5 ms·

Same as the 8GB Macs, ridiculous.

by ahoka 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Same as the 8GB Macs, ridiculous My mom doesn't need more than 8GB RAM. Overengineering is still bad engineering.
- nox101 2y ago
  I generally find the opposite. Experts know how to deal with limited memory. They benefit from more but they understand the tradeoffs. Non-experts get all kinds of bad experiences not realizing the issue is their machine is underpowered. Maybe 8GB ram is enough for your mom but know lots of non-techies suffering with underpowered machines.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Non-experts get all kinds of bad experiences not realizing the issue is their machine is underpowered As always, it depends on how the machine is being used. The encompasses both intent and habits. Someone who will install ad-spam toolbars will chew through all the memory in the world. That doesn't change the fact that they're largely using their device to e-mail, read news and occasionally open a spreadsheet.
    - nox101 2y ago
      The people I've seen with underpowered machines, wait 5 minutes for them to boot since they are both slow (celeron) and low-mem (so swapping 10-15 times while booting). They they take minutes to launch apps (like open a spreadsheet). It doesn't matter than they're only using their device to e-mail, read news, and occasionally open a spreadsheet. In fact, reading news is arguably a memory and perf hog. 100s of large images, plus video, etc... taxes any low-powered/low-memory machine. It's bad enough on a fast machine that doesn't slow down but is still covered in ads on the news page. But it's horryfing on an under-powered/under-memory machine.
      - paulmd 2y ago
        swapping on an m4 with a midrange pcie 4.0 SSD is quite different from swapping on a celeron with a low-end SATA SSD or spinning rust, plus linux/unix/macos is generally much better with swapping sensibly than windows. believe it or not, an 8GB macos device is generally quite usable even if it's swapping, as long as it's apple silicon family. yes, it's not going to save if you if your working set is more than 8GB and you need everything in the set, but chrome/firefox do not actually need the 32gb you are probably giving them.
        nox101 2y ago
        Yes but an 8gig Mac cost $999. A 8gig windows box costs $249 https://www.amazon.com/HP-Students-Business-Quad-Core-Storage/dp/B0B2D77YB8/ https://www.amazon.com/HP-Students-Business-Quad-Core-Storag... Grandma, on a fixed income, buys the $249 machine.
- consteval 2y ago
  Might have been true 5 years ago, but I don't think this is true now. Base systems with nothing open are using 3+ gigs of memory. Web pages use a ton, but even fairly standard apps will use a gig or more (thanks, electron). The end result is super slow loading as stuff is swapped, apps crashing (at least on Windows), tabs reloading when you don't want them to.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Web pages use a ton, but even fairly standard apps will use a gig or more (thanks, electron) She does most of that on an iPad. The computer is used for e-mail, filling out government forms and looking at spreadsheets. She needs a sturdy machine that works, simply, and doesn't need a lot of babying. A cheap, well-configured Mac running Safari with an ad blocker is just about perfect for that.
    - consteval 2y ago
      Using Excel with 8 gigs of ram is really pushing it.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Using Excel with 8 gigs of ram is really pushing it Just pulled it up on my (16GB) Mac. 300 MB. Note that she's manipulating, like, a spreadsheet for the rotary.
      - svnt 2y ago
        This is a joke, I think. It is a joke, right?
        consteval 2y ago
        No, because your OS is using 4 gigs to sit idle. And then your chat app is using another gig to do nothing.

Same as the 8GB Macs, ridiculous.

by ahoka 2y ago

Same as the 8GB Macs, ridiculous.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Same as the 8GB Macs, ridiculous My mom doesn't need more than 8GB RAM. Overengineering is still bad engineering.

nox101 2y ago
I generally find the opposite. Experts know how to deal with limited memory. They benefit from more but they understand the tradeoffs. Non-experts get all kinds of bad experiences not realizing the issue is their machine is underpowered. Maybe 8GB ram is enough for your mom but know lots of non-techies suffering with underpowered machines.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Non-experts get all kinds of bad experiences not realizing the issue is their machine is underpowered As always, it depends on how the machine is being used. The encompasses both intent and habits. Someone who will install ad-spam toolbars will chew through all the memory in the world. That doesn't change the fact that they're largely using their device to e-mail, read news and occasionally open a spreadsheet.
  - nox101 2y ago
    The people I've seen with underpowered machines, wait 5 minutes for them to boot since they are both slow (celeron) and low-mem (so swapping 10-15 times while booting). They they take minutes to launch apps (like open a spreadsheet). It doesn't matter than they're only using their device to e-mail, read news, and occasionally open a spreadsheet. In fact, reading news is arguably a memory and perf hog. 100s of large images, plus video, etc... taxes any low-powered/low-memory machine. It's bad enough on a fast machine that doesn't slow down but is still covered in ads on the news page. But it's horryfing on an under-powered/under-memory machine.
    - paulmd 2y ago
      swapping on an m4 with a midrange pcie 4.0 SSD is quite different from swapping on a celeron with a low-end SATA SSD or spinning rust, plus linux/unix/macos is generally much better with swapping sensibly than windows. believe it or not, an 8GB macos device is generally quite usable even if it's swapping, as long as it's apple silicon family. yes, it's not going to save if you if your working set is more than 8GB and you need everything in the set, but chrome/firefox do not actually need the 32gb you are probably giving them.
      - nox101 2y ago
        Yes but an 8gig Mac cost $999. A 8gig windows box costs $249 https://www.amazon.com/HP-Students-Business-Quad-Core-Storage/dp/B0B2D77YB8/ https://www.amazon.com/HP-Students-Business-Quad-Core-Storag... Grandma, on a fixed income, buys the $249 machine.
consteval 2y ago
Might have been true 5 years ago, but I don't think this is true now. Base systems with nothing open are using 3+ gigs of memory. Web pages use a ton, but even fairly standard apps will use a gig or more (thanks, electron). The end result is super slow loading as stuff is swapped, apps crashing (at least on Windows), tabs reloading when you don't want them to.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Web pages use a ton, but even fairly standard apps will use a gig or more (thanks, electron) She does most of that on an iPad. The computer is used for e-mail, filling out government forms and looking at spreadsheets. She needs a sturdy machine that works, simply, and doesn't need a lot of babying. A cheap, well-configured Mac running Safari with an ad blocker is just about perfect for that.
  - consteval 2y ago
    Using Excel with 8 gigs of ram is really pushing it.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Using Excel with 8 gigs of ram is really pushing it Just pulled it up on my (16GB) Mac. 300 MB. Note that she's manipulating, like, a spreadsheet for the rotary.
    - svnt 2y ago
      This is a joke, I think. It is a joke, right?
      - consteval 2y ago
        No, because your OS is using 4 gigs to sit idle. And then your chat app is using another gig to do nothing.