Wow... just wow.
2GB is more future proof. If you don't game much or do much of video editing, 2GB ram will last you. But, these tech crazy people cannot stop. They will cry for 8GB or even 16GB on MBA.
Funny thing is... they just open their wallets and willing to buy the refreshed model every year. So, why are they even bother with 2GB, 4GB or 8GB ram thing. You are going to buy a new one every year.
That is completely the opposite of what "future proofing" means. Future proofing is when someone gets a machine that will, in essence, be fully useful and compatible with EVERYTHING they want to do in the future. As long as the machine is alive and used, it should be able to do whatever they want to do with that.
For me, that would be 6 gigs of RAM. For others, that may be 8. For some, that may be 2. Also, the last part of your statement doesn't make sense. Why bother when you're just going to buy another machine? There are OTHER reasons besides RAM that people buy machines. With this generation, SNB processors are a major selling point. That and ThunderBolt (which isn't even used yet) is all that's added in the new MBP (right?).
It's really about longevity - especially if your RAM is not upgradeable. Even if you plan to move the computer on after a year of use, it'll be more valuable to the next user with 4GB.
Realistically your computer should be usable by somebody for 3-5 years - the more RAM it has, the less likely it will struggle with future software updates.
This. The MBA can't just have its RAM swapped out. For other notebooks, (MacBook and MacBook Pro), getting the baseline is fine because you can easily buy RAM from another manufacturer for LESS and upgrade it yourself. Logically there's no reason why one wouldn't just do this (if they're only upgrading the model for the RAM anyway).
For the MBA however, if I got one, I would have ordered it with 4 gigs of RAM as 2 is just paltry and IMO, if you only need 2 and you can't see why anyone would need more, you're obviously ignorant on the matter of computing and what all people do with these computers. There's more to these things than watching youtube videos, dvds, and surfing the net on Facebook. 4 gigs should be the baseline on ALL laptops, Windows and OS X alike, worth 400 bucks at least.
I don't get the obsession with RAM. Sure, avoiding too much paging will keep things nippy, but paging has been a part of OSes for donkey's years. Its not a big deal if you can't keep all your active apps in RAM - you haven't failed.
It isn't a big deal if I can't keep all of my active apps in RAM. You do understand having more RAM allows the system to stay "fresh" and fast while having more applications run right? On any given day, when I'm not even doing work, I use at least 2.2 gigs of RAM. That's BEFORE I start Parallels on my laptop.
Yea you can argue "well why not just close them?", because I'm obviously using ALL of those applications. Talk to anyone who codes and/or programs with large projects. People are always talking about wanting MBAs with at least 4 gigs because of the ability to work anywhere with coding and, from what I've read, that takes up a lot of RAM if you're working on a larger project.
It's extremely inexpensive when it's not a Mac
It's under 100 bucks for 8 gigs of RAM, where have you been? Hard drives are under 100 bucks for a great size... and aside from HDD and RAM, what else are you going to be upgrading yourself?
The 2GB of ram versions can't even handle a youtube video without choking. Go for more ram.
You're wrong. If you're going to support one position or state an argument, at least know what you're talking about.
