emails, books, movies and interweb.
as for work, weddings and funerals - so keynote presentations with video, music collations, memorial stationery, etc.
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Am I ok with the base 15in MBA?
- Thread starter helloapple1
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as for work, weddings and funerals - so keynote presentations with video, music collations, memorial stationery, etc.
Correlation is not causation. I've never had an edit fail when saving in Apple Photos even on an 8GB i5 MBA. If it is indeed the RAM at fault, I'd guess you're doing something in the background way above and beyond what the OP is doing, which is basic use... and still I'd suspect there is a glitch other than RAM. These are really robust machines at any level.
I find it interesting how Apple doesn’t have the 16gb/256gb in stock for a week while they have the 8gb/512gb ready to buy same day.
Referb store has them here Australia.
To your question, 256gb base is criminal in 2023 for a laptop with the amount of videos and photos people take alone.
My 24" 512gb iMac is half full, 512gb is the sweet spot.
Base model is all you need. I've tried to push it with my everyday tasks and programs - it's shown no signs of slowing at all. I considered a MBP 14" and so happy I went with the MBA 15". Base model and don't pay for upgrades. This machine is perfect.
Thanks for chiming in. Glad to hear this. I push my base M1 MBA and it’s never given me any issues. So I figure the base M2 I ordered will be the same.
For lots of people 128GB is already plenty and 256GB is overkill.
That sounds hard to believe, but most people visiting MacRumors are of a much heavier usage profile than the true average user.
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TB4 ports are no joke. Even at USB 3.1 speeds, you can live quite comfortably off of external storage. I ran a 1TB Capture One Pro photo catalog off of a USB 3.1 SSD and it was mostly fine.
My use case recently tells me how wrong this setup can go.
I have a ~600GB OneDrive folder. I wanted to keep a local copy of every single file on my MacBook Pro which only had 1TB of storage. Didn’t work for obvious reason since my photo library is also ~600GB. So, I bought a shell and repurposed my replaced 1TB NVMe SSD for storing those OneDrive files Offline.
Everything worked great until I encounter random disconnect either By me poking the cable a bit hard by accident or it just disconnects on its own. I tried to setup the storage again, but 600GB download takes at least 3 days.
In my experience, permanently attaching storage device through port is not the way to expand the storage of your Mac. The only way is to increase internal storage. If you just use those devices to temporarily transfer files, sure. But I would shell out money to buy 4TB Mac just so that everything can be stored locally. Because of such low storage capacity on many of my devices, I have no choice but to stream my photo library, which has been proven troublesome when that one work photo I want to send to another person standing next to me couldn’t be sent because of poor internet connection. It’s just annoying.
The 15” MBA is insanely capable, light af and whisper quiet. I’ve been using Macs of most every iteration, for 3o years and my 15” MBA has been my favorite to use yet. It’s fun. The only thing to potentially consider is your MBP screen is better. If you have the means, it might be worth a side by side so you can see what you think. Otherwise, the MBA is BA. Cheers.
I bought MBA M2 14 8gb 256gb for learning code (and want to change role/ line of job) and my previous job is use for 3d work (Architect), SketchUp, Vray, Photoshop. And I has amazing how crazy macOS was. 8GB of ram I can render Vray scene and Can open multi app with not have problem same as windows have. But I recommend if you have more budget you should choose more storage 512GB or 1TB because I not want to use external M.2 SSD type C to store more datafile or app (Battery drain and not agile thick thunderbolt cable).
Got a little too enthusiastic. What I meant was that the low end isn't nearly as low as people think it is.
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Apologies if it came across like I was saying that nobody needs internal storage or that external storage is the same.
I would never want to work off external storage 100% of the time regardless of if it performed well doing the things I need it to do. It's just too risky for anything you care about.
I haven't had a PC with less than 2TB in over 10 years and probably never will again, but if you need to save money, I see no reason to dismiss external storage for the right uses so long as you choose a dependable device.
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you can get the 16gb at most apple and best buy stores.. for average users I still dont think its worth it, unless you keep the laptop over 3-4 years (which I dont)
They also keep the 16/1TB in stock. Very weird set of devices to keep in store.
M3 will provide you with even less benefits than more RAM in a current model for your use case though.
But it’s your money to through out of the window of course.
Interesting. Would you say 16gb of RAM is better than the 512gb storage upgrade if you had to choose 1?
Depends on what you are trying to achieve. Personally, I’d always take more RAM over storage, as you can always move things over to external storage (NAS, external drive, etc) but if you are short on RAM you’re short on RAM.
But for people you are fine with 8GB, but need all their movies and large photo collections with them, more storage is the way to go
But for people you are fine with 8GB, but need all their movies and large photo collections with them, more storage is the way to go
yes may do the same?! Who knows, but with the economy the way it is, people are not buying those 2500-4000 machines anymore - selling my old macbook pro has been difficult, same with ipad pro (m2!)
My hope is with the M3 they come with 16/512 standard. But now I’m leaning towards returning my base 15 air and getting a 16 ram version. I’ll see how I fare with this one.