M1 MBAir for school: 8GB or 16GB? Must live at least 6 years

[Erehy Dobon]

For a six year ownership period, 16GB for sure.

I guarantee that macOS will bloat over time as will most third-party applications. Also, most people will probably end up using their systems in 2026 in ways that people in 2020 would not have widely considered.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

The only test they did that finally showed a benefit for 16GB to 8GB of ram was exporting 8K R3D Raw to 4k export. So I guess if your dealing with 8K video often you might consider 16GB of ram, especially if time is $$$

That's just a dumbass benchmark running by itself.

The average computer user has a bunch of programs running, including a web browser with multiple tabs open.

This is one reason why classic synthetic benchmark results are inherently moronic. People don't spend their days running Geekbench.

 

[The Game 161]

I imagine 8GB of ram will be fine for you but lets face it if it isn't you can always sell it for a decent price to fund a new one if it struggling

however 16GB will certainly be future proofing it

 

[IngerMan]

That's just a dumbass benchmark running by itself.

The average computer user has a bunch of programs running, including a web browser with multiple tabs open.

This is one reason why classic synthetic benchmark results are inherently moronic. People don't spend their days running Geekbench.

If you watched the entire video you can see they are actually using video and photo software, real world tests.

 

[IngerMan]

There is no such thing as more ram means future proof. Look at the 2014 MBA, You can add more ram to a 2014 so the owners of this must be future proofed and not updating. My point is in 6 years it wont be just the ram, it will be the entire device, wifi, ssd, Bluetooth, ram, screen, ports, speaker & mic, outdated. For most would say the Webcam is already outdated on day 1 🙄.

For a office user, streamer, internet browser, light photo and video editing 8 GB on the M1 should be great.

Heavy Photo and Video work, coding, should get the 16GB.

In 6 years they both will show they are outdated. Just like the 2014 MBA now. Very usable but outdated.

 

[OSXphoto]

Thank you all for contributing to this topic! I just ordered 4 M1 256 Air units, all with 16GB RAM. 3 for the kids an 1 for the wife.
@IngerMan yes it may work well now, but I myself are already struggling a bit with 16GB RAM in a Late 2013 rMBP when opening Lightroom with some 30-40 Safari tabs open and Mail.

The point is: I don't know what these kids will be doing in their final year. Having to sell in 5 years to buy new because of RAM shortage is a massive destruction of capital and earth resources.

After thinking this through, buying any laptop with 8GB in 2020 seems like a nogo to me really.

In 2008 I picked up a Unibody dual core Macbook w/ 2GB of RAM. Around 2014 I upgraded to 4GB and I put in an SSD. My wife is still using this unit 12 years on. The 2nd battery is almost dead and there is. no more support for safari so many sites won't open correctly, so I'm getting her the new air now.

But that embodies our strategy: buy reasonably full spec'd machines and use them for 10 years or more. My 2013 rMBP will do for another 2-3 years, I just need to close some apps when I want to do serious photo editing.

 

[SmOgER]

Considering that 2013 MBA with 4GB is still more than fine I would say that even base model will get you through 6 years easily. Especially considering that huge leap in performance Apple made with ARM.

However considering your very unusual usage (why the hell do you need 60 tabs!? 😂) you should definitely get one with 16GB.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I read many 8 vs 16GB posts on here. None of those (or not that I found) talk about a 6 year future proofing. I managed to hold out til Xmas to get 2 units for my school kids (12 y/o). I am getting the M1 Air for them. So 8 vs 16GB?

6 years is a long term to make predictions for. I feel like 16GB is the only way to go in this case.

Opinions?

Background info:
I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro w/ 16GB of RAM. When I have about 10 safari pages open, each containing 3-8 tabs (so 50-60 tabs total), Apple Mail, notes, a Pages document and/or a Numbers sheet, memory is filling up rapidly.

If I then also open Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I get 5-8 GB worth of swapfile usage. In this situation, Lightroom runs very sluggishly. When I reboot and only use Lightroom, it runs as smoothly as can be (on a 7 year old machine).

So it turns out that in order to stretch life cycle for this 7 year old MBP, I should have gotten the 32GB upgrade after all.

Do 16GB. Also do the extra GPU core, and do one higher tier of storage than you think you’ll/they’ll need. if you get it and it isn’t eventually needed, oh well. If you don’t get it and it is eventually needed, you’re/they’re stuck until they replace it with a new one. Yay for unupgradability.

 

[nill1234]

You can also get an external SSD. The extra GPU Core isnt that of an upgrade. If you need 512gb then the gpu core is a nice extra but otherwise just get what you need.

 

[madgibbon]

There is no such thing as more ram means future proof. Look at the 2014 MBA, You can add more ram to a 2014 so the owners of this must be future proofed and not updating. My point is in 6 years it wont be just the ram, it will be the entire device, wifi, ssd, Bluetooth, ram, screen, ports, speaker & mic, outdated. For most would say the Webcam is already outdated on day 1 🙄.

For a office user, streamer, internet browser, light photo and video editing 8 GB on the M1 should be great.

Heavy Photo and Video work, coding, should get the 16GB.

In 6 years they both will show they are outdated. Just like the 2014 MBA now. Very usable but outdated.

Ram isn’t upgradable on any MBA, it’s always been soldered. The SSD can be upgraded on 2017 and earlier models though.

 

[Robbosan]

My daughter who just finished school got 8 years out of a late 2012 8/128gb and still working fine, some kids will likely trash them anyway.
For long term 512gb would be better than 16gb ram on a new one, 8 is plenty for kids/school.

 

[QCassidy352]

We are talking about middle school kids who are going to be using these basically up until college-age. Unless their school work is VERY different than what I'm imagining/remember, I struggle to see what high school projects they'll be unable to do with an 8 GB M1 Mac.

Considering that 2013 MBA with 4GB is still more than fine I would say that even base model will get you through 6 years easily. Especially considering that huge leap in performance Apple made with ARM.

However considering your very unusual usage (why the hell do you need 60 tabs!? 😂) you should definitely get one with 16GB.

But unless I'm misreading the original post, that's his usage, and these machines are for his kids' schoolwork.

 

[swarlos]

You don't have a choice between 8GB and 16GB if you choose the M1 MacBook Air, it only comes with 8GB installed. You would need to buy the 13" M1 MacBook Pro which does come with 16GB.

Yes you do. I got 16GB with my M1 Air.

 

[chscag]

Yes you do. I got 16GB with my M1 Air.

Yes, I know. Read thru the entire thread.