5 ms·
It is definitely an adequate base spec. What would the random MacBook user fill 16GB of RAM with?
by shakow 6y ago
It is definitely an adequate base spec. What would the random MacBook user fill 16GB of RAM with?
- robotmay 6y agoChrome?
- snazz 6y agoI don’t do any tab-hoarding in Chrome (that’s the job of Safari on my machine), but I’m pretty sure that it will suspend tabs long before you run out of RAM. 8 GB is still plenty for web browsing.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoI started surfing the net in the 90s with 8MB. :D
- o-__-o 6y agoBRB gonna fire up Netscape on my brand new MacBook Air
- mixmastamyk 6y agoNetscape?! That's for the kids, we used NCSA Mosaic and liked it. I suspect lynx is still around in some form.
- marcolussetti 6y agoLynx is definitely still around. Useful for a quick "can I actually get to this site" sanity checks on servers.
- encom 6y agoLynx is bloatware. Just use telnet.
- snazz 6y agoUnless it’s HTTPS-only, which is most sites these days.... (I’m definitely not arguing that that’s a bad thing; it just makes Telnet more annoying)
- johnisgood 6y agoYeah, but I need both browser + IntelliJ. I run out of 8 GB pretty damn quickly.
- justin66 6y agoMore than one electron app?
- rbanffy 6y agoWe are not looking at a typical Mac user here, are we?
- wlesieutre 6y agoSlack, Whatsapp, Discord, and Skype, pick any two and I don't think it's unusual.
- ibejoeb 6y agoNever measured whatsapp but it's really pretty performant. Is it heavy? Slack and discord, on the other hand, are real drags.
- jcelerier 6y ago> Never measured whatsapp but it's really pretty performant are we really talking about the same whatsapp ? it takes a good 4 seconds to load here. I don't remember ever waiting for MSN Messenger to load, on potato-powered computers.
- mesid 6y agoI think that's because it's trying to connect to your phone since that's where the messages etc are stored.
- djsumdog 6y agoElectron is cancer .. but Skype is native (for now, at least on Linux. Although I'm sure they'll switch to the Teams codebase and Skype native will disappear forever too)
- 6y ago
- sg47 6y agoChrome, Slack, Zoom, Docker, k8s, VS Code, etc.
- threeseed 6y agoYour definition of random user seems a little off.
- CydeWeys 6y agoThe median Macbook user is not a developer. A web browser and videocalling are the only two from that list you'd expect the median user to be doing with a Macbook.
- rbanffy 6y agoAlso Office. Lots of open Word documents. My "typical Mac user" in this case, is my wife. Her 8GB MBP is holding up very well.
- domano 6y agoDoes macOS handle memory in a way where it just lets RAM fill up to some point before actively doing something about it? Because on my 16gig Macbook 8 gigs are gone just with browsing & spotify.
- foldr 6y agoThey're not really "gone", they've just been put to use because there's no point in leaving RAM empty. You can do much more than run a browser and Spotify with 8GB of RAM.
- domano 6y agoThanks, memory stats sure look different than with linux. Switched a short while back & was surprised, but that would explain it.
- 6y ago
- TuringNYC 6y agoChrome, Slack, Docker. Pick 1 (and only 1)!
- api 6y agoElectron apps.
- domano 6y agoOn my MBP with Catalina just browsing will get me over 8 gigs. Reaching 16 is another thing, that i did not manage even with Docker and mutiple IDEs in a typical day.
- iwasakabukiman 6y agoFor a $1,000 laptop? I disagree. It’s fine for a $500 one but Apple doesn’t sell those.
- ramenmeal 6y agoThat $500 difference goes towards a higher quality product with good support, not necessarily just system specs.
- coolreader18 6y agoI think what they're saying is that they'd expect a $500 price increase to update specs as well.
- coldtea 6y agoThere are tons of $1000 PC laptops with worse build and 8GB
- NikolaNovak 6y agoI have Firefox, Slack, MS Team, MS Word, MS Excel, and Onenote opened. The world's most boring office worker use case. I know it's a deceptive metric but Task Manager shows 12.5GB "In Use". 16.2 Committed. Each Firefox tab has between 250mb and 1g "Memory (Active Working Area)". HUUUUUGeeeee long tail of 100MB trailing down to 20MB services and things. Adobe has half a dozen at all times, etc etc etc. I'm game to use any other "more realistic" specification or monitor as I know that with memory paging and virtualization things are wonky. I don't think this indicates I MUST have 12 or 16 or 32GB - I have a 4GB media PC that works just fine. But I do believe it's an indicator average user can use 16GB, if it's available. Or in other words, if I buy a $1000USD laptop, I don't think 16GB is going to waste away unused with zero benefit ever :-\ Again, perfectly willing to be educated :).
- slumdev 6y ago> Slack You're lucky any of those other applications opened at all!
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoYes, largely because two of those are (bad) Electron apps that eat way more memory than they have any right to.
- sincerely 6y agoWhat is the person buying a laptop supposed to do about that?
- NikolaNovak 6y agoOh, I don't disagree even remotely! We can have a nice thread about optimized apps and 4k demos :) But in context of expectations in the $1k laptop market, my point was that perfectly normal usage can grow to benefit from over 8GB of RAM these days, whatever the background reasons may be.
- saagarjha 6y agoThose apps will use memory as they are given it, for the most part.
- pottertheotter 6y agoI personally wouldn't buy something without 32GB these days. But I would tell family/friends to get at least 16GB. With 32GB, I rarely have to think about RAM. But I'm probably 85%+ utilization all the time. I'll admit that I'm a "power user", but my wife has a fairly new laptop with 8GB and it fills up FAST, even when doing nothing serious. It's at 81% right now with just Firefox, Word, and Evernote. If I were going for a desktop it'd be at least 64GB.
- wetpaws 6y agoDefinitely not the random user, but the moment you start running docker containers, you are screwed.