Entire Mac Lineup Now Starts With at Least 16GB RAM, Ending 8GB Era

[kalsta]

I would prefer reasonable upgrade prices. 512gb is more than a lot of people need, and 512gb isn't enough for a lot of other people. Let us make our own choices Apple. I preordered a base model M4 Mac Mini... upgrading it was just not worth it, and 512gb isn't enough for me... so external storage it is.

100%. The loyal Apple defenders will say external storage is a valid option so stop your whinging, but the fact that you (and many others) are feeling forced into external storage is an indication that something is very wrong with Apple's stubborn pricing strategy.

While I get Apple's logic—they have always tried to estimate the actual value a consumer places on things like RAM and storage—the numbers are now so far out of line with the industry that it is widely perceived as price gauging and that's hurting the brand. Differentiate prices on chip performance by all means, but let everyday consumers upgrade storage on the base model without feeling pressured into jumping up to a performance tier they don't need.

To the number crunchers at Apple, I would just add that happy customers make for a great long-term business strategy!

 

[Serqetry]

macOS without advanced features like Apple Intelligence runs just fine in 4GB of RAM.

You're crazy. I suggest you take a look at the RAM usage of an 8GB M1 Mac after you open Safari and maybe a couple small utilities.

8GB was already the bare minimum, and it swaps to SSD if you do any significant work.

 

[Abazigal]

I was referring to comments being made by someone from Apple, probably several months ago now, defending the 8GB option. My point is, Apple no longer seem to think that 8GB is enough—for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly. Otherwise they wouldn’t be giving us more for free. It’s kinda ironic.

It’s possible that Apple does know something we don’t.

I am thinking that the M4 macs targets existing M1 Mac users who may be looking for an upgrade (my MBA would be 4 years old at this point, though I don’t really feel compelled to replace it). Including more ram could be Apple’s way of sweetening the pot for them.

Nor are existing Macs with 8 gb ram suddenly going to stop working overnight, so I wouldn’t fret about those either.

 

[purfikt]

And well over 80% of all Mac users will never utilize it. Well, maybe once. A few may run a benchmark.

Not true. I have two M1 Macs. One is a MacBook Air that has 16GB and the other is a Mac Mini with 8GB. The Mac Mini struggles with productivity tasks and managing multiple users (I have two work accounts and one personal account that I switch between). I do really normal stuff. I often have Chrome, Outlook, Word, TextEdit, Music, SimpleNotes, and Messages open and that is enough to max out the RAM and use a lot of swap. In actual use my MBA with 16GB RAM is noticeably more responsive when doing productivity tasks and switching users. I also use SPSS (a stats program) and it runs pretty poorly with 8GB but that’s not as “normal” I guess.

The truth is that if you use a Mac to work, as many people do, you probably rely on your Mac to multi-task and run several productivity apps that can benefit from more RAM.

How much RAM do you have? You don’t have to be a super user to utilize more than 8GB of RAM.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

I was referring to comments being made by someone from Apple, probably several months ago now, defending the 8GB option. My point is, Apple no longer seem to think that 8GB is enough—for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly. Otherwise they wouldn’t be giving us more for free. It’s kinda ironic.

They got caught way behind on LLM's. When you see the amount of memory some of these models eat those comments look a bit silly when they are talking about 'this is the best notebook for AI'

 

[Krazykev]

I've got a MB Air M2 with 16g and it pages memory from time to time under what I would consider normal use. That's a few apps open and a few browser tabs.

 

[breenmask]

Why would I need to buy a PC? Macs come with 16GB by default now

*now* being the keyword. we were discussing when you felt being price gouged before.

You’re the one complaining about the RAM amount in new Macs, not me.

nope. I'm talking about reducing choice for the consumer simply because the general public got mad.

On what level does your reply make any sort of sense?

If you don't like XYZ company putting out <X GB of memory and accusing them of price gouging you, you go to another company and buy their product. It's very simple to understand.

Should I tell you to buy a PC so that you can have a machine with 8GB of ram?

If I complained about not being able to afford $599 and wished Apple would have given me 8GB at $499, yes.

Luckily I didn't make that complaint.

 

[bgillander]

And this just proves the futureproofing argument. The thing with Apple is when just enough is not enough enough, we have to replace the entire thing. It's not like we can just slot in a new 2TB nvme drive or another two sticks of RAM to get the new enough. We can't just get "just enough" for now.

For things that I don't plan to do much and I value the portability, then I'll use the Macs. But for real work, I'm still sticking to my windows desktop. I'm not married to either side, I will use whichever that's the right rool to use.

Or you can just buy the cheapest base model and upgrade more often, which is what I started doing when they removed the ability for the user to replace parts. I would upgrade the hard drive annually and keep the prior drive as a backup, as well as upgrade the RAM, but since the internals now stay as old as the rest of the computer, I figure I will just buy the cheapest, base model more often to have newer parts and computer and just “current proof”. The future can be unpredictable in tech, but the base models are usually a better value YoY.

 

[coolkid93]

FINALLY… probably the best news of the year tbh

 

[TVreporter]

Will the M2/M3 16GB ram be applicable to refurbs too?

 

[coolkid93]

What’s on the agenda next to complain about

 

[TVreporter]

You should see my local FB marketplace. There's people asking $1200CAD for a 2 year old M2 base model or $1300CAD for a used M3 base model with stickers plastered all over it.

Bang on - I sometimes point out to sellers how ridiculous their prices are for older, used Macs. Or let them know similar prices are available for a new model.

Folks need to get over the belief Macs don’t depreciate. Those days are gone especially now with yearly updates.

 

[revenent]

I got Macbook Air a month ago refurbished and paid extra for the 16GB version before this announcement. Damn....

 

[subjonas]

The real issue was - and still is - the $200-per-8GB upgrade charge which is totally disproportionate to the actual cost of LPDDR5x RAM. As per my earlier post, for example, Lenovo want $200 for a 32GB to 64GB LPDDR5X upgrade on a Thinkpad.

8GB may be fine for some people, but some people do need more (and some people will need more than 16GB) and Apple wants a small fortune for what should be a fairly minor upgrade.

Upgrading the old $600 Mac Mini to a relatively modest 16GB/512GB SSD config cost an extra $400 - more than half the cost of the machine. For an extra 8GB of LPDDR5x and an extra 256GB of flash. Probably about $100 retail in extra parts - and about twice what most other PC makers would charge for the same upgrade.

Now you get 16GB base, so you just need $200 - only 1/3 of the price of the machine - to bring the storage up to something practical for serious use. Whoop.

It seems logical to compare upgrade pricing between companies as a way to determine what "the going rate" is, but there's a problem with that. Companies have different pricing strategies--they choose to make their profit in different ways. As an extreme example, Meta sells their hardware at a loss and makes their profit from ads, etc. Meta Quest storage upgrade from 128 to 512 GB only costs $70, but that's not a fair comparison to make to Lenovo or Apple because that's not where Meta makes their profit. Lenovo may offer RAM upgrades closer to cost because they make more of their profit in other places. Apple apparently is choosing to make more of their profit from upgrades.

And in some aspects that's a reasonable strategy. If they had upgrades as cheap as Lenovo, to maintain the same profits, they'd presumably bump up the price of base config Macs, and that would raise the barrier of entry to Macs, which neither Apple nor those new customers nor any Mac customers with modest needs (probably most) want.
(And if you say Apple should just lower their profits, well I don't know what their profits are but I know Lenovo and every other company would be going for the same profits if they could.)

So because it's not apples to apples, the only true fair comparison we know we can make for sure is to look at entire packages, and make value judgments based on that--not individual specs. Apple offers a starter Mac package (BYO monitor keyboard etc) at $600. That's not for someone who needs it for "serious" use. For that, Apple sells another Mac package at $1000+. And it goes up from there for more serious needs. The question people just have to ask is--is the package (the design, hardware, software, ecosystem integration, everything--ultimately the UX) worth it at the price? This is a very subjective value call.

With Apple it's not so much "I want to pay less and get more" it's "When I pay more I don't want to get fleeced".

The idea of both statements are identical--you want a better return on investment (ROI). I don't think "fleeced" is an appropriate word here because Apple can't be cheating you if you know exactly what you're buying before you make the choice to buy it.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Tim Cook would have never allowed this.

 

[tennisproha]

Now the entire Mac lineup needs to start with 1TB SSD storage. 256GB is a ridiculous insult.

 

[macduke]

I’m honestly surprised they didn’t do 12GB until 2030 just to mess with us.

16GB is a reasonable amount for an average user. I can recommend it now to friends and family without feeling like I have to give a bunch of caveats. I can be like “Yeah, this is a good computer, it will handle any normal stuff you throw at it for years to come. If you want to get into video or higher end audio editing, or do a ton of multitasking, then maybe consider 24GB or 32GB.”

Part of me wishes I had waited until this year to upgrade, but I was so tired of Intel being slow, hot, and the battery only lasting maybe two hours on a good day. The M3 Max was overkill but the M3 Pro wasn’t that great and maxed out at 36GB. The minimum I would’ve considered was 48GB, which is what the M4 Pro goes up to. It also has four hours more of battery life than my M3 Max. I could’ve gotten the M4 Pro (high) with 48GB and 2TB SSD for nearly $1000 less than what I paid for my M3 Max (high) 64GB and 2TB SSD. I think my current machine will probably last longer with more memory, but for nearly $1000 less it wouldn’t matter!

Next time, in 2029, I’ll probably go M9 Pro with 96GB to save myself some money. That is, unless AI is a huge part of my workflow by then and it requires more power. Or I accidentally destroy this one sooner, lol.

 

[Brentleeper]

Not quite the ENTIRE lineup. Don’t forget that special Walmart edition MacBook Air. 😉

 

[svish]

Very happy to see the increase in RAM across the Mac lineup. Was not expecting the MacBook Air to get 16GB now.

 

[cocoua]

This just means 16GB is just barely enough for Apple to handle new demanding tasks/features in current and the short term upcoming macOS.

Supporting 3x retina screens with 8GB would be impossible for Apple standards.

 

[MilaM]

What I said was that 8gb ram does suffice for many users, there's nothing stopping people who need more ram from simply paying for it (except maybe their own stinginess) and while I won't say no to more ram for free, I am not going to lie and deny my own experience just for the sake of it.

Sure, a 8 GB Mac is usable for basic things. But it won't get many of the shiny AI features in the near future. There is a reason why Apple bumped even the low-budget MacBook Airs to 16GB. I think a lot of customers for the base model will soon be disappointed with their purchase. Not a good look for Apple in my opinion.

 

[naturalstar]

My MBP should (hopefully) be fine for the next 3-4 years, but I’m questioning how long I’ll have with my M4 8GB iPad Pro - the one device I typically keep for 5-6 years. I‘ll definitely be watching for RAM bumps for the iPhone as a gauge since the iPP most likely won’t update next year.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

Oh, how generous Apple is. 16GB RAM! The same RAM that my 2012 MacBook Pro has! The same RAM that you could put in a MacBook Pro nearly 14 years ago, in an early 2011!

You know, it would be absolutely fine if it was upgradeable like the 2012, because that didn't ship with 16GB. But it's not. You buy 16GB, the same amount of RAM that you could put in a Mac 12 years ago, and you're stuck with it for the life of the machine.

We should be seeing 64GB RAM and 2TB SSD as the BASE config by now. But no, Apple is STILL cheaping out.

(Oh yeah. That 2012 MBP also has 4TB SSD.)

 

[q64ceo]

To everyone saying that those who were bashing about 8GB are just complaining, it's a perfectly cromulent argument to make

Back in 2015 the entry level Macs had 8GB of RAM

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2015) - Technical Specification - Apple Support

support.apple.com

That was nine years ago.

 

[captchasverybadman]

I wonder how long will the 16gb era last

10 years