3 ms·

Insufficient? An 8gb ram MacBook crushes word, YouTube and browsing Facebook. That’s most people, I think your “almost no-one” is “most people”.

makomk 3y ago
Someone who only cares about Word, YouTube and browsing Facebook also doesn't need a $1,600 laptop with an 8-core CPU and a chunky GPU, they could get by with something much less powerful and probably wouldn't even notice the difference - and if anything, having only 8 GB of RAM is more likely to cause performance problems than not having a fast CPU or GPU (the modern web and modern apps are pretty memory hungry especially if you open a lot of tabs).
StillBored 3y ago
Which is an ipad use case, I think people aren't so offended by the air, which could be viewed as "ipad with keyboard" but by the macbook pro with 8G, because presumably a person using it for "pro" work would be doing some heavy lifting to justify the "pro" bit. But, I think pretty much everyone understands apple tends to have a social signaling aspect tied to it, too. This is why you see plenty of PowerPoint warriors/middle mgmt toting them around too, because "pro" even though their use case for the machine is frequently little more than light office work (ppt/word/excel). So, why not offer it with 8G, they get their social signalling for cheap, and everyone else gets to pay $$$$ for the real configuration.
- ProfessorLayton 3y ago
  I don’t get this, it’s not like apple made the pro model worse with the M3, they made it more accessible than before, where the entry price was 2k. Now there’s a model in between for those that want a bit more than an Air, but can’t/wont pay 2k for a more loaded Pro, at $400 less. Sometimes one just needs a few more ports, and a nicer screen. Yes I agree upgrades are expensive but more choice than before isn’t a bad thing.
aidenn0 3y ago
I don't know; my wife is limited to primarily these things[1], and she was always asking me why her computer was so slow; she refused to close most of the open apps or browser tabs for various reasons. I bought here an air with 16GB of RAM and all of the complaints have gone away. 1: Though s/Facebook/Pinterest/, and occasionally a non-word office app open.
- musicale 3y ago
  > she refused to close most of the open apps or browser tabs for various reasons At some point I got in the habit of closing tabs and restarting web browsers periodically as their RAM footprint would expand until they were consuming gigabytes. I'd like to think that an 8GB machine could easily support hundreds of open browser tabs, but this may not actually be true, especially if you don't run an aggressive ad blocker.

makomk 3y ago

Someone who only cares about Word, YouTube and browsing Facebook also doesn't need a $1,600 laptop with an 8-core CPU and a chunky GPU, they could get by with something much less powerful and probably wouldn't even notice the difference - and if anything, having only 8 GB of RAM is more likely to cause performance problems than not having a fast CPU or GPU (the modern web and modern apps are pretty memory hungry especially if you open a lot of tabs).

StillBored 3y ago

Which is an ipad use case, I think people aren't so offended by the air, which could be viewed as "ipad with keyboard" but by the macbook pro with 8G, because presumably a person using it for "pro" work would be doing some heavy lifting to justify the "pro" bit. But, I think pretty much everyone understands apple tends to have a social signaling aspect tied to it, too. This is why you see plenty of PowerPoint warriors/middle mgmt toting them around too, because "pro" even though their use case for the machine is frequently little more than light office work (ppt/word/excel). So, why not offer it with 8G, they get their social signalling for cheap, and everyone else gets to pay $$$$ for the real configuration.

ProfessorLayton 3y ago
I don’t get this, it’s not like apple made the pro model worse with the M3, they made it more accessible than before, where the entry price was 2k. Now there’s a model in between for those that want a bit more than an Air, but can’t/wont pay 2k for a more loaded Pro, at $400 less. Sometimes one just needs a few more ports, and a nicer screen. Yes I agree upgrades are expensive but more choice than before isn’t a bad thing.

aidenn0 3y ago

I don't know; my wife is limited to primarily these things[1], and she was always asking me why her computer was so slow; she refused to close most of the open apps or browser tabs for various reasons. I bought here an air with 16GB of RAM and all of the complaints have gone away. 1: Though s/Facebook/Pinterest/, and occasionally a non-word office app open.

musicale 3y ago
> she refused to close most of the open apps or browser tabs for various reasons At some point I got in the habit of closing tabs and restarting web browsers periodically as their RAM footprint would expand until they were consuming gigabytes. I'd like to think that an 8GB machine could easily support hundreds of open browser tabs, but this may not actually be true, especially if you don't run an aggressive ad blocker.