Deals: Amazon Takes $100 Off New 15.3-Inch MacBook Air, Available From $1,199

[bice]

As we all know, 95% of customers never even come close to unlocking the full potential of their Macs or iPhones. They check email and browse the web and not much else. The small, vocal minority are the ones that complain about too little RAM and SSD storage because they actually need it for content creation. They simply complain in the hopes that Apple lowers the prices of base models or increases storage and keeps the prices low so they can save a buck on their next purchase. Apple is not stupid so they will not be changing anything because this products work for 95% of their customers. And the other 5% will simply buy their pro products and pay the extra for more storage because these people make money using Apple products and are willing to pay 2x more than they currently do. They just don't realize it themselves because they are cheap.

What do you mean is "the full potential" of a macbook air with 8GB memory, that apparently virtually no one ever unlocks?
My 2017 macbook air has 8GB memory. Right now I am browsing the web, checking email and I am making a simple collage of a few pictures. Am I close to the full potential? Because used memory is 6,5GB and Mac OS decided I need to swap 1GB.
It looks like I use this Macbook air very similarly to those "95% of customers" you talk about, yet it seems insane to me to purchase a 2023 macbook air with only 8GB memory as a replacement to my current air.

Also, base models are not just about the price. Base models are, in contrast to built to order models, what apple produces in volume and keeps in store. That is important because on the day you need and decide to get a new computer, what's in store or available on short notice counts.
You make it out to be about price, but consider that a base model can be bought today and a built to order can take weeks to arrive. When the base model is poorly equipped, the buyer is presented with the options of either get a too weak machine today or wait. This pushes many buyers into a too weak model, not the pricing.

 

[JoeG4]

I want one, but I don't need one. Like, I haven't touched my macbook pro in at least a month lol.

 

[ArkSingularity]

What do you mean is "the full potential" of a macbook air with 8GB memory, that apparently virtually no one ever unlocks?
My 2017 macbook air has 8GB memory. Right now I am browsing the web, checking email and I am making a simple collage of a few pictures. Am I close to the full potential? Because used memory is 6,5GB and Mac OS decided I need to swap 1GB.
It looks like I use this Macbook air very similarly to those "95% of customers" you talk about, yet it seems insane to me to purchase a 2023 macbook air with only 8GB memory as a replacement to my current air.

Also, base models are not just about the price. Base models are, in contrast to built to order models, what apple produces in volume and keeps in store. That is important because on the day you need and decide to get a new computer, what's in store or available on short notice counts.
You make it out to be about price, but consider that a base model can be bought today and a built to order can take weeks to arrive. When the base model is poorly equipped, the buyer is presented with the options of either get a too weak machine today or wait. This pushes many buyers into a too weak model, not the pricing.

1GB swap usage is far from memory starved if the memory pressure remains in the green. Mac OS is very opportunistic about keeping file mapped pages, speculatively loaded pages with executable data, etc in memory (much more so than Windows or Linux). It will typically just compress these rather than freeing them (even though they're technically purgeable) because it's faster to decompress them from memory than it is to go grab them from the disk again in the event that they're needed. Pages that have not been accessed for a long time will just get thrown into swap to get them out of the way for other things within memory, and Mac OS will only start actually purging things once it actually needs to in order to free up space for actively used memory.

In other words, a lot of that "used RAM" (even RAM that is not labeled as cached in activity monitor) isn't really "in use" in quite the same sense that it would be on a Windows or a Linux system (well, it is, but much of it isn't frequently accessed data and can easily be swapped or compressed with no performance penalty). If your memory pressure is in the green, your system has plenty of extra headroom, no matter what activity monitor says. I've pushed my 8GB Macs into the 7-8GB swap usage territory before I observed slowdowns that were enough to be noticeable, and I've actually observed relatively similar performance between my 8GB and 16GB Macs on certain workloads even when the memory pressure was in the yellow.

I do agree that 8GB is tighter than it used to be (frankly I think that 16GB should be the starting configuration for all of the pro models, it's about time). But it's far from not being sufficient for the everyday user today. I've used both and pushed the swap usage much further than just 1GB, and it's generally hard to tell the difference for everyday web browsing types of workloads. For the everyday user, it's really more of a futureproofing thing.

My biggest qualm is that they usually don't stock the 16GB models in store for a lot of retailers, you often have to build-to-order. In 2023, you'd think it'd be easier to get 16GB, most PCs in the $700-800+ range come with 16GB as standard.

 

[seek3r]

What do you mean is "the full potential" of a macbook air with 8GB memory, that apparently virtually no one ever unlocks?
My 2017 macbook air has 8GB memory. Right now I am browsing the web, checking email and I am making a simple collage of a few pictures. Am I close to the full potential? Because used memory is 6,5GB and Mac OS decided I need to swap 1GB.
It looks like I use this Macbook air very similarly to those "95% of customers" you talk about, yet it seems insane to me to purchase a 2023 macbook air with only 8GB memory as a replacement to my current air.

Also, base models are not just about the price. Base models are, in contrast to built to order models, what apple produces in volume and keeps in store. That is important because on the day you need and decide to get a new computer, what's in store or available on short notice counts.
You make it out to be about price, but consider that a base model can be bought today and a built to order can take weeks to arrive. When the base model is poorly equipped, the buyer is presented with the options of either get a too weak machine today or wait. This pushes many buyers into a too weak model, not the pricing.

Note: used memory isn't necessarily wired, live, memory, it can and usually does include cached data, additional preemptively loaded data, etc that can be released and purged as needed.

Not to mention MacOS on AS does some pretty impressive things with memory compression, *and* since the GPU can address the full block of memory you avoid the duplication of data that happens in other archs, which means less actual memory usage, but can result in you seeing graphics caches that can also be purged when needed in the general memory usage

 

[seek3r]

1GB swap usage is far from memory starved if the memory pressure remains in the green. Mac OS is very opportunistic about keeping file mapped pages, speculatively loaded pages with executable data, etc in memory (much more so than Windows or Linux). It will typically just compress these rather than freeing them (even though they're technically purgeable) because it's faster to decompress them from memory than it is to go grab them from the disk again in the event that they're needed. Pages that have not been accessed for a long time will just get thrown into swap to get them out of the way for other things within memory, and Mac OS will only start actually purging things once it actually needs to in order to free up space for actively used memory.

In other words, a lot of that "used RAM" (even RAM that is not labeled as cached in activity monitor) isn't really "in use" in quite the same sense that it would be on a Windows or a Linux system (well, it is, but much of it isn't frequently accessed data and can easily be swapped or compressed with no performance penalty). If your memory pressure is in the green, your system has plenty of extra headroom, no matter what activity monitor says. I've pushed my 8GB Macs into the 7-8GB swap usage territory before I observed slowdowns that were enough to be noticeable, and I've actually observed relatively similar performance between my 8GB and 16GB Macs on certain workloads even when the memory pressure was in the yellow.

I do agree that 8GB is tighter than it used to be (frankly I think that 16GB should be the starting configuration for all of the pro models, it's about time). But it's far from not being sufficient for the everyday user today. I've used both and pushed the swap usage much further than just 1GB, and it's generally hard to tell the difference for everyday web browsing types of workloads. For the everyday user, it's really more of a futureproofing thing.

My biggest qualm is that they usually don't stock the 16GB models in store for a lot of retailers, you often have to build-to-order. In 2023, you'd think it'd be easier to get 16GB, most PCs in the $700-800+ range come with 16GB as standard.

The only real qualm I have about swap on MacOS is that you can't, er, swap out the SSD if you *so* heavily use swap that it significantly affects lifespan. Most people's usage is never going to come close to that though, so it's more of a theoretical than real-world concern for the most part.

 

[ArkSingularity]

The only real qualm I have about swap on MacOS is that you can't, er, swap out the SSD if you *so* heavily use swap that it significantly affects lifespan. Most people's usage is never going to come close to that though, so it's more of a theoretical than real-world concern for the most part.

Yea, and that is a valid concern. I probably should check the TBW stats on my 8GB Mac, it's probably up there by now with the abuse I've put it through. I've never had a Mac SSD fail, but I suppose it would be a concern for folks who were planning to keep their Macs for many years.

 

[adrianlondon]

I used the base model with the 8gb ram and it burst into flames when I launched chrome. When will Apple learn?

I bought an 8GB Air in 2020 and I've still not used it all. I must be using less than 7MB a day.

 

[wigby]

What do you mean is "the full potential" of a macbook air with 8GB memory, that apparently virtually no one ever unlocks?
My 2017 macbook air has 8GB memory. Right now I am browsing the web, checking email and I am making a simple collage of a few pictures. Am I close to the full potential? Because used memory is 6,5GB and Mac OS decided I need to swap 1GB.
It looks like I use this Macbook air very similarly to those "95% of customers" you talk about, yet it seems insane to me to purchase a 2023 macbook air with only 8GB memory as a replacement to my current air.

Also, base models are not just about the price. Base models are, in contrast to built to order models, what apple produces in volume and keeps in store. That is important because on the day you need and decide to get a new computer, what's in store or available on short notice counts.
You make it out to be about price, but consider that a base model can be bought today and a built to order can take weeks to arrive. When the base model is poorly equipped, the buyer is presented with the options of either get a too weak machine today or wait. This pushes many buyers into a too weak model, not the pricing.

Build to order is completely different. People that need a custom built model understand that they might need to wait a few weeks or months. They know this because they have a special need. If they can't wait and purchase the cheaper model, how is that anyone's fault but their own? And they could always purchase a higher end model Mac but they won't because they are shopping by price like I originally said. People who need a computer right away are a completely different buyer than people who want a good deal for a computer.

 

[ArkSingularity]

Build to order is completely different. People that need a custom built model understand that they might need to wait a few weeks or months. They know this because they have a special need. If they can't wait and purchase the cheaper model, how is that anyone's fault but their own? And they could always purchase a higher end model Mac but they won't because they are shopping by price like I originally said. People who need a computer right away are a completely different buyer than people who want a good deal for a computer.

I generally agree, but 16GB is a common enough need that I'm surprised that these haven't been stocked at most retailers. Yes, you can get them in the 14" and 16" variations, but at that point, we're talking about $2,000+ price tags (very high when considering that you can find many PCs that cost less than a third of the price that have 16GB of RAM stock).

Yes, 8GB is enough for the everyday user, but 16GB is definitely not an uncommon need.

 

[wigby]

I generally agree, but 16GB is a common enough need that I'm surprised that these haven't been stocked at most retailers. Yes, you can get them in the 14" and 16" variations, but at that point, we're talking about $2,000+ price tags (very high when considering that you can find many PCs that cost less than a third of the price that have 16GB of RAM stock).

Yes, 8GB is enough for the everyday user, but 16GB is definitely not an uncommon need.

I believe 16GB is an uncommon need for anyone using a MacBook Air. With MacBook Pro, I would guess about half of the users need 16GB. And when I say "need" I mean want. People want 16GB because PCs half the price contain the same amount of RAM. This is ultimately about value propositions between consumers and has very little to do with actual computing power.