Safari won't let you have 40+ pages running simultaneously, except for the tab you are looking at, or Split View of few tabs, at a given moment, the rest of the tabs are put to sleep. That's how it saves memory usage. 😏
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My new MacBook Air m2 - 8gb is great
- Thread starter colonelbutt
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Then don't do that with just 8GB of RAM? I certainly don't have that many tabs in my Firefox browser. I have like 5-10 at a time. And 20 apps is a lot, but just fine for MacOS X and mostly okay for iOS/iPadOS.
Like, if you want to save money and have just 8 GB of RAM (like me next time--I have 16 right now), then you have to factor your browser habits into that.
Nope.
Exactly how much CPU is consumed reading, or composing email? How much CPU is consumed writing a document when the overwhelming majority of time the system is waiting for key presses? Is it really important to calculate a spreadsheet 1.8 milliseconds faster?
If you are talking about having 40 pages running simultaneously side by side on the one screen, then you’re right, you can’t do this on iPads.
But if the Mini 6 had more then 4GB RAM, Safari wouldn’t had to reload the pages/tabs when ‘jumping’ between them, same goes with the apps that sitting in the background.
Let's assume they at least browse the internet... that's verifiably quicker on newer/faster devices.
That speed is overwhelmingly dependent on the internet connection and the speed of the source web server. I can browse just as quickly on my 10 year old iPad as I can on my I9 desktop.
I have a very fast connection here but can still see the difference between new devices and 4 year old devices 🤷🏼♂️
Just came back from Athens. Average 19 tabs open. many active or forums. prime downloaded movies working well. excel, word working well. playing music. daughter used it for her a-level maths revision. visual code and python working well. MS one drive working well.
Refuse to install rosetta, so won't get cyberghost vpn to work
Re-reminded that games on MacBook are rubbish. One regret. it would have been nice to run some FPS on the laptop.
The MacBook Air m2 8gb has replaced now my Asus Duo (i7, 16gb) which has bene relegated to bedroom computer. Mainly because of the comfort of the level base on my lap, battery life, amazing screen.
Battery life is amazing. Last for days, even after watching film on plane.
Everything is super snappy.
Still waiting for the prophesied slowdown. maybe they are false prophets
Refuse to install rosetta, so won't get cyberghost vpn to work
Re-reminded that games on MacBook are rubbish. One regret. it would have been nice to run some FPS on the laptop.
The MacBook Air m2 8gb has replaced now my Asus Duo (i7, 16gb) which has bene relegated to bedroom computer. Mainly because of the comfort of the level base on my lap, battery life, amazing screen.
Battery life is amazing. Last for days, even after watching film on plane.
Everything is super snappy.
Still waiting for the prophesied slowdown. maybe they are false prophets
Did you run all of these simultaneously?Just came back from Athens. Average 19 tabs open. many active or forums. prime downloaded movies working well. excel, word working well. playing music. daughter used it for her a-level maths revision. visual code and python working well. MS one drive working well.
Refuse to install rosetta, so won't get cyberghost vpn to work
Re-reminded that games on MacBook are rubbish. One regret. it would have been nice to run some FPS on the laptop.
The MacBook Air m2 8gb has replaced now my Asus Duo (i7, 16gb) which has bene relegated to bedroom computer. Mainly because of the comfort of the level base on my lap, battery life, amazing screen.
Battery life is amazing. Last for days, even after watching film on plane.
Everything is super snappy.
Still waiting for the prophesied slowdown. maybe they are false prophets
Well I can’t type in four windows at the same time. But it seems to hum along. Folk should test in apple stores
It’s not about typing in four windows, it’s about having all these apps and tabs open simultaneously and moving between them without and issues or slowdown…
As well as, did you check your memory and how much swap you used?
OP, don't do it. Don't waste your time staring at active monitor obsessing over swap and RAM usage. Just enjoy your computer and its buttery smooth silent performance.
Searching for problems that don't exist.
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I hope you enjoyed Athens and didn't work too much- really cool city.Just came back from Athens. Average 19 tabs open. many active or forums. prime downloaded movies working well. excel, word working well. playing music. daughter used it for her a-level maths revision. visual code and python working well. MS one drive working well.
Refuse to install rosetta, so won't get cyberghost vpn to work
Re-reminded that games on MacBook are rubbish. One regret. it would have been nice to run some FPS on the laptop.
The MacBook Air m2 8gb has replaced now my Asus Duo (i7, 16gb) which has bene relegated to bedroom computer. Mainly because of the comfort of the level base on my lap, battery life, amazing screen.
Battery life is amazing. Last for days, even after watching film on plane.
Everything is super snappy.
Still waiting for the prophesied slowdown. maybe they are false prophets
How come you refuse to install Rosetta? It works surprisingly well.
Wouldn't expect any slowdown with what you did- memory pressure would have stayed low. Gaming... didn't you say you wouldn't use it to game? It's fine for old games, but it's well behind the MacBook Pros.
Nope, they don't, as a rule. I really like my M2 Air, but if I'm honest, it's not any faster subjectively than the late 2013 dual-core, 2.4GHz Haswell rMBP that it replaced. In fact, I would still be happily using that machine, but it met with a fatal accident a few months ago. Most of what people do on computers were already seeing sub-fractional-second response time 10 years ago.
What's different, and subjectively different, is storage speed. Something like opening a browser is more likely to be storage speed limited than CPU limited.
Obviously there are things that many people do that ARE subjectively improved by faster CPU's. Email, web browsing, and editing small documents are not three of those things.
You claim to see a difference does not agree with my experience, nor many others here.
I experienced a substantial speed increase when using Lightroom exporting or importing photos. Mostly from getting rid of spinning rust. Actually working on individual photos there was no noticeable increase in speed. Batch processes benefit substantially. Rendering video, processing dozens of pictures, mixing audio, etc. That is generally not done by the average user. So most people will see no significant improvement.
If you want to take on the lame hobby of pearl-clutching over these stats, then by all means have at it -- but don't assume it's actually necessary.
I usually run Safari with at most 5 pages open, Mail (or Airmail), Messages, Contacts, Corona (accounting), PlanMaker with at most two spreadsheets open, and maybe Photos on my M1 MBP 8/256 - never have I even gotten close to even 6.5 GB of RAM used, hardly do I see swap used, and I can't get it into the yellow.
Hmmm... maybe re-read that argument without having so much emotion in it??
Let's see if we can recast your argument elsewhere:
- Just because some can finish their work and do other basic daily tasks with a 4 cylinder ICE and all-weather tires, it don’t mean it's enough...
- Just because some can finish their work and do other basic daily tasks with an IKEA desk and LED lighting, it don’t mean it's enough...
- Just because some can finish their work and do other basic daily tasks with a backhoe and a wheelbarrow , it don’t mean its enough...
If you need more, then simply buy more for yourself.
This is not a hard problem.
Let's continue with your game -
Just because you live for free in your parents basement, it doesn't mean it's enough…
Static apps aren't "performance based," so it isn't really going to slow down so much as refresh maybe, but even that depends on what you're swapping to and swapping from, and by how much. Since macOS can basically pause those apps by using a combination of swap and compression, you're clearly fine using 8 GB RAM. Your workflow and working habits define how much RAM you need; not strangers on forums.Still waiting for the prophesied slowdown. maybe they are false prophets
That being said, macOS needs 2 GB of RAM leaving only 6 GB for apps. Surely it would be better for Apple to have moved to 12 GB RAM for base models (which leaves 10 GB for apps). I though they were going to do that with the M3 MacBook Pro but they stuck to 8 GB.