4 ms·

All these PC can't compete reviews are based on US prices, outside it is ridiculous expensive for a 8 GB laptop.

by pjmlp 8mo ago

keyle 8mo ago
Note that 8GB of ram on a Mac plays out a lot more different than 8GB on a PC. I work professionally on a Macbook Air 16GB now and I have quite a few docker images and services running bare metal, + browser, vscode etc. on top. Not a problem until I start loading up some LLMs. The paging works wonderfully well; an advantage of everything being fused. If anything, I'm much more bound by the CPU limitations and the eco-cores than the memory. On a PC, I wouldn't think about less than 32GB for a dev pc. If I had a fulltime gig programming C, I'd even say I could work on this A14 8GB device. Why not? It's as powerful as a 10 year old powerful machine; probably. Or in that ballpark.
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  PC work just fine with 16 GB, that is coping with Apple limitations. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255765423?sortBy=rank https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255765423?sortBy=rank Why on Earth do I need a 32 GB PC?!? Turbo C also worked just fine with 640 KB in MS-DOS, but then again MS-DOS wasn't full of Electron crap.
  - foldr 8mo ago
    There are lots of reviews on YouTube of people demoing the performance of the Neo in typical non-power-user usage scenarios (multiple apps, lots of browser tabs, etc.) It works perfectly fine for typical consumer usage.
- Rohansi 8mo ago
  > The paging works wonderfully well; an advantage of everything being fused. I think it's more of a combination of 1) lower baseline usage by macOS and 2) your swap is guaranteed to be on a fast SSD (1.5+ GB/s read/write). Also when you buy a budget PC they cut back on everything, while you get roughly the same SoC across the board for Mac (give or take a few cores). There are absolutely horrid CPUs, GPUs, and SSDs still being released today! If you cut your budget too much you can get a slow E-core only CPU with a no name SSD that's barely faster than a HDD. Hopefully the MacBook Neo puts pressure on manufacturers to do better.
tim333 8mo ago
I've had an 8GB M1 since they came out and had almost no problems with memory shortage. The only thing is Firefox sometimes gets in a loop and takes up 20GB+ doing nothing much and you have to close it but that's not really the laptop's fault. You can have programs use >8GB because it swaps to the SSD very well.
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  Almost no problem seems that there is indeed a problem.
  - ZiiS 8mo ago
    I love Firefox but my 32GB MBP and 64GB desktop have both had it run out of memory.
    - pjmlp 8mo ago
      Learn to use bookmarks instead of leaving tabs open.
      - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
        So, they are using Firefox wrong is your excuse?
TiredOfLife 8mo ago
Eastern europe here. At mobile operator that offers laptops for 2 year no interest loans. The only laptops that are cheaper than Neo are essentially atom garbage with crappy screens. And those that cost about the same are also 8gb ones.
- LtWorf 8mo ago
  You should compare it with the much higher price it will have in europe.
  - TiredOfLife 8mo ago
    That is literally what I am doing. It's 699€ here.
jsheard 8mo ago
I can't be the only one who remembers the celebration 18 months ago when Apple finally stopped selling Macs with 8GB of memory... only for 8GB to suddenly be excused again when the Neo arrived. Perhaps it's not the same people but the general vibe is giving me whiplash.
- kreco 8mo ago
  8GB is aweful. If you don't do a single task. But nice for Apple. Millions of replacement on the Neo 16GB release next year I guess.
  - jsheard 8mo ago
    My money is on 12GB in the second gen since that's what the A19 Pro has, and it would still conveniently differentiate from the other MacBooks with at least 16GB.
    - pjmlp 8mo ago
      That one I would find more acceptable.
  - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
    You guess wrong.
- NetMageSCW 8mo ago
  Because people can’t differentiate between the cheapest MacBook available, then or now, and what they may need? For some reason they think it’s okay to expect Apple to give them stuff for free.
- NookDavoos 8mo ago
  The 8 GB and lack of expandability are due to the design of the Neo chip. This is a pre-built A18 Pro chip with 8 GB of RAM built in. I imagine the next version will have the A19 Pro chip - which has 12 GB of RAM.

All these PC can't compete reviews are based on US prices, outside it is ridiculous expensive for a 8 GB laptop.

by pjmlp 8mo ago

All these PC can't compete reviews are based on US prices, outside it is ridiculous expensive for a 8 GB laptop.

keyle 8mo ago

Note that 8GB of ram on a Mac plays out a lot more different than 8GB on a PC. I work professionally on a Macbook Air 16GB now and I have quite a few docker images and services running bare metal, + browser, vscode etc. on top. Not a problem until I start loading up some LLMs. The paging works wonderfully well; an advantage of everything being fused. If anything, I'm much more bound by the CPU limitations and the eco-cores than the memory. On a PC, I wouldn't think about less than 32GB for a dev pc. If I had a fulltime gig programming C, I'd even say I could work on this A14 8GB device. Why not? It's as powerful as a 10 year old powerful machine; probably. Or in that ballpark.

pjmlp 8mo ago
PC work just fine with 16 GB, that is coping with Apple limitations. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255765423?sortBy=rank https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255765423?sortBy=rank Why on Earth do I need a 32 GB PC?!? Turbo C also worked just fine with 640 KB in MS-DOS, but then again MS-DOS wasn't full of Electron crap.
- foldr 8mo ago
  There are lots of reviews on YouTube of people demoing the performance of the Neo in typical non-power-user usage scenarios (multiple apps, lots of browser tabs, etc.) It works perfectly fine for typical consumer usage.
Rohansi 8mo ago
> The paging works wonderfully well; an advantage of everything being fused. I think it's more of a combination of 1) lower baseline usage by macOS and 2) your swap is guaranteed to be on a fast SSD (1.5+ GB/s read/write). Also when you buy a budget PC they cut back on everything, while you get roughly the same SoC across the board for Mac (give or take a few cores). There are absolutely horrid CPUs, GPUs, and SSDs still being released today! If you cut your budget too much you can get a slow E-core only CPU with a no name SSD that's barely faster than a HDD. Hopefully the MacBook Neo puts pressure on manufacturers to do better.

tim333 8mo ago

I've had an 8GB M1 since they came out and had almost no problems with memory shortage. The only thing is Firefox sometimes gets in a loop and takes up 20GB+ doing nothing much and you have to close it but that's not really the laptop's fault. You can have programs use >8GB because it swaps to the SSD very well.

pjmlp 8mo ago
Almost no problem seems that there is indeed a problem.
- ZiiS 8mo ago
  I love Firefox but my 32GB MBP and 64GB desktop have both had it run out of memory.
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    Learn to use bookmarks instead of leaving tabs open.
    - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
      So, they are using Firefox wrong is your excuse?

TiredOfLife 8mo ago

Eastern europe here. At mobile operator that offers laptops for 2 year no interest loans. The only laptops that are cheaper than Neo are essentially atom garbage with crappy screens. And those that cost about the same are also 8gb ones.

LtWorf 8mo ago
You should compare it with the much higher price it will have in europe.
- TiredOfLife 8mo ago
  That is literally what I am doing. It's 699€ here.

jsheard 8mo ago

I can't be the only one who remembers the celebration 18 months ago when Apple finally stopped selling Macs with 8GB of memory... only for 8GB to suddenly be excused again when the Neo arrived. Perhaps it's not the same people but the general vibe is giving me whiplash.

kreco 8mo ago
8GB is aweful. If you don't do a single task. But nice for Apple. Millions of replacement on the Neo 16GB release next year I guess.
- jsheard 8mo ago
  My money is on 12GB in the second gen since that's what the A19 Pro has, and it would still conveniently differentiate from the other MacBooks with at least 16GB.
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    That one I would find more acceptable.
- NetMageSCW 8mo ago
  You guess wrong.
NetMageSCW 8mo ago
Because people can’t differentiate between the cheapest MacBook available, then or now, and what they may need? For some reason they think it’s okay to expect Apple to give them stuff for free.
NookDavoos 8mo ago
The 8 GB and lack of expandability are due to the design of the Neo chip. This is a pre-built A18 Pro chip with 8 GB of RAM built in. I imagine the next version will have the A19 Pro chip - which has 12 GB of RAM.