Macbook Air 2020 RAM

[xzebra]

Looking for to purchase a Macbook Air 2020 with the i5 processor. She will be using it for the last few years of high school and college. I am questioning on how much RAM I should go with? The new 8GB is much faster and she will not be using PS or other Adobe apps. Not openly sure if I need the 16 GB and spend an additional $200, although I also want to future proof and for the longevity of the purchase.

Any suggestions / tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JPack]

Stick with 8GB of RAM. There is no way to future proof the purchase during this transition to Apple Silicon. There is much uncertainty about how long Apple will continue to release major macOS updates for Intel-based products. If it’s like the transition from 2005, consumers can only expect 2-3 years.

 

[fitcious]

I would do 16 gig for resale value

 

[thekev]

16 is worth it if you can spot a noticeable difference between 8 and 16GB today. It doesn't have to be drastic. Things get more ram hungry over time, and I personally use 16GB. I don't usually saturate it fully. I get close enough though. I'm not using an Apple machine at the moment, but that could easily change again.

If you aren't seeing any difference, then it's a poor value. Typically I wouldn't suggest anything that will require more than a year to become a benefit when it comes to future proofing, because you'll probably end up replacing it at roughly the same time either way.

The base 13" macbook air is $900 through the educational store. $180 is an additional 20% of the new price. Improving resale value by more than 20% of the new retail price is very unlikely. I can't find any example from any merchant that supports the claim, so I'm just going to say it's bad advice.

Keep in mind that Apple is also migrating to ARM an their own architecture. I expect third party support to begin to wane within 2 years of transition. It's not like they become unusable. Companies just stop supporting things in their latest updates. Since Apple supplies bootcamp drivers, that can also become a point of contention.

 

[prism]

For me the 16gb of ram is also like an insurance policy, if Apple dumps support for intel earlier than expected (which is unlikely), I can always switch it to a fully functional windows machine which is known to be more ram hungry.