very different demographic from the millions of non MR readers out there.
And apple ensures that only pros (that can deduct the expense) can afford more 😂
I found it to be not true. I was able to sell my 16/512 M1 MBA only at a price close to that of a base configuration.
A maximum of £50, you say.
Let’s take a space grey MacBook Air M1 with 512GB as an example. I picked this for the following reasons:
- It’s one of the oldest Apple Silicon devices (launched in November 2020), and Intel Macs are less desirable.
- Space grey is a popular choice.
- I figure that most people upgrading the RAM would also upgrade the SSD, and 512GB was a stock configuration.
If I want to sell an 8GB version on eBay, the median selling price for the last 90 days was £503.91. The equivalent median selling price for a 16GB version is stated as £791.80. In the interest of transparency, I did find another example from the suggestions which stated it was £579.88. Based on what I've seen, I would put it somewhere in the middle of that range.
Another example is CEX - MusicMagpie didn’t have enough stock for comparisons. They will sell you a grade B example of the 8GB M1 Air for £665. The 16GB version (they only had the one with the 7-core GPU) sells for £775.
It’s good to see you acknowledge my point about the increasing availability of 16GB versions, which suggests demand is growing. I noticed that the delivery dates for the 16GB M3 Airs have slipped in the UK and the US, but the 8GB versions are still available. I haven’t checked all of the colours.
I remember a time when we didn’t have a choice of colour. If it comes down to choosing between colour and specs, I’m going with the latter option.
Besides cost, the reason why I think Apple will go with a base RAM of 12GB is that it won’t be considered sufficient for a lot of people who currently opt for 16GB. They will still pay extra to upgrade to the next tier.
If I had to guess, since Apple chooses banks of 3 x dies for the M-Pro and Max chips, a future M-standard chip could have 12gb RAM as a base.
Agree 100%.
However, the average, mainstream consumer (not represented on MR, apparently) will, at large, vote with their dollars despite their, comparatively, low to non-existent grasp on computer hardware/specs.
No, they wouldn't know that 8GBs of RAM was the cause of their high-definition media video editing project taking forever to render, or apps reloading or crashing left and right.
But they would definitely return the 8/256 Mac and buy a higher spec'ed one or opt for another brand if the 8GBs of RAM or 256 SSD didn't fit their use cases.
It's pretty obvious that I meant everyone who brings it up.
Pretty much all the main PC manufacturers sell models with 8gb/256gb configs and provide upgrade paths from there. Not sure why OP thinks this is an Apple only thing.
8 gb is likely fine for some of the target audience who just want a basic reddit/Facebook/instagram machine with a nice keyboard, trackpad and battery life.
is it a massive performance limitation? sure. but it helps apple hit a price point.
The base spec apple machines have always been bad value and stepping one tier up the ladder at least is normally a way better balanced, better value (even if it is more expensive) machine.
like anything the baseline spec is the appetite whetter at an attractive price. the machine you actually want to buy normally isn't that.
is it a massive performance limitation? sure. but it helps apple hit a price point.
The base spec apple machines have always been bad value and stepping one tier up the ladder at least is normally a way better balanced, better value (even if it is more expensive) machine.
like anything the baseline spec is the appetite whetter at an attractive price. the machine you actually want to buy normally isn't that.
The issue has less to do with the 8/256 starting point than it does with the upgrade costs being so out of line with the component costs.
There were no Macbooks in 2004. The Base Powerbook G4 from 2004 had 512 MB of RAM and a maximum of 2GB.
It was never going to increase before the base MacBook Pro increased. I do suspect it'll increase next year, but to 12GB rather than 16 or 18. 4GB of RAM is close enough to free that it's just about Apple upselling.
As SoC advances are incremental at best and offer little advantage to regular users, Apple will need to lean on upgrades to RAM and storage to lure in people that already that already own Apple silicon Macs.
What else can they lure us in with at this point? Better screen tech? Return to attractive looking machines like the M1 MacBook Air? No more notch or at least a notch with Face ID?
I'll be in the market for a new personal laptop next year, with 16/18GB RAM and 1TB storage, minimum, to replace my 8GB/256 M1 Air. For the first time in decades I might actually look to Windows unless Apple up their game.
As SoC advances are incremental at best and offer little advantage to regular users, Apple will need to lean on upgrades to RAM and storage to lure in people that already that already own Apple silicon Macs.
What else can they lure us in with at this point? Better screen tech? Return to attractive looking machines like the M1 MacBook Air? No more notch or at least a notch with Face ID?
I'll be in the market for a new personal laptop next year, with 16/18GB RAM and 1TB storage, minimum, to replace my 8GB/256 M1 Air. For the first time in decades I might actually look to Windows unless Apple up their game.
I won't tell anyone what they need. I would ask if you really need such a fast CPU, such a powerful GPU, so much bandwidth, such a nice screen, a backlit keyboard, fast SSD speeds, the pretty aluminium frame, etc? Would you be happy to trade away the majority of those and still pay the same price?
The argument people are presenting hinges on Apple providing a great all-round product, rather than one that is artificially limited on certain specs, despite the components becoming dirt cheap, so they can charge astronomical amounts for people to upgrade.
Agreed. Paying £600 to upgrade to 16GB/1TB is horrendous when those upgrades likely cost Apple all of about £30. Someone else mentioned inflation, suggesting Apple are being generous with pricing, ignoring the fact that multiple component costs have fallen through the floor in the last couple of years (and Apple are also now able to avoid paying hefty markups on Intel processors).
Outside of the US those upgrade paths are often a damn sight cheaper than with Apple- along the lines of 1/3 the cost.