6 ms·

My thoughts as well. 8GB is STILL perfectly fine for a starter notebook, casual browsing and light work. Noone is going to develop on this after all. Fantasti

My thoughts as well. 8GB is STILL perfectly fine for a starter notebook, casual browsing and light work. Noone is going to develop on this after all. Fantastic value for money. Honestly what I am (pleasantly) surprised by is the minijack.

epolanski 8mo ago
> Noone is going to develop on this after all. Because it doesn't have twice the ram. Otherwise it was a no brainer complementary machine, especially for users like me that work primarily on desktop and don't want to bring the much heavier macbook pro around. I've got both the m1 max and m3 max (16") and I absolutely hate carrying them around yet I have to, because even on vacations I may have to log and fix a bug in prod blocking the company so to me, weight is absolutely a primary factor for a notebook, and this would've been perfect at just twice the ram.
- gyomu 8mo ago
  Users like you have money and Apple wants them buying a MacBook Air for that use case :)
  - epolanski 8mo ago
    Users like me have employers which every 3 years will send a new machine I can't decide.
- stetrain 8mo ago
  The MacBook Air is the same weight and thinner, so for a mobile machine I think that still wins out. The last gen MacBook Air (M4, 16GB, 256GB) was down to $749 with retailer discounts last year. Currently $759 on Apple's certified refurbished site.
- thewebguyd 8mo ago
  > Otherwise it was a no brainer complementary machine Even as a main machine for most people. Heck I could probably even get away with it. I have my work laptop that's technically my "main" machine as I spend 8+ hours a day on it, and it's sufficiently beefy. I hardly do much on a personal computer (not counting my gaming desktop), this neo would be more than enough for my non-work needs. Granted, I don't currently have a need for it as I have my own MBA and an iPad pro, but if I had neither this would definitely be a no brainer and I could confidently recommend this over pretty much any off-the-shelf budget windows laptop to anyone who asks me "What laptop should I buy?"
mschuster91 8mo ago
> 8GB is STILL perfectly fine for a starter notebook, casual browsing and light work. Noone is going to develop on this after all. Given the ridiculous speed of Apple's almost-on-the-SoC flash storage, 8GB is fine for basic development workloads. That's the tradeoff you get with soldered RAM and storage... you can't expand it, but the lack of sockets and shorter PCB trace paths gives a lot of headroom on what is essentially high-frequency analog signalling. The longer the traces the more latency, and the more sockets and vias, the more potential for interference.
- gyomu 8mo ago
  If by basic you mean running a simple Python script then sure; but try running Xcode + iPhone simulator (a basic development workload by Apple standards) with 8GB of RAM on Tahoe, and get ready for a lot of waiting and stutter.
  - mcphage 8mo ago
    > but try running Xcode + iPhone simulator (a basic development workload by Apple standards) with 8GB of RAM on Tahoe, and get ready for a lot of waiting and stutter I don't think that's what this machine is designed for.
    - gyomu 8mo ago
      The specs definitely agree with you. On the other hand, Apple pushes Xcode & iPhone development quite heavily to students (and not say Python or JS), so it’s definitely something they care about.
      - zerkten 8mo ago
        There can be different cohorts of students. If a student is at the point where they can start exploring iOS development they can perhaps have a swing at it with this machine. In reality, they'll have been using this machine, know enough about the limitations, and be thinking of upgrading. Kids already are well aware of iPhone upgrades. Parents will get them this machine. They'll get going and soon enough be badgering their parents for an upgrade to a more competent machine. That is all by design while being an affordance for people who can only get in at the cheap end.
ehutch79 8mo ago
Depends what you're developing. You could build a pretty powerful webapp as long as you don't fall into 'i need my blog running in kubernetes' trap. For a couple months I was on an 8gb m1 air, it was perfectly fine, even with docker containers. As long as i didn't launch teams....
- jen20 8mo ago
  This largely shows how far standards have fallen - it’s not that long ago that 8 gigabytes of RAM was unthinkable in a desktop class machine - much less one that cost nothing once inflation was taken into account. It required buying an E10K style machine for tens to hundreds of thousands to get 64GB. And all of those hardware gains have been squandered by the electron people. That said, we are where we are - I wouldn’t buy a machine with only 8GB for any purpose at this point.
  - jonhohle 8mo ago
    > the electron people “If you see anybody [building electron apps] in a restaurant, at a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!” - a reasonable person, probably How anyone could think their chat app or text editor should be able to bring a 32GB 8-core machine to a crawl is beyond me. I can have about 200 browser tabs open, but one discord chat open in the background and I’m stuttering. It’s offensive.
skydhash 8mo ago
> Noone is going to develop on this after all. Here I am, running OpenBSD on a 2019 Dell with 8th gen CPU. I'm currently using a bit less than 4GB of with 6GB as caches (for IO?). It's fine for a lot of progamming work (I have built kernel on this). 8GB is a good amount of RAM if you're not using bloated software.
- throawayonthe 8mo ago
  most of us mere mortals are using bloated software :)
  - skydhash 8mo ago
    In the workplace, it does not matter as it’s not your device anyway (or buy something powerful if it’s a consultancy). For most utilitarian uses, you only have to endure a few. But I would expect you have more choice if it’s a personal computer, including paying the additional cost in memory and performance if the final choice is bloated software.
iberator 8mo ago
you must be joking sir. those gonna be paperweight in 2 years. 16 is usable minimum for music making, grpahics and web browsing
- prepend 8mo ago
  My daily laptop is a 2017 MacBook Air with intel and 8GB. Web browsing, finance, and civilization 5. These things will be running in 5-10 years.
  - grvbck 8mo ago
    My 2010 Macbook Pro with 8GB works still. Not a daily driver anymore, but Word, Excel, Lightroom, Garageband, MainStage etc work just fine. Youtube videos up to 1080p play without stuttering in Floorp. It's not quick, but it is useable.
- Applejinx 8mo ago
  I'm a Reaper user, and I'm Chris from Airwindows. If you run with my standalone Apple Silicon plugins on these there is essentially no limit to what you can get done in music making. The track counts are gonna be impossibly high: we're generations away from that being a bottleneck, or from struggling with modern graphics scenarios in the sense of 'artist work'. Maybe if you mean running local diffusion models? Surely that's all being done with agents now, like off base Mac Minis which this competes directly with. Maybe web browsing is too much for it, but that is such an indictment…
- Citizen_Lame 8mo ago
  [flagged]
SenHeng 8mo ago
I've done web dev work on the 12" retina macbook. Sometimes docker goes crazy and needs to be restarted but otherwise it worked surprisingly well. I used it all the way till the M2 air came. I also have a (relatively) beefier mac mini at home if I needed to something more powerful.

epolanski 8mo ago

> Noone is going to develop on this after all. Because it doesn't have twice the ram. Otherwise it was a no brainer complementary machine, especially for users like me that work primarily on desktop and don't want to bring the much heavier macbook pro around. I've got both the m1 max and m3 max (16") and I absolutely hate carrying them around yet I have to, because even on vacations I may have to log and fix a bug in prod blocking the company so to me, weight is absolutely a primary factor for a notebook, and this would've been perfect at just twice the ram.

gyomu 8mo ago
Users like you have money and Apple wants them buying a MacBook Air for that use case :)
- epolanski 8mo ago
  Users like me have employers which every 3 years will send a new machine I can't decide.
stetrain 8mo ago
The MacBook Air is the same weight and thinner, so for a mobile machine I think that still wins out. The last gen MacBook Air (M4, 16GB, 256GB) was down to $749 with retailer discounts last year. Currently $759 on Apple's certified refurbished site.
thewebguyd 8mo ago
> Otherwise it was a no brainer complementary machine Even as a main machine for most people. Heck I could probably even get away with it. I have my work laptop that's technically my "main" machine as I spend 8+ hours a day on it, and it's sufficiently beefy. I hardly do much on a personal computer (not counting my gaming desktop), this neo would be more than enough for my non-work needs. Granted, I don't currently have a need for it as I have my own MBA and an iPad pro, but if I had neither this would definitely be a no brainer and I could confidently recommend this over pretty much any off-the-shelf budget windows laptop to anyone who asks me "What laptop should I buy?"

mschuster91 8mo ago

> 8GB is STILL perfectly fine for a starter notebook, casual browsing and light work. Noone is going to develop on this after all. Given the ridiculous speed of Apple's almost-on-the-SoC flash storage, 8GB is fine for basic development workloads. That's the tradeoff you get with soldered RAM and storage... you can't expand it, but the lack of sockets and shorter PCB trace paths gives a lot of headroom on what is essentially high-frequency analog signalling. The longer the traces the more latency, and the more sockets and vias, the more potential for interference.

gyomu 8mo ago
If by basic you mean running a simple Python script then sure; but try running Xcode + iPhone simulator (a basic development workload by Apple standards) with 8GB of RAM on Tahoe, and get ready for a lot of waiting and stutter.
- mcphage 8mo ago
  > but try running Xcode + iPhone simulator (a basic development workload by Apple standards) with 8GB of RAM on Tahoe, and get ready for a lot of waiting and stutter I don't think that's what this machine is designed for.
  - gyomu 8mo ago
    The specs definitely agree with you. On the other hand, Apple pushes Xcode & iPhone development quite heavily to students (and not say Python or JS), so it’s definitely something they care about.
    - zerkten 8mo ago
      There can be different cohorts of students. If a student is at the point where they can start exploring iOS development they can perhaps have a swing at it with this machine. In reality, they'll have been using this machine, know enough about the limitations, and be thinking of upgrading. Kids already are well aware of iPhone upgrades. Parents will get them this machine. They'll get going and soon enough be badgering their parents for an upgrade to a more competent machine. That is all by design while being an affordance for people who can only get in at the cheap end.

ehutch79 8mo ago

Depends what you're developing. You could build a pretty powerful webapp as long as you don't fall into 'i need my blog running in kubernetes' trap. For a couple months I was on an 8gb m1 air, it was perfectly fine, even with docker containers. As long as i didn't launch teams....

jen20 8mo ago
This largely shows how far standards have fallen - it’s not that long ago that 8 gigabytes of RAM was unthinkable in a desktop class machine - much less one that cost nothing once inflation was taken into account. It required buying an E10K style machine for tens to hundreds of thousands to get 64GB. And all of those hardware gains have been squandered by the electron people. That said, we are where we are - I wouldn’t buy a machine with only 8GB for any purpose at this point.
- jonhohle 8mo ago
  > the electron people “If you see anybody [building electron apps] in a restaurant, at a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!” - a reasonable person, probably How anyone could think their chat app or text editor should be able to bring a 32GB 8-core machine to a crawl is beyond me. I can have about 200 browser tabs open, but one discord chat open in the background and I’m stuttering. It’s offensive.

skydhash 8mo ago

> Noone is going to develop on this after all. Here I am, running OpenBSD on a 2019 Dell with 8th gen CPU. I'm currently using a bit less than 4GB of with 6GB as caches (for IO?). It's fine for a lot of progamming work (I have built kernel on this). 8GB is a good amount of RAM if you're not using bloated software.

throawayonthe 8mo ago
most of us mere mortals are using bloated software :)
- skydhash 8mo ago
  In the workplace, it does not matter as it’s not your device anyway (or buy something powerful if it’s a consultancy). For most utilitarian uses, you only have to endure a few. But I would expect you have more choice if it’s a personal computer, including paying the additional cost in memory and performance if the final choice is bloated software.

iberator 8mo ago

you must be joking sir. those gonna be paperweight in 2 years. 16 is usable minimum for music making, grpahics and web browsing

prepend 8mo ago
My daily laptop is a 2017 MacBook Air with intel and 8GB. Web browsing, finance, and civilization 5. These things will be running in 5-10 years.
- grvbck 8mo ago
  My 2010 Macbook Pro with 8GB works still. Not a daily driver anymore, but Word, Excel, Lightroom, Garageband, MainStage etc work just fine. Youtube videos up to 1080p play without stuttering in Floorp. It's not quick, but it is useable.
Applejinx 8mo ago
I'm a Reaper user, and I'm Chris from Airwindows. If you run with my standalone Apple Silicon plugins on these there is essentially no limit to what you can get done in music making. The track counts are gonna be impossibly high: we're generations away from that being a bottleneck, or from struggling with modern graphics scenarios in the sense of 'artist work'. Maybe if you mean running local diffusion models? Surely that's all being done with agents now, like off base Mac Minis which this competes directly with. Maybe web browsing is too much for it, but that is such an indictment…
Citizen_Lame 8mo ago
[flagged]

SenHeng 8mo ago

I've done web dev work on the 12" retina macbook. Sometimes docker goes crazy and needs to be restarted but otherwise it worked surprisingly well. I used it all the way till the M2 air came. I also have a (relatively) beefier mac mini at home if I needed to something more powerful.