4 ms·

I was worried about this too, but have been pleasantly surprised by this laptop. I'm sure my use case is far different to yours though. I was looking at my RAM

I was worried about this too, but have been pleasantly surprised by this laptop. I'm sure my use case is far different to yours though. I was looking at my RAM consumption on my 16GB MacBook Pro prior to purchasing the M1 MacBook Air, and I was usually hitting 14-15GB with multiple GB of swap used in my regular use case (couple of chrome tabs, some electron apps, Xcode, 1st party apps all open). I consciously pare down my usage on this MacBook Air, but I am typically at around 7GB/8GB of ram, with 3-4GB of swap space used. It feels noticeably snappier and overall better (minus some odd Big Sur UI bugs every now and then) than my 2017 15in MBP.

nicoburns 6y ago
I wouldn't be worried about 16GB now (my current MacBook is 16GB and I don't have any problems). But I want my laptop to least a decent amount of time (at least 5 years), and I do worry about whether 16GB will be sufficient then.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  This is one of the biggest reasons for me, personally. It is such an inexpensive difference in overall cost versus the benefits of having that headroom. Plus I am sitting at ~26gb used memory right now. I tend to give my VM's a nice big 8-12GB chunk of ram depending on what I am doing too, so it is almost like I have two machines in one. The disks and data pipelines on these new machines are so fast though that I do wonder if the RAM's responsibility has shifted towards being a giant CPU cache and the disk has likewise shifted into a point where it performs more like RAM.
  - epmaybe 6y ago
    Maybe that’s the eventuality. I don’t run VMs much if at all for my work/day to day, but I have a desktop in the event I need to.
- epmaybe 6y ago
  I figure I will eventually pass this laptop on to a family member by the time I will be in the market for a new laptop, so I am not necessarily worried about that. I suspect my 2017 mbp would have worked fine for a few more years but I wanted to transition to a more portable device.
- floatboth 6y ago
  It depends on what you do, and always will. 16GB will be enough for web browsing, gaming, and coding websites in python 5 years down the line. 16GB is not enough now for.. say, compiling Firefox with LTO, at least while browsing.
alexhutcheson 6y ago
One nice aspect of Big Sur and the M1 is that you can run the iPad version of many apps, rather than the Electron desktop version. The iPad versions often use way less memory.

nicoburns 6y ago

I wouldn't be worried about 16GB now (my current MacBook is 16GB and I don't have any problems). But I want my laptop to least a decent amount of time (at least 5 years), and I do worry about whether 16GB will be sufficient then.

whalesalad 6y ago
This is one of the biggest reasons for me, personally. It is such an inexpensive difference in overall cost versus the benefits of having that headroom. Plus I am sitting at ~26gb used memory right now. I tend to give my VM's a nice big 8-12GB chunk of ram depending on what I am doing too, so it is almost like I have two machines in one. The disks and data pipelines on these new machines are so fast though that I do wonder if the RAM's responsibility has shifted towards being a giant CPU cache and the disk has likewise shifted into a point where it performs more like RAM.
- epmaybe 6y ago
  Maybe that’s the eventuality. I don’t run VMs much if at all for my work/day to day, but I have a desktop in the event I need to.
epmaybe 6y ago
I figure I will eventually pass this laptop on to a family member by the time I will be in the market for a new laptop, so I am not necessarily worried about that. I suspect my 2017 mbp would have worked fine for a few more years but I wanted to transition to a more portable device.
floatboth 6y ago
It depends on what you do, and always will. 16GB will be enough for web browsing, gaming, and coding websites in python 5 years down the line. 16GB is not enough now for.. say, compiling Firefox with LTO, at least while browsing.

alexhutcheson 6y ago

One nice aspect of Big Sur and the M1 is that you can run the iPad version of many apps, rather than the Electron desktop version. The iPad versions often use way less memory.