Will 2018 8/128 be powerful enough for my use?

[imacericg]

Buying a 2018 MacBook Air next month, and looking at the new 2018 with 8GB Memory & 128GB of SSD.

My uses will be:
40% web browsing with multiple tabs for looking up YouTube keywords
20% Numbers
20% Pages
10% Adobe Fireworks for creating YouTube thumbnails
10% Final Cut Pro for light video editing when on vacations (this will not be my primary device for edit, just my "to-go" device)

Think 8/128 is powerful and big enough? I can afford to bump either/both up, but don't want to spend the $$ if I don't need to.

Thanks guys!

 

[SpunZ]

Same situation here, I believe with that usage it will be enough.

 

[Howard2k]

128GB is pretty skinny. I use 256MB of SSD and a NAS for eternal storage. I could get by with 128GB but it would be a bit of a challenge. Still, folks do, it's totally possible. And there are of course plenty of folks who will tell you that 256GB won't work ether.

 

[chrfr]

Buying a 2018 MacBook Air next month, and looking at the new 2018 with 8GB Memory & 128GB of SSD.

My uses will be:
40% web browsing with multiple tabs for looking up YouTube keywords
20% Numbers
20% Pages
10% Adobe Fireworks for creating YouTube thumbnails
10% Final Cut Pro for light video editing when on vacations (this will not be my primary device for edit, just my "to-go" device)

Think 8/128 is powerful and big enough? I can afford to bump either/both up, but don't want to spend the $$ if I don't need to.

Thanks guys!

You'll very quickly find the 128GB to be too small if you're working with any video at all. I would, at a minimum, go 256GB, and perhaps larger if the budget allows. Otherwise, you'll be having an external drive tying up one of the 2 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports all the time.

 

[- rob -]

A few folks (including me) advocate for going 16GB of ram if you can afford it, but there is also a chorus of people who feel strongly 8GB is enough for something like this. I think of it more from an eventual resell argument where a 16GB machine will be worth more in a few years than an 8GB, justifying that expense.

As far as SSD is concerned, there are plenty of external drives you could use to keep the system at 128GB. But keep in mind you can't upgrade RAM later on.

I can't stand out of disk space warnings though and don't like meddling with external drives so I am at 16GB / 500GB SSD on the 2018.

 

[Wags]

Buying a 2018 MacBook Air next month, and looking at the new 2018 with 8GB Memory & 128GB of SSD.

My uses will be:
40% web browsing with multiple tabs for looking up YouTube keywords
20% Numbers
20% Pages
10% Adobe Fireworks for creating YouTube thumbnails
10% Final Cut Pro for light video editing when on vacations (this will not be my primary device for edit, just my "to-go" device)

Think 8/128 is powerful and big enough? I can afford to bump either/both up, but don't want to spend the $$ if I don't need to.

Thanks guys!

You could use an external drive when working with Adobe and Final Cut. You can get a decent 512 SSD drive for about $100 instead of the $400 upgrade charge for Apple upgrade.

 

[auxbuss]

Happily using a 8/128 here. You'll be fine.

SSD requirement is down to your personal behaviour. I'm using a massive 23Gb on my MBA. (Note: I removed iMovie and Garageband, though I have a lot of other apps on it.) My take on this is that if you might need more in the future, then buy an external when the time comes. You'll know why you need it when that point comes, and you can adjust your behaviour appropriately.