Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Yeah and there are many people using computers with 4gb of ram

Unfortunate users. I occasionally trip over these folk who got given recycled corporate laptops and they are actually suffering on a daily basis and do not understand that computers can be fast. There is a common misconception that computers have issues and are productivity drains which I suspect stems from inadequately specified computers and poorly maintained computers.

This product's base level offering is literally reinforcing that status quo and damaging the whole industry to stay under a price point.
 
Unfortunate users. I occasionally trip over these folk who got given recycled corporate laptops and they are actually suffering on a daily basis and do not understand that computers can be fast. There is a common misconception that computers have issues and are productivity drains which I suspect stems from inadequately specified computers and poorly maintained computers.

This product's base level offering is literally reinforcing that status quo and damaging the whole industry to stay under a price point.
I don't know. There are plenty of users here that say 8GB MacBook Pro M1 sucks and is slow, but so far I haven't had any issues with Xcode, Unity and surfing the web.
I personally haven't used a laptop with 4GB of RAM enough lately. I just know some people that have HP laptops and they have 4GB of Ram and all they use is Word and a bit of web surfing. It's probably enough for that.

In 2018 my classmate had 4GB of RAM and 64GB of space on her laptop. She had some HP laptop. I always wondered how it's enough, but she used it in her classes.
 
I don't know. There are plenty of users here that say 8GB MacBook Pro M1 sucks and is slow, but so far I haven't had any issues with Xcode, Unity and surfing the web.
I personally haven't used a laptop with 4GB of RAM enough lately. I just know some people that have HP laptops and they have 4GB of Ram and all they use is Word and a bit of web surfing. It's probably enough for that.

In 2018 my classmate had 4GB of RAM and 64GB of space on her laptop. She had some HP laptop. I always wondered how it's enough, but she used it in her classes.
In 1988, I bought my first laptop, a Toshiba T1000, with 512 KB of RAM and 768 KB of (more or less) SSD. And with that, I could edit, compile, debug, and run real actual C programs in Turbo C, and use (MKS) vi from the command line for more extensive editing of source code or other documents. All without spinning up the 3.5" floppy drive, so the battery lasted quite a while. It blew my mind that I could work on code anywhere with that machine.

At the moment, I'm surfing the web with a machine that has, literally, 65-thousand times as much RAM and 2.8-million times as much storage space. Not going to even begin to try to work out how much faster this processor is, and, hey, this screen is backlit and in color (and oh so much bigger - the T1000's screen was monochrome CGA).

It's all relative. It depends on what you're trying to do and what you're trying to run. A lot of people aren't paying super close attention to what software is running on their machine, but then a lot of people aren't trying to run the latest IDE or whatever, either.
 
  • Like
Reactions: iHorseHead
To note, it also depends on the memory management model of your OS. Windows 11 on 4Gb is going to suck worse than on an 8Gb machine and it really isn't pleasant to use on one of them. I have it on a Lenovo T495 Ryzen 5 with 8Gb RAM and 256GB SSD and it absolutely crawls along just browsing and using Excel on it.
 
False. The Japanese were ahead by several years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_UltraLite

Interesting choice of examples for your narrative. Your linked page indicates that the NEC UltraLite ran DOS 3.3, had no hard drive and ran on an 8086 when the rest of the PC world had already started moving to the 80286. So I suppose "years ahead" depends very much upon your perspective. If all you care about is portability, perhaps... but what about usability?

Additionally, if you read further on in your linked wiki page, it states that consumers didn't actually show much interest in that product, and that it wasn't until a couple of years later that NEC started making this offering vaguely interesting by dropping in a 386 processor. I'd say that pretty much eliminates their supposed head start from the equation.
 
To note, it also depends on the memory management model of your OS. Windows 11 on 4Gb is going to suck worse than on an 8Gb machine and it really isn't pleasant to use on one of them. I have it on a Lenovo T495 Ryzen 5 with 8Gb RAM and 256GB SSD and it absolutely crawls along just browsing and using Excel on it.
I have MSI Moden Ryzen 7 with 8gb and it runs fine.
 
To note, it also depends on the memory management model of your OS. Windows 11 on 4Gb is going to suck worse than on an 8Gb machine and it really isn't pleasant to use on one of them. I have it on a Lenovo T495 Ryzen 5 with 8Gb RAM and 256GB SSD and it absolutely crawls along just browsing and using Excel on it.

I have an 8GB Lenovo Yoga 6 and it runs AAA Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, etc. while 8GB Macbook Air M1 struggles with crappy Baldur's Gate 3 RPG.

Did a memory utilization comparison clean booting and running same five browser tabs where Linux was best followed by Windows then MacOS last. 4GB would be plenty usable on Linux and mostly usable on clean install of Windows minus the Lenovo bloat.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ke-8gb-on-windows-10-or-4gb-on-linux.2294965/

Linux 2GB utilization
screenshot-from-2021-05-01-19-03-53-png.1770311


Windows 10 3.5GB utilization
windows10memusage-png.1770309


MacOS 6.93GB utilization
screen-shot-2021-05-01-at-11-38-27-am-png.1770308
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: iHorseHead
I have an 8GB Lenovo Yoga 6 and it runs AAA Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, etc. while 8GB Macbook Air M1 struggles with crappy Baldur's Gate 3 RPG.

Did a memory utilization comparison clean booting and running same five browser tabs where Linux was best followed by Windows then MacOS last.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ke-8gb-on-windows-10-or-4gb-on-linux.2294965/

Linux 2GB
screenshot-from-2021-05-01-19-03-53-png.1770311


Windows 10 3.5GB
windows10memusage-png.1770309


MacOS 6.93GB
screen-shot-2021-05-01-at-11-38-27-am-png.1770308
The M1 isn't even remotely for gaming. I rent a gaming server from NVIDIA with an RTX 3080 for 100 bucks a year for my Mac and I can play pretty much anything with maxed out settings at 1440p (they don't offer 4K yet). If gaming is your thing, obviously a PC with a dedicated GPU is the answer. But you can game perfectly with a Mac and a stable internet connection. I've switched to gaming mostly on my PS5 though and have left my Mac for work stuff. The Pro and Max and Ultra Macs can definitely game a lot better, but since gaming isn't really a thing on Macs, getting AAA titles is pretty much nonexistent for the foreseeable future. If you're going to shine a spotlight on the one area in which the M1 is weak ... gaming ... it's kind of pointless. That's like comparing the battery life of the M1 to a gaming laptop. Battery life on gaming laptops is utter dookie, because that's not where gaming laptops excel.
 
I have an 8GB Lenovo Yoga 6 and it runs AAA Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, etc. while 8GB Macbook Air M1 struggles with crappy Baldur's Gate 3 RPG. 4GB would be plenty usable on Linux and mostly usable on clean install of Windows minus the Lenovo bloat.

Did a memory utilization comparison clean booting and running same five browser tabs where Linux was best followed by Windows then MacOS last.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ke-8gb-on-windows-10-or-4gb-on-linux.2294965/

Linux 2GB utilization
screenshot-from-2021-05-01-19-03-53-png.1770311


Windows 10 3.5GB utilization
windows10memusage-png.1770309


MacOS 6.93GB utilization
screen-shot-2021-05-01-at-11-38-27-am-png.1770308
The M1 line is not meant for PC gaming. Why do people get this mixed up so much?
 
The M1 line is not meant for PC gaming. Why do people get this mixed up so much?
Because it makes them feel better. But like I said above, you can play almost any recent AAA title with NVIDIA Now and a stable internet connection with maxed out graphics on a Mac. It works amazingly well. So there are options for those of us that don't want to subject ourselves to the garbage that is Windows, but still want to play AAA Windows games.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: mi7chy
Because it makes them feel better. But like I said above, you can play almost any recent AAA title with NVIDIA Now and a stable internet connection with maxed out graphics on a Mac. It works amazingly well. So there are options for those of us that don't want to subject ourselves to the garbage that is Windows, but still want to play AAA Windows games.
What I do is that I have my Mac for personal stuff and Windows machine for games. Internet is stable, but I hate the hassle of the always on.
 
What I do is that I have my Mac for personal stuff and Windows machine for games. Internet is stable, but I hate the hassle of the always on.
For me it's Mac for personal/work and PS5 for gaming. Got tired of juggling computers. Also, Mac has the absolute best vintage gaming emulator available with OpenEMU https://openemu.org

And so this is another big plus for me on Mac because I love playing old games as well. There really isn't anything comparable on Windows yet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CarlJ
For me it's Mac for personal/work and PS5 for gaming. Got tired of juggling computers. Also, Mac has the absolute best vintage gaming emulator available with OpenEMU https://openemu.org

And so this is another big plus for me on Mac because I love playing old games as well. There really isn't anything comparable on Windows yet.
I simply love making my own computers to play on them. Gratifying experience overall.
 
I simply love making my own computers to play on them. Gratifying experience overall.
I do as well, but inflation and worldwide chip shortages have kind of put that hobby on the backburner for me. This is the first time in probably ever that it costs considerably less to buy a pre-built machine than building it yourself. And I hate that. I really love building gaming machines with liquid cooling and overclocking and all that good stuff. Prices need to come back to the sane world again though. Scalpers are certainly not helping.
 
I do as well, but inflation and worldwide chip shortages have kind of put that hobby on the backburner for me. This is the first time in probably ever that it costs considerably less to buy a pre-built machine than building it yourself. And I hate that. I really love building gaming machines with liquid cooling and overclocking and all that good stuff. Prices need to come back to the sane world again though. Scalpers are certainly not helping.
Well, my current build is stated to last for a few more years. So I am not in a rush to update given the current market conditions.
 
Does it have windows 11 and an IGP in it? Because if it does I don't believe you.
Yes it does and you don't have to believe me if you don't want to.
It runs Tropico 6 and Cities Skylines and Civilisation VI way better than my MacBook Air. (I only play strategy games, so I haven't tested anything else).
It runs perfectly fine and boots up faster than my MacBook Air. Not really sure what's wrong with your PC.
 
You can do that with a cheap Raspberry Pi with Retropie and it supports 53 systems vs 31 on OpenEMU.

retropie.org.uk/about/systems/
I'm talking about the app and its simplicity. Raspberry Pi's are great, but that's one more thing I have to worry about. What I was saying is there isn't an app that's like OpenEMU available on Windows or other platforms. I enjoy it a lot and I'm glad it's available for the Mac.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: mi7chy
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.