And this is what the Apple spokesperson was talking about. I don’t think it deserves all the “meme” and eye rolls when realistically what they mean is EXACTLY what we are experiencing. I will buy a more expensive Mac with 8GB of RAM over a Windows PC with 16GB. Under NO circumstances will I pick the PC.
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2024 MacBook Air still 8GB Unified Memory
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There are $4,000 and even $5,000 PC laptops out there that come with 8GB of RAM and even 256GB storage. They offer other things like workstation NVIDIA GPU or military grade enclosures.
I would take whatever Apple offers over the PC alternatives. Because I value what additional things Apple has. A computer, especially a laptop, is NOT just about RAM and SSD.
Wrong.
You can’t upgrade the base model. If you want extra RAM and storage, automatically they’ll upgrade it to the higher chip with 10 core GPU, so the total for 16GB and 1TB will cost you $400 extra. And that’s the same price like you’ll buy the mid option and make these upgrades.
I suspect that most of the people complaining about 8GB not being enough have never used a system with 8GB. I might also wager they have never used, or don't currently use, a Mac.
Those that really need a large memory footprint know who they are and will purchase accordingly. If I was doing professional video editing I would opt for the most powerful Mac I could get and it most certainly would not be a MacBook. If a desktop was not an option, then the most powerful MacBook I could get. I would most certainly not get 8GB, and then complain, as experience should let me know better.
I do some video editing but mostly picture processing. My last purchase was a CPU with 16 cores, 64GB of memory, and 4TB of SSD, high speed SSD. Speed is everything and I knew it going into the purchase. If I were to buy a 8GB Surface Laptop and expect the same performance, that would just be silly.
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Agreed. I need 128GB of RAM but I’m not going to go to every thread and say MacBook Pros that come with less than 128GB of RAM are NOT PRO!!!! My pro use dictates I can’t use less than 128GB. So to me, anything less isn’t a pro. But I’m not going to go around spreading hate.
You should complain on every thread that the base MBP model not coming with 128GB RAM free of charge. 😂
What do you mean... you people?
I am neither expecting upgrades to be free, nor am I unwilling to pay for an upgrade.
Imagine complaining about Apple giving you the processor upgrade for free.
On previous M# Airs upgrading from 8/256 to 16/1TB cost $600, so even if the chip stayed the same it would still cost $600 for that upgrade.
No one has claimed such a stupid thing. What inspired you to write that sentence?
They are waiting until one of their new software features (maybe on-device AI?) can't run without more than 8gb and only then will they increase the base RAM. It's not totally Apple being stingy, they know that most people will not care or notice any problems with their 8gb MacBook, and if they do they will not blame it on RAM, and so they don't need to put in more RAM. Yeah, it's bad to only have 8gb but until they just can't run MacOS or a major MacOS feature, they will only offer that much.
At least it has Dynamic Caching now 🤷♂️
An alternative option they could do would be to jack up the base RAM as a selling point, maybe not to 16gb but at least to 12gb (which I think is fine for a starting point). That would have been a good idea this time around, with almost no changes other than the M3 chip. They could have used it as a marketing point. But again, for the same reasons as I said above, they may not think it needs to be increased.
At least it has Dynamic Caching now 🤷♂️
An alternative option they could do would be to jack up the base RAM as a selling point, maybe not to 16gb but at least to 12gb (which I think is fine for a starting point). That would have been a good idea this time around, with almost no changes other than the M3 chip. They could have used it as a marketing point. But again, for the same reasons as I said above, they may not think it needs to be increased.
However you try to manipulate it (I won't even speculate why you'd try), it costs $600 extra to turn the base model into a laptop that contains 16GB/1TB. Yes it also gives you the minute GPU boost, but $600 is $600 whichever way you look at it. 🤦♂️
You can look at it however you want, but the fact is you can’t upgrade the base model that comes with an 8-core GPU.
But silicon macs do not use standard NVMe blades. Apple are entitled to some mark up for the SoC technology step. Maybe not x3.
I think you're missing my main point here. Yes, swap is a normal function. Yes, it will happen on any machine eventually, regardless of RAM capacity. My point is that it shouldn't be happening THAT FREQUENTLY on a machine used for unarguably basic tasks.
That's when you realize that amount of RAM is too low for the given operating system and platform and that larger capacities should be considered for the baseline.
Though, saying that queues a thousand MacRumors members with their "it works fine for me!" and "I don't notice a problem!" as though that isn't utterly beside the point!
Nope! All Safari!
The markup on what they pay is likely more like 13x...😅
Everyone needs 500+ horsepower in their car. Everyone.
So many freelance product managers in these threads! I wonder if Apple is trolling through here to poach talent.
Don't forget marketing wizards, economic wizards, supply chain wizards and a couple of rocket engineers.
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This may be true, but not knowing anything about those who are telling us that 8Gb isn't enough, judging their commentaries is hard to do. But what I do know, is that if it were not sufficient for at least the majority of those who have bought a system with 8Gb RAM, there would be a class action lawsuit against Apple building steam by now, with lawyers touting for affected consumers to sign up.
Oddly, there isn't a single one, and in this litigious society, that does rather demonstrate something important, I believe.
Though actually it isn't even slightly beside the point. If - and by your expectation this is going to be a BIG if - users are happy, and they stay happy, that seems to be the only criteria that matters.
To which you may respond that failure in these SSDs is inevitable due to swap use, and the cause is that 8Gb RAM is not enough. Clearly a predictable failure point, which so many experts here understand and want to tell us all about - indeed, have told us all about for years now.
Do we seriously think that Apple don't also know this? More to the point, that in a company so deeply focussed on their bottom line, that they don't realize the implication of potential class action suits from hoards of upset users when these failures begin like an avalanche? And, despite the expertise being offered liberally here, they remain so ignorant of the implications that they keep on making and selling exactly the same base specification, which would render any legal defense to such cases almost impossible?
I totally understand the nature of caching and swap file use, but I'd be very surprised if Apple didn't at least as well or more so. I mean no disrespect to you for voicing this concern, but I can't see any way Apple ignored this fact.
I also think that since the first units went out in 2020 - almost 4 years ago - we'd be seeing examples of these failures by now, particularly since it appears to have been a very popular model, and clearly no small number of users have thrashed their 8Gb M1 Macs quite hard.
Apple uses bare NANDs with no controllers. Their component costs are even lower. That makes Apple's SSD markup even more egregious.
The M3 chip (with built-in storage controller) has already been paid for by the consumer when they buy any MBA. It doesn't make sense to mark up the bare NANDs by an extreme amount. But it's Apple, so they do.
Why are they entitled? What does this SoC do for ordinary users? If NVMe blades are too slow, then why isn't 8 GB too small?