Advice needed for a laptop for university

[Tony01]

Hi guys,
I want to change my laptop with something smaller and lighter.
I was considering the 512gb new macbook air but I have some doubts.

Maybe if I tell you my use case you can help me better.

I mainly use my current laptop for powerpoints, word, etc. But I also use it for some coding with PyCharm and all the time I end up with a tons of google chrome tabs opened.
Right now, I have the following apps opened: chrome with about 10 tabs, pycharm, discord, teams, skype, spotify, whatsapp, telegram and a MySQL instance running in background.
My computer is showing 8.9/16GB memory usage.

The macbook air has only 8GB of ram. I cannot upgrade ram since they sell only 256gb and 512gb base versions in my local store and I have to buy it from there.

Will 8GB be enough? Or maybe is better to wait for the new mbp and see if it starts with 16gb of ram?

Thanks

 

[MacMusic01]

I run 4gb of ram with eases on my 2010 MacBook and have no problem with Music or video production And it has a 2 core dou so you might be better off with that if your looking for something cheaper

 

[vmachiel]

IMO: 8GB is the bare minimum these days, especially if you want the machine to last. 16 should be the goal here, so that would be MBP territory.

No one know what the next iteration of the 13/14 inch MBP will be. Consensus is that i'll come out this year and has the nicer keyboard. But that's about all we know..

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Since you have a habit of using notorious resource pig Google Chrome with lots of open tabs, you would benefit from having more RAM, at least 16GB minimum.

Note that a MBP with 16GB RAM will still cost more than a MBA with a 16GB RAM upgrade. If money is no object, feel free to wait for the next MBP.

 

[gaminglf]

As per your use 8GB RAM is enough but for a long term 16GB is better because in case if you want to use some other software then it can handle with ease.

 

[Fishrrman]

Stop using Chrome and use a different browser.
Also, close all the tabs.
Things will go better this way...

 

[hobowankenobi]

...Why do you have to buy from your local store?

Can't they order you a MBA with 16GB?

 

[GaelenSky]

I run 4gb of ram with eases on my 2010 MacBook and have no problem with Music or video production And it has a 2 core dou so you might be better off with that if your looking for something cheaper

4GB's of RAM these days is super-inefficient. The amount of swap that I was seeing being ulitilised when I was running 4GB of RAM on my MBP up until 2016 was seriously bad and slowing down my computer. Running High Sierra now with 16GB of RAM has made a big difference, especially considering the usage sits around 4GB as is.