I keep hoping for the day they put out Airs on the shelf with 8 gig at the resellers and not just 4 gig airs with different sized drives. I would hope that if the air gets a skylake upgrade, even if its just a processor swap without too much else, that they would make 8 gig standard or at least an on shelf option.
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Who here chose 8gb or 4gb of ram? if so, do you max it out?
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I was fixed on finding a 2nd hand MBA with 8GB, thinking I really would need that for programming (using IDE's like Eclipse and XCode). After some weeks of use I concluded that 4GB might have been enough in the end. Oh well, you can never have too much ram 
I just chose the standard 4gb of ram. For what I do, I don't really need the extra 4gb. I'm a student so I just write papers, listen to Spotify, watch Hulu/Netflix/YouTube, surf the web. Simple things. Plus, I have a 2010 MB that has 8gb of ram so if I need to do anything that requires a lot of memory, I'll just use that one.
The key thing here is that its only $100 bucks to upgrade and thats NOT a lot. I dont believe that most users would ever truly notice the difference but for $100 bucks I say its worth it. If it ever got moe costly than that it would become a harder decision, IMO.
8 gig here, I allocate 4 gig to either an Ubuntu or Windows VM, which runs quite often. Otherwise I would easily get by with 4 gig.
20-25 browser tabs open and not shutting down for days? You say it like that's typical usage for everyone.
I picked up a base 11" 2015 Air to use as a second Mac when traveling. I wanted to spend as little as possible since it will only see use for about one week or less per month and my primary Mac remains my 2012 15" rMBP (which has 16GB). My usage isn't heavy - Office, Internet, some coding, and some image editing - and so far it works fine. If it were my main Mac though I would have gone with 8.
I just wanted to chime in regarding my own Air. I recently started a new job as a high school teacher, and wanted a Mac around to do my planing and such on. I wanted it to be as small as possible, so I was looking at the 11" Air. I ended up buying a used 2011 Air (1.6/2/256) on here for $400; my initial worry was that the 2GB of RAM would be limiting, but I have not found it to be so. The machine is amazingly snappy, and I generally have around a dozen Safari tabs open, several dozen documents in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2016, as well as Mail and FirstClass. With the 2GB of RAM, the memory pressure never goes above yellow and the entire machine remains fast and responsive; as for rebooting, I just put it to sleep throughout the week and only reboot it over the weekends.
2gb ram here
memory use it s always in yellow (never red, never green)
but my macbook air is very fast in everything i do (light stuff)
memory use it s always in yellow (never red, never green)
but my macbook air is very fast in everything i do (light stuff)
Always max it out. Currently have 16GB on MBPr and 16GB on MacMini(x2). It'll keep em around a bit longer. My refresh cycle is three years. It's just at that point that I can feel em starting to lag - just a bit mind you ( possibly mental ).Hey guys,
Just moved from windows pc/laptop's for the past 10-15 years to a macbook air.
Manged to grab a nice refurb with 4gb of ram.
I use to (out of habit) always upgrade to 8gb ram when using windows.
After using it for the past day, i loaded up a bunch of Safari tabs, Crome tabs, Spofity, and iTunes.
I couldn't get the ram into the yellow (which is good)
Just curious as to what other users have to say etc
RAM is (currently) the weak spot for machines in that applications and operating systems have escalating minimum requirements. The extra 4Gb RAM could buy you another 18 months effective use in 2-3 years time, deferring another big investment. Of course if you don't have the extra cash now, then what will happen in a few years time may be low on your priority list.
if you need more cpu power ... don t consider macbook air from the start (the small optional speed bump is useless)
if you need more storage... usb keys are always going to be bigger and cheaper in the future.
if you need more ram ... no way, max it out now
if you need more storage... usb keys are always going to be bigger and cheaper in the future.
if you need more ram ... no way, max it out now
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my wife's 2010 MBA has 2 Gb.
Surely it isn't the fastest notebook on the planet, but for light use like Safari, Mail and Word it's enough.
I have a late 2009 Mini with 4 Gb of RAM and it is considerably slower than my MBA due to the 5400 RPM HDD (vs SSD).
For the 2GB MBA owners, with which OS do you have the best experience? How many apps have you running? I run currently Yosemite on my 2GB 2010 MBA, which is running ok, but is Mavericks or maybe even El Capitan better? Usually use Safari with some tabs open, Mail, Excel, iMessage, Dropbox, Photos and some occasional others. Just curious.
I'm running 10.11 on my 2011 Air with 2GB, and it's running just fine. I generally run 6-10 apps at once, and I do not notice any slowdowns; Activity Monitor reports that the memory pressure never goes past yellow. In short, it works well enough.
I'm using El Capitan and I'm happy. I skipped Yosemite because it wasn't smooth on it.
Mavericks was fine, but El Capitan seems slightly better.
Normal use (it's my wife's notebook) is Safari with no more than 5 tabs, Mail and word. Occasionally Photos and iTunes, but surely not for editing.
Every time ram is discussed on this forum, there are people claiming they need 20+ tabs opened AT THE SAME TIME. In the iPhone section is even worse than here.
I have heard some people like to have 15-20 tabs open, but 40+?
I just don't believe that.
I don't assume they are lying (well, in same cases I think they are, because I know many bashers here....), but in the best case they are poor in managing their workspace.
I think that 3-5 tabs on a mobile and 6-10 tabs on a notebook are a perfectly acceptable figure.
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And I usually call it BS...
btw, if you really need that much you are well outside the target for normal usage and need to buy a computer accordingly.
The simple idea of managing 40 tabs (not to speak about hundreds) on a 12-15" display is utterly ridiculous.
A maximized computer connected to a big external monitor , or better a multiple monitors configuration, is what they need.
I sometimes have about 20 tabs open myself. Firefox, Chrome, Safari with 7 each.
I agree that it gets unorderly and I try to avoid it.
Also: 40 tabs open still doesn't require 8 gb ram. Not even close.
I think
As for "not shutting down for days', that sounds like perfectly normal behavior. You shouldn't have to engage in compulsive housekeeping with a new computer. You should have enough memory to do what you want with your computer without curtailing your habits, even your bad ones.
I regularly read the newspaper, browse amazon, read bulletin boards, and so on by opening up each item in its own tab. Then I read the tabs-- sometimes I open up other tabs form those tabs. It's a habit, and even the ipad's limited RAM has not been able to cure me of the habit. I expect that my browsing habits are not unique.
As for "not shutting down for days', that sounds like perfectly normal behavior. You shouldn't have to engage in compulsive housekeeping with a new computer. You should have enough memory to do what you want with your computer without curtailing your habits, even your bad ones.
I'm not going to question your habits, but I can't understand the reason to keep three different browser opened nowadays.
I have a different experience with the Macbook Air cpu. Maybe because I got a more recent model (2014 with i7 CPU) than you, but I don't have the experience that the CPU is a serious bottleneck. At all. I consider myself a heavy user, working with IDE's and other CPU intensive tasks.