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Apple needs to make 16 GB of Ram standard or they may never have a laptop monopoly.
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My work machine is 8gb MacBook Pro and I’ve never run into a single issue as an IT Professional- my home Mac Mini is absolutely 16gb, because I do photo/video editing on it. 8gb is fine for 95% of the users with the Apple Architecture
It's not the saving money. It's the excessive charges to add more. One would have a choice if there was an option other than not buy.
There is another option. Buy something from another manufacturer. There isn't anything holy about Macs.
I bought my M1 Max MBP with 64 GB RAM and 1 TB storage from micro center, when they had $200 discount. There are third party authorized resellers who do have upgraded MacBooks. They have 16GB/512, 16GB/256 and many other combinations with discounts.
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Apple keyboards are the same size across all computers. It wouldn’t make sense to make users adjust to different key sizes whenever they get a new computer.
Making base RAM higher is not "bettering the product." The product is defined by available RAM, and RAM is available up to the 96 GB that I just bought.
Making lower base RAM available broadens the product, a good thing. You and I may need more but there are folks with specific workflows that will run under 8 GB RAM. Insisting that those folks pay for 8 extra GB would be wrong.
When will people stop thinking that a system is nothing more than the sum of its parts? It has nothing to do with the RAM, it's about segmenting the product line so they can offer a lower margin system to cost sensitive customers while protecting their margins at the top end.
And for a good reason
It's not an uhhappy with thing, it's about the scamming thing with ram. One little apple in the barrel. After that it will be something else
I think the issue is that people think Apple should make the base ram 16gb without raising the price.
That, of course, won’t happen until RAM gets a lot cheaper. Until then, as you point out, all it would do is raise the barrier to entry in the Apple ecosystem.
I think that the idea is the excessive charge for more ram.
true.
a "$1 ballpoint pen" should in fact be $10.000-20.000 since those are completely professional tools too that enable me to write multi million selling award winning books or theses!
Yeah, I’m thinking this too. Buy the product you want who cares what the base model is? The Ford Mustang has a four-cylinder engine as the base model. Do you think that stops muscle car enthusiasts from buying the GT500? “Oh, I was going to get that new GT500, but I simply can’t because Ford has a Mustang with a four-cylinder.“
At some 16 GB will be the new standard and everyone here is going to be saying 32 GB should be the new standard. Not everyone is at the tech nerd standard and for those who are you should know the difference between memory pressure and memory used. I had a Mac mini with 32 GB of RAM and it was frequently over 20 GB. Does that mean I could have gotten away with a 16 GB model? No it was using it because it had it.
I would rather see Apple keep the base price low even if that means the base spec is for people who only browse the web and do office documents. My mom has an M1 Mac mini with 8 GB/ 256 GB. Neither one of those have been pushed to the limit. That computer will likely die before she needs an upgrade and is more than enough for what she needs.
8Gb is rather mean for laptops that are mostly over 1k. But the far far far bigger issue is the price for RAM and Storage upgrades, which becomes ridiculous the higher you go. I'm surprised the EU haven't investigated.
i.e. for my iMac 2020 I went 8Gb -> 32Gb of RAM for £100, with Mac Mini Apple Silicon 8Gb -> 24Gb is £400. Ditto with the storage, Samsung T7 2TB SSD is £160 compared to Apple Silicon 512Gb -> 2Tb is £600. Madness and utter greed.
i.e. for my iMac 2020 I went 8Gb -> 32Gb of RAM for £100, with Mac Mini Apple Silicon 8Gb -> 24Gb is £400. Ditto with the storage, Samsung T7 2TB SSD is £160 compared to Apple Silicon 512Gb -> 2Tb is £600. Madness and utter greed.
AL2TEACH said:lol, too funny. I never even hinted at the above
The ram and storage games are Apple's best scams and they will not give it up easily.
Apple is not trying to capture the laptop market.
Are people of the opinion that Apple shouldn't raise the base level to 16Gb (with the same current pricing of the 8Gb), of the opinion that it should stay that way forever, or at least the foreseeable future? How long until starting at 16Gb would be appropriate?
Just for history, 8Gb has been the base level RAM in the Macbook Air since 2017, so for about 6 years. The base level RAM was 4Gb for 5 years, and was 2Gb for 4 years. (Near as I can tell, 2008 was when starting RAM was raised from 1Gb to 2Gb on Macbooks).
Here's the full timeline of MacBook Air base model RAM.
2008 (original) -> 2Gb
2012 -> 4Gb
2017 -> 8Gb
So, take it for what its worth that a product that's been around for 15 years has seen 2 bumps in base-level RAM.
The argument that Apple would have to raise the price if they upped the base to 16Gb doesn't match history. Unless I missed something when researching, the starting price of the base 13" MacBook Air model went DOWN in price when they upped the base RAM from 2Gb to 4Gb in 2012. When they went from 4Gb to 8Gb in 2017, the price remained $999.
Just for history, 8Gb has been the base level RAM in the Macbook Air since 2017, so for about 6 years. The base level RAM was 4Gb for 5 years, and was 2Gb for 4 years. (Near as I can tell, 2008 was when starting RAM was raised from 1Gb to 2Gb on Macbooks).
Here's the full timeline of MacBook Air base model RAM.
2008 (original) -> 2Gb
2012 -> 4Gb
2017 -> 8Gb
So, take it for what its worth that a product that's been around for 15 years has seen 2 bumps in base-level RAM.
The argument that Apple would have to raise the price if they upped the base to 16Gb doesn't match history. Unless I missed something when researching, the starting price of the base 13" MacBook Air model went DOWN in price when they upped the base RAM from 2Gb to 4Gb in 2012. When they went from 4Gb to 8Gb in 2017, the price remained $999.
And, amazingly, I bought it that way without complaining about it, or Apple offering 16GB as the minimum for this machine.