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2024 MacBook Air still 8GB Unified Memory
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thats what i used to think, 8gb is not enough until i was stuck with a 15" m2 in 8gb lol... and its been a year and honestly not any real issues, maybe a tad slow.. but I was suprised how speedy it actually was!
At this point I fully support the decision to stay at 8GB as long as physically possible, purely for the entertainment value.
In that light... I enjoy pedantic responses. :-D
I have 32 GB of RAM and Pixelmator grinds to a halt when DrawThings is running. I can't have planned for this because DrawThings came out after I bought my Studio.
I am a professional video editor, but I have no idea what kinds of projects are workable on an 8 GB M3 and what would fail. I also couldn't tell you if upgrading the RAM or the SSD would result in a bigger improvement. The only people who would know those things are those who found out the hard way.
8 GB is fine for some people. But most users aren't going to know if they are those users until it is too late.
Back when you could upgrade ram afterwords that was not a problem. Nowadays people are stuck with a choice few know how to make correctly: If you buy too much, you waste money on grotesquely overpriced RAM and SSD you don't need. If you don't buy enough, you are stuck buying another Mac in a year.
And please don't tell me about buying from other companies. If free markets worked for computers, we'd all be using Linux today and Microsoft would be out of business. It is easier to move to another country than to switch from Mac to PC.
32 GB ram:
Amazon: $59
Apple upgrade: $400
1 TB ssd:
Amazon $139
Apple upgrade: $600
Note that in both cases, the Apple upgrade replaces a smaller device, so you actually get less for the money.
100% of users were once the bottom 90% of users. Macs used to be about empowering people to learn and be their best.
And I've never heard of MR. Do you mean Midjourney? Stable Diffusion?
Indeed. Small issue with the latency as compared to UMA however...
/s
Interesting comparison.
That said, why are you comparing an "upgrade" for PCs (meaning that you simply buy the RAM and SSD and do all the installation and replacement work yourself, which is after the fact) with the "upgrade" when buying a Mac (meaning that Apple actually builds the machine to your specs from the beginning or ships you a pre-built unit with those specs—you don't have to do any replacement or installation yourself)?
I get what you're saying about the price difference, but it does seem like the comparison is not quite apples-to-apples, or oranges-to-oranges 🍊 In Apple's case (at least with the laptops), you can't do anything once the unit is shipped to you, but the unit comes already "upgraded", which saves you the hassle. With a PC, you do all the installation and replacement yourself (which is generally not hard anyway, if you have a screwdriver and a little time on your hands), unless you order the unit with the customized specs you want beforehand from the manufacturer or retailer.
To make a better comparison, why not compare similar Apple and PC models with the same base model RAM and SSD specs, and then show the prices you would have to spend for each if you wanted to upgrade them at the manufacturer from their base model specs? (Most PCs likely still come out cheaper than Apple in this case, I imagine, but this is just to be fair.)
I'm guessing you're using your Studio to make money. I don't know anything about DrawThings, but it sounds like the machine is no longer meets the requirements for the job. Most people don't use MacBooks - especially at 8GB - to make money by doing graphic design work.
Well that is the answer right there. The effort of adding memory or a hard drive
I think most people know what they would do with a computer six months or a year later. Even if the interests change (i.e. if someone decides to become a Youtube Video Creator, or example), a MacBook Air M1 with 8 GB still has enough power to make YouTube Videos.
If someone starts doing 3D animation for example, it's a new hobby and any MacBook would be good enough for hobby purposes for that.
Exactly. If this was a windows box, it would cost me $59 to double my ram. But on a Mac, my only choice is $2,399 for a new Studio, or switch to Windows.
Let's just use a little common sense here. Apple released the new M3 MacBook Pro's with 8gb ram base model so why on Earth would they increase the base ram on the air? Makes no sense.
If you don't like it then don't upgrade. The only thing Apple will listen to is dollars. I here tons of complaints but no one ever votes with their dollars.
Pricing on these is pretty competitive with other ultra thin and light PC's so I see these complaints as just bluster about nothing. We got a $100 price drop this year even with all the inflation and new M3 chip. Not bad to me. Of course if you have M2 MBA there is no reason to upgrade.
If you don't like it then don't upgrade. The only thing Apple will listen to is dollars. I here tons of complaints but no one ever votes with their dollars.
Pricing on these is pretty competitive with other ultra thin and light PC's so I see these complaints as just bluster about nothing. We got a $100 price drop this year even with all the inflation and new M3 chip. Not bad to me. Of course if you have M2 MBA there is no reason to upgrade.
You've already quoted me giving a counterexample to this. My other one was ten years ago buying an iMac and decided that 8 GB of ram was not enough for video editing.
"If you don't like my government then don't live here." This isn't a free market situation where you can just buy someone else's product. Switching costs are too high, and there are too few real choices. (Dell vrs HP is not a choice.). So you get a sort of corporate communism.
Not having realistic solutions doesn't mean you don't have a problem.
I received work-issued newest Windows laptop 14 inch with 16/512, latest i5 12450H and Windows 11.. It feels much, much slower than my 8GB Macbook Air m2 and 8GB Macbook Pro m3. Opening Edge windows and general operations are so much uncomfortable on Windows it is not even funny..
Right, that’s great for you but the logical extension of this is that all Macs should come with minimum 64 GB of RAM and 2TB storage because in your case 32 512 wasn’t enough.
You need to make purchasing decisions based on your needs, your argument here is like “if you buy a 1L petrol engine in a car then a few years down the line decide you want to become a professional race driver you’ll have to buy a whole new car!”
I agree, lack of upgradability and repair ability sucks but it’s not practical to suggest AS Macs could have upgradable RAM. The storage on AS Macs is upgradable, just not by the end user, and it would be good if Apple offered a service for this.
Upgrade pricing is a tricky one, because Apple are actually fairly reasonably priced when you look at the chips they use on Ali express etc. it’s not a fair comparison comparing SODIMM RAM modules / NVME modules to the raw NAND used in AS as SODIMM is much larger and runs slower. It’s like comparing a HDD to an SSD and wondering why the SSD is more expensive.
Storage has less of a compelling argument, and is my main bug bear.
Yep, I’ve got a 2021 Dell Laptop with 32 GB of RAM and an i7 and 512GB of Storage.
It’s slow, runs hot, and my 2020 MBA (16/256) smokes it in synthetic and real world benchmarks.
Sorry. I misread. But my point was that when Apple ditched the upgradable memory, they could freely prolong the periods you refer to with the base model being stuck at eg 4 GB and therefore have users pay ridiculous fees for upgrading