only if Apple will see this video and understand you cannot ship a 1000$+ with 8GB of RAM in 20xx when you can buy any laptop with 16GB RAM with less than 400$
@@AZiskI do sense the sarcasm here Alex, nice point But still I wonder how Apple will be pricing / spec products today if Steve Jobs will still be around, Saying that because I remember watching a lot of keynotes from him and each year he will present more memory for that product and even for same price or cheaper, he understood the impact of this and this helped Apple grow Even back in the day , Apple had let’s say expensive products but some had similar or even better price than what PC can offer Coming back to 8GB on a Pro machine .. the problem is also MacOS , it is no Damn Small Linux , and back in the days I used to build hackingtosh using snow leopard 10.6.8 on my Acer Aspire One with 2GB of ram and it will run great Even before I had a Thinkpad T61 and run MacOS on it and using Paraleles run Windows virtually and had 3GB of ram on a dual core T7100 intel.. today software is demanding too much RAM and we don’t see the improvements, so yes macOS has become like Chrome , hungry for ram. PS: if Steve Jobs will be around we sure will have had better prices or/and 16GB RAM 512GB ssd on 1000$ Apple machines Ps2: maybe also an Apple car and a cheap and good iPhone SE4 for 459$ today PS3 I enjoy your videos , keep up the good work !
it's so refreshing to have a content creator who really gets it, your Analysis is spot on. my father is a woodworker, the money to invest as a developer to be able to work is a complete joke. even if you buy the most expensive mac pro with triple Studio XDR displays + 3 stands for well over 100k it's still nothing in comparison. a single big machine costs more than that, not to mention the building, the energy, the employee's etc... a developer just needs a laptop and that's basically it, yet we are crying for couple 100 bucks for more memory or storage.
8GB is not an option at all, My daily usage of RAM is ~14GB without LLM. Docker (redis+postgresql) + Pycharm + Webstorm + Chrome + all messangers like slack, signal etc. And since this is unified memory e.g. it''s being used by CPU and GPU then we are talking that for CPU it's not even 8B but less, because some RAM is taken by GPU
I’ve decided to opt for a pre-owned M1 MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM, as it’s more affordable. In my experience, having ample RAM to ensure smooth program execution outweighs the marginal speed increase from a newer M3 MacBook Pro with only 8GB of RAM
This is the route I was just thinking of going… my old 2013 MacBook Pro just died… so I am thinking the M1 would still be an amazingly faster system compared to my old one.
I did the same 5 years ago with my 2016 MacBook Pro but unfortunately, I had to change it this year because it wouldn't support any new software updates.
@@RunForPeace-hk1cu well like the person before already said the SSD died not because it's a bad SSD but because of Swap. 8Gb of RAM will use SSD as Swap pretty much all thé time especially now in 2024. That's why OP's SSD died in 1.5years
With all the AI features that are coming 16GB is the new 8GB. Meaning, a scam. If you're running a Windows machine you need at least 32GB to be future proof for at least 5-6 years.
All Core Ultra 7 laptops from Intel have soldered RAM, and 100% Snapdragon X Elite will be soldered RAM. And remember all tablets and phones have soldered RAM.
@@andyH_Englandyea it's a plague, if manufacturers are too greedy to put another $20 into their $1000+ devices, then at least make it upgradable (for laptops, I understand that it would be hard for phones), otherwise it's just manufactured garbage and in case Snapdragon X Elite will have AI branding, guess what you'll need a lot of? that's right, RAM! (as the video stated, you'll probably need 32 GB at least if you want to do something kinda decent
It is not even that. Non upgradable is the result of extreme thin chassis and better performance. It is the upgrade price that is outrageous as RAM price has gone down significantly.
@@AaronFigFront the surface Laptop 6 and Dell XPS 14 all start at 8GB and have the same upgrade costs. Both are premium ultrabooks. I'm not sure why you pick Apple out and let Microsoft and Dell get a free pass. Maybe it is a lack of understanding of how demand side economics works.
Yes, common sense. If the apps you run are RAM-intensive and you make your living from developing, then 8GB should not even be on your radar. The question would be 16GB or 24GB on the base M3, or 18GB or 36GB on the M3 Pro MB Pros? As a professional driver for 40 years (60-80K miles a year) I bought expensive cars like Audis and VWs. I could buy a similar car for 66% of the price, but it was my living so I bought premium due to quality and reliability. If it is your living, do not skimp out on RAM or storage; as a dev the computer is your livelihood, an investment...common sense.
@@BaieDesBaies I have driven every single car as part of my job and VW and Audi are the most reliable from my experience. I have multiple of both over the years and had no issues with any of them and a couple of them did over 200,000 miles and we're still going strong. Mercedes went for a bad time with reliability way back when. So I don't know what else in the premium sector was as good as these two. I did have BMWs but they didn't work for me.
Snapdragon elite with Linux wouid fly. My 16GB RAM AMD Ryzen 7 laptop uses just 4GB in Ubuntu but about 10GB in Windows just doing office tasks and cloud devops. Huge difference. Ok not for everyone but my experience in Linux has been very positive and yes I even play games in Linux.
I think Apple should be forced to allow us upgrade the SSD. They always argue environment as one of the reasons they do things. Not allowing us to upgrade RAM or SSD is complete against that same philosophy.
storage and RAM are on the SOC die. this is part of the reason they are so fast. They don't work like windows machine. It's no different to buying a smartphone, you can't upgrade ram afterwards. It's not like apple have a gun to your head and say buy their stuff. You know before hand what you are paying for. If you don't like it, don't pay. and if you want to upgrade them do so at time of purchase. They've never argued environment for upgrades LOL. they are charging more because you are getting more.
@@percy9228 Wrong. Storage is very much not on the SoC die. Only the storage controller. The storage chips, which determine the actual performance, are soldered down but not located on the die. And they are the same exact storage chips you would find on an NVMe drive from major manufacturers. RAM - fine. But storage - no.
I was tempted to get the m3 macbook pro base model for android development. But 8gb is just not enough everywhere you look. I ended up getting used m1 macbook air 1tb ssd 16gb ram config. The experience with this machine is amazing. It can handle the project I am working on pretty well (about 84 screens). It is super light and the battery is the best. If you are on a tight budget, m1 air is the best value.
@@mahmoudaakil1564 Emulator. A CAVEAT THOUGH FOR EVERYONE: Without airconditioner in your room, this macbook will become hotter as you continue to build and run your app. It will almost be untouchable. It will still work though, but without separate keyboard and mouse, you'll be in an uncomfortable situation. I don't know if it's the same case with macbook pros that has fan/active cooling.
Not to mention, usable memory is actually lower since some memory is used for the GPU. It’s an absolute insult that Apple is selling entry level products with 8GB of RAM.
Well, that's kind of understandable considering the soldered RAM is part of what makes the processor so fast. If we're talking about software development or video editing obviously 16GB should be the bare minimum, but we have to understand that the 8GB MacBook Air is also marketed to students and people who will use it for light tasks and who want a laptop that will last them the whole day without having to plug it in. I do agree that $200 for an extra 8GB is outrageous.
@@bren.r It depends on your use case, if you're doing heavy video editing it might be an advantage. Let's say you're working on a MacBook Pro with 48GB of unified memory and the system/CPU is consuming 10GB of memory, that means there are 38GB left for the GPU/video software to use. This wouldn't be the case if you had a computer with 24GB of RAM and 24GB of VRAM.
I feel like if you are developing software professionally, then just go crazy and spec way more RAM than you'll ever need. $3k, $4k, it's a drop in the ocean for your primary professional tool. It's better to waste money and have more RAM than you will ever need, than to try to predict how much RAM you'll need and to come up short. Software devs are blessed, the tools of our trade are cheap compared to e.g. video or audio gear. If you're not a professional and you're on a budget, then find some way to buy a machine with 16GB, even if it's an older gen. A CPU upgrade just makes a machine faster, but a RAM upgrade gives a machine new capabilities.
Very well said. I'm still on a laptop that's over 7 years old. It has 64 GB of RAM because that's how I wanted it to have when I bought it and I knew I'll use them. This did help me greatly in being able to have many things opened at once and even using RAMDisks, which I love. Now I'm bitter that 128 GB laptops are still not really a thing. They're rare and the RAM is at terrible speeds (even on desktops). While right now I don't reallly need 128 GBs, since I want my next laptop to also last for 7 years (preferably 10), I know I will eventually use 128 GB of RAM. Hopefully with Arrow Lake I might be lucky (or Zen 5, but I kinda want Intel)
True, i had top 2017 PC with 32 at 3200mhz, i used to use 20 daily, better to have more than less and more important on apple equipment which sucks for upgrading something: you can’t
I would have to disagree slightly: for development in a compiled language (C++,Rust and so on) having a good CPU can be life changing when dealing with large projects, more so than RAM. And for gaming Vulkan compatibility is becoming more and more a requirement, which most old pc's don't meet. For everything else, 100% agree, RAM and repairability are the most important factors if you want a long lasting device. (To drive the point a bit, my Samsung Tab from two years ago, a tablet running android, compiles at times thrice as fast as my windows professional grade i5 laptop from 2013)
I'm front-end developer for 1.5 years(job, not pet projects). Bought my first Mac a half year ago for work. I'm using Air M2 8gb for web and mobile development. 90% of time it is enough. If you are starting programming journey moast of the time you don't need M3 Max 64gb. Don't spend money if you are not sure.
@@gintoki_sakata__ I use an M1 mac mini with 8gb / 256ssd, mostly for web development (side projects at home). I have no complaints with this machine, it does everything I want it to do. There are certain workflows that are more intensive. Obviously doing any kind of AI stuff, you're going to need a more powerful machine. Ditto for mobile development. It's really dependent on what you plan to do with the machine. These specs are more than enough for web development.
@@lennypinskiy6598 speak for yourself. If you are drawing buttons in a notepad then its enouph. i just want to say that home projects are not real ones.
I got the 36GB Macbook M3 Pro. Been working like a bunch of docker containers, running some crazy systems locally and haven't shutdown my computer since I bought it 2 month ago. Pretty good stuff.
I went with the 8 GB base model simply because I know this year for some personal reasons I'm not going to work that intensively with my machine and not going to push it that far anyways, until I need to, then I will buy whatever the new model they lunch and max it out.
I use the 16gb version of the m3 macbook from apple refurbished for unity. It gets the gpu results of a m1 pro, the battery life of an air, and the cpu results of like an m2 pro. If you are on edge about spending too much money, get an m3 refurbished you will not regret it.
Bought an M3 Air 15 16/512 and it is a brilliant laptop. A pro device for people who don’t need something that needs to sit there churning through sustained tasks
@@xAnonymousComedia they don't have the listing anymore but I got a m3 macbook pro 16gb ram 512gb storage for $1520 which is basically $300 off retail.
very good; finally someone who realised that getting the latest CPU with 8 GB RAM may be a worse choice than some CPU that's a bit slower but that doesn't run into that hard memory bottleneck
@@alphaspace1100 what do you think? I am buying the MacBook for browsing, tutoring and studying. Is it better to buy m2 with 16gb/512gb or m3 with bigger SSD or RAM?
I am using 8gb M1 mac pro for last year as work machine for flutter development. Works fine for me, I have no issues at all with emulator and simulator, android studio and other programs. Swap file are huge, but I don't care much. My company want to change machines to 16gb M3 macs, so I waiting for replace now :D
Although I still personally struggle with the idea of 8GB ram on a laptop $1500+, I completely agree with your conclusion. Re: how well macs depreciate and resale value ... I can see older but higher-speced macs reselling well, but do lower end macs also have that great a resell value? I imagine a M3 MBA 8gb model wouldn't resell as well in a few years.
They will have no resell value because they're most likely dead in a few years when the SSD reached its TBW threshold (from the constant swap attacks) and the thing transformed into e-waste...
Paid 800 for my Lenovo with Gpu, 1tb SSD and 16gb of ram new. Installed Ubuntu. Had good use of it as web dev and better system. Sold it for 500. Got new Lenovo. For MacBook I would have to pay 1800 and sell for 1200. Better screen and battery on MacBook, but would cost me double the money over 2 years. Lenovo model I had was Ideapad pro 16. Base models of apple macs are keeping value well but the more expensive ones are not.
@@forthphoto totaly agree with you, I am using lenovo with 10th gen i7 and 20GB ram. Bought it new for around 1100$. I really do not care about resale value. Using very heavy docker images like oracle DB, aerospike, etc... and with 2 intelij window opened and bunch of browser tabs. It struggle a little bit in windows. But using it the same way in linux , it is just flawless and smooth. But... screen, keyboard and trackpad are terrible in comparison with my 15 year old lenovo! Let alone macbooks!
There are two schools of thought on spec'ing out a Mac: 1. Pay extra now to future-proof it for 5 to 10 years of use. 2. Buy the value sweet spot now, and then upgrade later when you need more. Which one is better now depends on what Apple does in the future, especially if they bump minimum RAM to 16 GB in the near future.
I have a 2013 MBAir which is still used regularly. It has 4GB of RAM and the SSD is still alive. The charger died a few months ago, but before that MacBook was still used regularly by kids. I started freelancing and my own app development using that MBAir and it was fine. 8GB is okay for beginner iOS developers today, you will need a few years of experience to hit the limits of it :) Sure, upgrade RAM if you can, then MB will last longer.
My old 16G M1 Macbook Air died because i spilled water over it. I needed a quick replacement. So i bought the M3 8G Macbook air and it is enough. I mostly develop Apps for Android and even with Emulators, 25 Chrome tabs and more it does not struggle. It is amazing.
friend, based on your experience, you continue to recommend the MacBook air m1, because I want to learn python from scratch but I want a computer that will last for years without changing equipment all the time and I want to learn to program and use databases, I hope you can help me, thank you
Yup, i have a MBA 15 M2 and I thought it would be enough for my angular development environment and it kind of is ... but once I start my docker server or just anything else "heavy", its struggles definitely 16GB has to be the new minimum
i was suffering with 8gb m1 pro in react native development =) , 18gb m3 the minimum step for comfortable app development. Thank you Alex, your videos are great.
I run android emulator, ios simulator, vscode, xcode and brave browser with at least 7-8 tabs at the same time on my M1 Macbook air 8gb/256gb. Yeah it struggled a bit but it wasn't as bad (system freeze) as this M3 Macbook "Pro".
Bear in mind that RAM usage is not an absolute (in most macOS apps) and is proportional to the amount of available RAM. If you have an 8GB Mac, a given app may use 3GB. If you have a 16GB Mac, the exact same app may use 5 or 6GB, and so on. Well designed apps, including macOS iteself, will allocate based on available RAM, and increase the size of caches accordingly. You need to look at the the amount of Swap memory used and the bandwidth of memory reads/writes to determine if you could benefit from more RAM.
If you are soppy enough to base a laptop on what the marketing term is, then you really shouldn't; I suspect you will be buying an AI PC because you think it is an AI machine! Ignore the marketing and names, do your research and base a purchase on your own sense. Really! Thinking a "pro" label makes it a pro machine is nuts! The iPhone Pro is not a pro iPhone. Apple uses "Pro" to define their most feature-packed device within a line! Come on...common sense needed...
I see the M3 MacBook Pro as a pro machine for business users/office professionals who are not usually going to be power users. It's Pro as in Professional. I could see this being a perfect laptop for someone who works in marketing, real estate, sales, etc that need the long battery life, HDMI output, SD card input, more-durable-than-the-air but still portable chassis, and so on, but not necessarily need the higher RAM and performance that the M3Pro and the M3Max offers. I think so many people get hung up on the word 'Pro' and confuse it for power user. These pro machines are not for power users, but they are every bit professional devices for those that make their living with them.
@@AZisk I watched the video. That doesn't keep me from having a problem with Apple calling a laptop with 8GB of RAM in 2024 a Pro model. I got the impression you agree. Or you wouldn't have to go back to 2007 in your own history for a computer with just 8GB. Apple's upgrade costs keep them from selling more units. It's their choice but I'd have 3x as many Apple products in my home if they had more realistic pricing on RAM and storage. Anything other than a base model isn't worth buying unless it comes with ample storage and RAM. Upgraded models don't hold value the way base models do.
@@martyk656 I''m with Andy here - just because Apple calls it Pro doesn't mean it's going to match some people's opinion of Pro. However, as I've mentioned in prior videos, THIS machine (the M3 MacBook Pro) is the least Pro MacBook Pro that Apple has released since I've been using them (2013). I'm ok with that, just look at specs, not the name.
I am the demographic for the macbook air 8gb lol. i just need it for every day use/ light gaming... (very light) its perfect for me, and i know it will last YEARS!
If you plan on reselling or trading-in, it's a good idea to stick to base models. for instance, if you need 16GB of RAM and plan on reselling, get the M3 pro mbp. It's more expensive than the M3 mbp upgraded to 16GB, but you make up for it in resale value
My work laptop has 16G ram. It’s not enough for my work. I mean it runs very well considering the memory pressure but it is slower than if I could close some stuff. But closing some stuff would make me slower. Xcode, android studio, android and iOS emulator and simulators take up the most ram. Then there’s Teams, OneNote, Safari, Zed, iterm2, Figma, Mail, Music and those are just the ones permanently open. Sometimes need more too. It generally works just fine in terms of everything “working” and happening eventually. No UI hitching and such. Just compile times are longer than if I quit some things. Personal laptop with 32G of ram and same cpu compiles noticeably faster in the same setup
For that much money, if you are not gaming, m3 pro max specced would provide you much better performance. As a senior engineer who codes at least 40 hours every week (some projects on Mac, some on linux through windows (using ELD) because of NDAs and different company policies) I wish windows could do the stuff mac intuitively does. I mean I still use windows desktop with 4080 super for gaming, multimedia and basically everything else but when it comes to coding/developing, it’s a no brainer
@@miishatWhat about me a non experienced coder learning and wanting to use python or Java and/or swiftui and Xcode for only 2-3hrs a day on my m2 8gb MacBook Air? (With not much running in the background) Is it ok? Thanks
@@blank.9301I have never used the macbook air so no first hand experience but this channel has some videos on it if I remember correctly. I think 8gb will be fine as long as you are not working on large projects. I work with log files which are often 1-10 million lines each. Vscode cant handles this files even with 32gb unified memory. So I can’t imagine how it would be with 8gb. I use terminal based editor (neovim) for large projects.
@@blank.9301 I replied to your comment in details but looks like youtube removed the comment. I don’t know why. They can’t remove straight up scams but can very much create inconvenience for people. Anyway, my point in that comment was that I never used macbook air for coding so I have no first hand experience but from what I have seen online, you will be fine as long as its not a huge project you are working on, or huge files. For example, I have projects where I need to go through log files that are 1-10 million lines each. VSCode can’t run those projects even with 32gb memory so idk what would happen with 8gb. For any project with logfiles, I work from the terminal (neovim)
Brasil dev: I have a base 14-inch MacBook Pro m2 pro, 16gb ram and 512gb hd. I previously had the 8gb m1 13 pro, and I couldn't develop in c#/unity on it. I don't even do 3D, but even just opening Unity and Rider would make it slow and sometimes crash. So I don't recommend the 8gb to anyone who develops software, not even for web development because I also tested it and had a bad experience with 8gb. The tests disregard apps opened for several hours and tabs opened in browsers, IDEs. If your budget only allows for a base Mac mini, buy it and be happy. The important thing is to get started. I highly recommend 16gb of ram, much more than 512gb of HD, even though I know that after installing everything I use, I use about 250gb.
I am on the fence over buying a M3 Max 16' 36GB 1TB SSD to kind of future-proof myself, or get the M3 PRO 16' 18GB 512GB SSD. I do know that future-proof is an illusion, but it is always there bothering me that I might not be getting the best machine I can for work. I also understand the idea of not buying a mac and upgrading my Desktop, atm it is good, but could use some upgrades.
@@matus9787 Battery life: The battery life is truly exceptional. I purchased the $2000 model, which I believe offers the best value for money. Noise: There is some noise present, but it is only noticeable when opening 3D applications. In such cases, I would not recommend any Mac computer due to the limited availability of 3D libraries and the prevalence of performance issues. However, I am currently developing a top-down game that does not require extensive graphics processing.
@@alopradocai I recommend that you only buy the $4000 version if you absolutely need it. You can buy a MacBook Pro 16 now, and in 3 years, you can sell your current one and use the money, plus a little extra, to buy a new 16 m5 pro 2nm.
@@lamphantom2289 Yeah that is what I'll probably do! Right now I will wait a little longer for any news too. The conf from apple in June might bring some news regarding changes or new chips. I'm also a Brazilian developer! :D
I had an Macbook Air M1 with 8gb because I had a notebook(Dell) from my last job, I started to work in a new place where you had to use your own computer I worked with a Macbook Air for 1 month to see if I could but was insane the amount of swap, in the end I bought a Macbook Pro with 16gb which still doing some swap but works fine (I have a friend who have a 64gb MBP but never reached more than 30gb, the ideal for development I think would be 24-32gb)
The Air with 8GB is fine for middle school kids or blue-collar workers that use it for general web browsing and light photo editing. Maybe even light video editing if someone stops using browser tabs. Past that, get 16GB of RAM.
@@akin242002in my opinion, 8 GB memory are completely acceptable, but in any situation, where the advantages of a MacBook would actually matter (like video editing), your RAM would really limit you. All the use cases you described can probably be done with an old MacBook/normal laptop for way cheaper without any real perceived performance hit
That AMD advantage rog strix you have there sells for more than $100, by the way, one computer guy to another. Just saying. Also, putting pro and adding fans and what not isn’t an “upgrade” it’s an entirely different model. I wouldn’t compare a Tesla model X to a cyber truck. Also, the difference is the maxed out components from 2020-2021 are still maxed out components in 2024-2025. They are still extremely capable. I love MacBooks, however you cannot compare the value to the person vs the value to the market. The market value for apple products comes from marketing, pr, ravenous fanbase which keeps the value high.
I absolutely loved your review here. One of the best MacBook reviewers on UA-cam in my opinion. You leave no stone unturned in your reviews. Please continue. I love your videos. ❤❤
I am a doctor was thinking of getting 8gb m3 .. will it be enough! Things i will be doing is power point,taking notes ,and some web browsing( i have at least 10 tabs open)???
Its more than enough doc, dev's need high memory to work with but most people would be completely fine with the base variant. For eg. I am a designer currently using the base variant, I have 10 chrome tabs open at all times and a software that I work on and its a breeze. For your work a base variant is enough, you can get the 512 gb ssd or use an external ssd like me.
SSD Swap is completely fine for the computer. It'll theoretically take 80+ years with constant swap (20GB/a day). It doesn't even reduce performance that much. Realistically, you won't keep this laptop longer than 5-6 years.
just bought a 2 day old "open box" from best buy (confirmed was returned in 2 days under their 15 day return window) 14 inch space black macbook pro with the 12 core cpu, 18 core gpu and 18gb ram with 1tb ssd for a nice discount = $2048 OTD insead of $2646 msrp w/ tax. coming from a dell xps 13 - 2019 model, i am very impressed!
Qualcomm X Elite is going to change a lot in the race for more battery life and portability for Windows. Hopefully they don't give us only 8 GB and it can be expanded as usual.
MacOS always tries to fillup the RAM with cache and improve performance for cold start and apps reopen. So even if you close things or have nothing opened, the RAM will look like it has a lot of data loaded. But actually MacOS handles RAM very well and these models do Swapping very fast.
The problem is that it's incredibly irresponsible environmentally to produce machines which will be obsolete in such a short time, or worse, they'll be bricked by a faulty SSD. It would cost literally a few dollars for Apple to add another 8GB RAM and double the SSD at the very least. And it's ridiculous to call such a machine, clearly designer for fast failure/obsoletion, "premium".
The HDMI port matters so much to me. To me this is the best presentation laptop. Dongles use 5-15 watts of power and plugging directly into the HDMI port gives phenomenal battery life when hooked to a projector. Videos can be shown in HDR, SD cards can be plugged in no sweat, speakers are great. Presentation presentation presentation. There is a very specific audience for this device. I have a m1 Max 32GB machine, and the M3 14inch Macbook Pro is a great secondary device.
I am working as an IT Support Specialist and in our company the employees mostly work with m1 or m2 MacBook 8GB Ram and a lot of them report problems caused by the ram. The 8GB ram is to less for a professional environment and multitasking
Videos like this are great but they will never be enough for the people who do not care about facts and reasonableness when it comes to Apple. They are the same ones who are in every comment section typing about Isheep and how they can buy a better windows laptop for half the price. When you ask them which laptop they are talking about, they disappear. Like zombies, they show up in another video saying the same thing. The fact is you can’t find one JUST AS good for half the price. If the main features of a laptop are display, camera, battery, keyboard, speakers, trackpad, chip and build quality. They know all these things, but they won’t shut up, ever. I would love to see a video one day about the type of person who worries excessively about how others value products differently or spend their money.
I actually was about to buy a 16Gb M2 Air. Fortunately they didn't have that spec so they offered me to put a little bit more money and get 24GB 512GB SSD version which i'm absolutely happy with. this thing can run vscode and ios simulator and android emulator at the same time without using swap and best part is it doesn't even make a sound. It's literally a powerhouse for programmers. oh and btw don't worry about the fan, it's doesn't even get warm let alone getting hot
8GB can be enough. With a very light linux distribution. Mac OS & Windows aren't that. Oh and on a windows device you can install linux and upgrade the RAM on many devices which you can't really on a ARM apple device as of now. Plus if you're constantly swapping to the SSD it will die earlier. If it dies the whole machine becomes e-waste...
@@akin242002 For plenty of people, spending an extra 10%-15% on a product is a small fortune. Obviously not for you, and that's great. You are Apples target market - more money than sense.
@@RRR4847-o9g You are not, because if you want 16GB/512GB then it is clearly listed in the Apple Store as £1500. You are not being charged £200 more for RAM and £200 more for storage, it just appears so. The equilibrium config is 16GB/512GB and upgrades and downgrades spin-off from that. So the expectation that if Apple had a base 16GB/512GB at the current 8GB/256GB price is baseless and absolute nonsense. All you will do is kill off the cheaper models and if you propose that, then you are selfish. Just look at all premium ultrabooks in Windows-land 512/16GB are around £1500-1600 (XPS 14, Surface Pro, Surface Laptop, Galaxy Book4 Pro, LG Gram, etc). So come back and talk sense when Windows OEMs sell premium ultrabooks at $1100 for 16GB/512GB (only mid-range).
Well... 8 GB is enough for some web browsing, content consumption, remoting, light development work. And that's mostly it. One can slightly increase the mileage by enabling RAM compression (I guess macOS does this by default on that machine, in Linux it can be enabled, not sure about Windows).
I have a 8gb m1 air that I use for development when I'm traveling. As you mentioned it is perfect for most tasks and I do enjoy using it, but as soon as you need virtualization (windows/android/...) it's rough. I have to do tricks like doing 80% of the mobile cross-development on iOS and using a physical Android for the rest, remoting into a cloud Windows PC, etc.
How's your experience with m1 macbook air so far. Can you tell little bit more about your workflows. I'm planning to get m3 macbook air for my university and I'm kinda confused between all of these. I do full stack web dev, ios dev, some radio astronomy from sdr as a hobby
Went for the 24GB 15" to replace a loud 16" M3 Max and I'm happy so far. I have similar workflows to you but drivinga Pro Display XDR with it. I noticed slight stutter a couple of times when typing in Spotlight and closing a tab but the load was low so I've no clue what that was. Using the Hot utility to easily see if I'm thermal throttling. No issues so far, using Android Studio next week though so 🤞 I'm only missing the display quality a little but prefer the how light the 15" Air feels compared to the 14" even though they're similar in weight. 120hz OLED MBA 15" would be my perfect laptop I think.
if you have 8 GB of RAM, then you shouldn't invest your next $100 in better CPU/screen/whatever and rather make sure to get at least 16 GB to make the device usable, especially for the long term. Therefore the statement that $100 more for the MacBook Pro is a great upgrade is true, but only if you already got a sufficient amount of RAM imo (16 GB+) When your biggest bottleneck is RAM, get more RAM and not a better screen. The selling argument also gets ridiculous when you're imagining to sell an 8 GB device in 2030 for good money. No one would buy that. literally no one who knows that they're doing, bc by then your OS alone may need these 8 GB, especially if they want to integrate "AI".
Apple should stop selling 8 GB models for the public, like they did with the MBP M1 with 128 GB SSD. It was education only, and that's really how it should be. These SSDs are not particularly high quality and Apple likes to use SWAP even if you have much RAM available. So unless you are an extremely basic user with not many apps open or browser tabs, the computer will probably be fine for the lifetime of it.
Sure, 8GB will work, it’ll just be slow experience the more things you have open at once. You could have the most efficient car in the world, but if you cripple the gas size, you’ll still be frequently refilling.
My experience, it's definitely not enough. The moment I start using docker, firefox browser, visual code (worse if jetbrain rider) , performance start crawling on my 8gb M1 macmini. Memory utilization already peaking red lines. In my opinion 32 GB is the minimum for developers. I have the 2020 MacBook pro 16" with 32GB from work and it's still power horse for all of my development workflow.
I've used my 8gb M2 air 13 as an intro to the apple silicon for just over a year for a good amount of my development time. I've found it handles most work just fine, some architecture compile hoops to jump through but as far as hardware performance issues it generally runs fine. The only times i've had issues and noticed some slow down is when i've had docker instances open, or running several servers locally or running ios simulator. No major issues just some slow down that i could really live with if i needed to but i've now ordered a 16gb M3 air 13. almost all of my work is node, js, ts, python with vscode (5 or so extensions). I was extremly surprised. any 8gb linux or windows laptop would have choked to unusable levels easily. I do use my windows zephyrus 7945hx 32gb machine for c++ and game development though, the macs just not worth the hoops to get macos usable for me here. I dont see any change here with the m3 16gb either, i still plan to use the zephyrus where the muscle is needed, with its awe inspiring 45 minutes to 1 hour battery, the mac's slaughter here with an easy 8 hours under actual use and in excess of 12 hours on lighter loads.
what apple did 4 years ago with the 8G M1 is simply amazing, for a lot of ppl out there it is still "sufficient", but I won't bet my money on an 8G M3(and PRO) hopping it will last for another 4 years. when M4 (or M5) comes out with 16G base, the M3( and PRO) 8G won't hold the value as good as the M2/1 had.
I always found 8 GB A foot in the door option. My mom has iphone and apple watch, so the $999, 8GB Macbook Air was perfect. No content creation or coding, just media consumption and maybe light photo editing. Anything with Pro in the name should start at 16 gigs and go up from there
I started using apple products due to how tired I was being vulnerable with windows and having to micromanage all the silent process behind my knowledge making the pc slow. Now a Mac user I must say that as data scientist and AI dev I am decoupling from the MS environment. Every technology tree has pros and cons, my recommendation is to spend a bit more on memory or use an external memory for your OS , that will eliminate the abuse of the OS on the hard drive.
It genuinely takes talent to sell that gaming laptop you you showed for 100$. Not disagreeing that apple products keep their resale value extremely well, but I'm genuinely curious. I've been on windows for my entire life and have always managed to sell my used laptops for a quarter to a third of the price. That m2 max MacBook used price sounds ridiculously low too. What the heck are you doing?
if someone's confused like me on 8GB and 16GB, i bought a m2 air 8 gb for my development, but, i was very wrong for my decision, yes it worked well but, it was lagging in many places. 8gb will never be enough for development, its better to go for 16gb always, i sold my laptop after using for 5 months and also had to work with minimal apps open, so, i upgraded to 18gb m3 Pro. And after that life changed :D
As a developer I 16gb is not enough sometimes, though 16gb is mandatory. If you have no price constraint go with the higher RAM. It is true for both mac and windows.
I use my base M1 Air for web,office,tuner studio/megalogviewer setting up my track car and media consumption...8/256 is just fine for my use.You should choose your machine based on usage.
Sharing my experience here, good and bad. Trying to be neutral here, and make conclusions BASED ON ACTUAL TESTS, instead of rhetoric.
only if Apple will see this video and understand you cannot ship a 1000$+ with 8GB of RAM in 20xx when you can buy any laptop with 16GB RAM with less than 400$
@@TechwithStefan Yes if only Tim saw my video, then he would definitely lower the prices.
@@AZiskI do sense the sarcasm here Alex, nice point
But still I wonder how Apple will be pricing / spec products today if Steve Jobs will still be around,
Saying that because I remember watching a lot of keynotes from him and each year he will present more memory for that product and even for same price or cheaper, he understood the impact of this and this helped Apple grow
Even back in the day , Apple had let’s say expensive products but some had similar or even better price than what PC can offer
Coming back to 8GB on a Pro machine .. the problem is also MacOS , it is no Damn Small Linux , and back in the days I used to build hackingtosh using snow leopard 10.6.8 on my Acer Aspire One with 2GB of ram and it will run great
Even before I had a Thinkpad T61 and run MacOS on it and using Paraleles run Windows virtually and had 3GB of ram on a dual core T7100 intel.. today software is demanding too much RAM and we don’t see the improvements, so yes macOS has become like Chrome , hungry for ram.
PS: if Steve Jobs will be around we sure will have had better prices or/and 16GB RAM 512GB ssd on 1000$ Apple machines
Ps2: maybe also an Apple car and a cheap and good iPhone SE4 for 459$ today
PS3 I enjoy your videos , keep up the good work !
it's so refreshing to have a content creator who really gets it, your Analysis is spot on.
my father is a woodworker, the money to invest as a developer to be able to work is a complete joke.
even if you buy the most expensive mac pro with triple Studio XDR displays + 3 stands for well over 100k it's still nothing in comparison.
a single big machine costs more than that, not to mention the building, the energy, the employee's etc...
a developer just needs a laptop and that's basically it, yet we are crying for couple 100 bucks for more memory or storage.
8GB is not an option at all, My daily usage of RAM is ~14GB without LLM. Docker (redis+postgresql) + Pycharm + Webstorm + Chrome + all messangers like slack, signal etc. And since this is unified memory e.g. it''s being used by CPU and GPU then we are talking that for CPU it's not even 8B but less, because some RAM is taken by GPU
8gb for a $1000 machine is just legal crime lol. $400 for 32gb is just true crime.
@@MarkStoddard Good luck with that if your doing productivity.
And 256gb ssd in laptop is a torture
You can get 128gb for 400 on windows ddr5😂
1 300€ in france for the cheapest version so 1440usd
@@wrench_in I mean, is it? For an Air, that is completely fine. Nowadays everything uses the cloud so you are definetly not filling up ur ssd.
I’ve decided to opt for a pre-owned M1 MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM, as it’s more affordable. In my experience, having ample RAM to ensure smooth program execution outweighs the marginal speed increase from a newer M3 MacBook Pro with only 8GB of RAM
This is the route I was just thinking of going… my old 2013 MacBook Pro just died… so I am thinking the M1 would still be an amazingly faster system compared to my old one.
I did the same 5 years ago with my 2016 MacBook Pro but unfortunately, I had to change it this year because it wouldn't support any new software updates.
@@moraruines6526 8 year 😅, just let its rest pro
Good choice
@@phongnamhai yeah, i run an m1 32g, not going to upgrade until the new m4 comes out
I have a friend(web developer) who bought an m1 with 8 gigabytes of memory. He used it with docker. His ssd died 1.5 years later...
I have a 2012 MBP15 16GB, 256GB SSD .... (web developer) ... lasted me 10yrs before the SSD died.
🤷🏻♂
@@RunForPeace-hk1cu exactly, you had double ram == less swap
RIP SSD. It didn't deserve the RAM abuse.
@@RunForPeace-hk1cu well like the person before already said the SSD died not because it's a bad SSD but because of Swap. 8Gb of RAM will use SSD as Swap pretty much all thé time especially now in 2024. That's why OP's SSD died in 1.5years
I don't think it's because of the memory swap. My friend did the same, even worse. still good on 4 years
16GB RAM should be the minimum in 2024.
With all the AI features that are coming 16GB is the new 8GB. Meaning, a scam.
If you're running a Windows machine you need at least 32GB to be future proof for at least 5-6 years.
@@ndzone_TopGI been running 64GB the last 2 years since is so cheap.
I'd say 24
The worst part isn't the 8GB of RAM, but the fact that is not even upgradable.
All Core Ultra 7 laptops from Intel have soldered RAM, and 100% Snapdragon X Elite will be soldered RAM. And remember all tablets and phones have soldered RAM.
@@andyH_Englandyea it's a plague, if manufacturers are too greedy to put another $20 into their $1000+ devices, then at least make it upgradable (for laptops, I understand that it would be hard for phones), otherwise it's just manufactured garbage
and in case Snapdragon X Elite will have AI branding, guess what you'll need a lot of? that's right, RAM! (as the video stated, you'll probably need 32 GB at least if you want to do something kinda decent
It is not even that. Non upgradable is the result of extreme thin chassis and better performance. It is the upgrade price that is outrageous as RAM price has gone down significantly.
@@AaronFigFront the surface Laptop 6 and Dell XPS 14 all start at 8GB and have the same upgrade costs. Both are premium ultrabooks. I'm not sure why you pick Apple out and let Microsoft and Dell get a free pass. Maybe it is a lack of understanding of how demand side economics works.
@@andyH_EnglandI am not. Not mentioning them doesn’t mean I am giving Dell and Microsoft a pass. Their stuff is even worse.
Yes, common sense.
If the apps you run are RAM-intensive and you make your living from developing, then 8GB should not even be on your radar. The question would be 16GB or 24GB on the base M3, or 18GB or 36GB on the M3 Pro MB Pros?
As a professional driver for 40 years (60-80K miles a year) I bought expensive cars like Audis and VWs. I could buy a similar car for 66% of the price, but it was my living so I bought premium due to quality and reliability. If it is your living, do not skimp out on RAM or storage; as a dev the computer is your livelihood, an investment...common sense.
Good comparison, true 👍🏻
I thought you would buy good cars like Toyota or Honda
Buying Audi or VW for reliability ? LMAO
@@BaieDesBaies I have driven every single car as part of my job and VW and Audi are the most reliable from my experience. I have multiple of both over the years and had no issues with any of them and a couple of them did over 200,000 miles and we're still going strong. Mercedes went for a bad time with reliability way back when. So I don't know what else in the premium sector was as good as these two. I did have BMWs but they didn't work for me.
@@andyH_England Of course you have driven every single car since there are only thousands of models among 400 brands.
Apple's miserly view of Pro memory is making the Snapdragon Elite chip look really attractive.
some real competition coming? maybe
Just buy an x86 chip.
Snapdragon elite with Linux wouid fly. My 16GB RAM AMD Ryzen 7 laptop uses just 4GB in Ubuntu but about 10GB in Windows just doing office tasks and cloud devops. Huge difference. Ok not for everyone but my experience in Linux has been very positive and yes I even play games in Linux.
Dammmmitnibkust bought m3 MacBook Air but really wishing rn I got copilot or some new idk
@@NumanQ. yeah….no….. poor battery
I think Apple should be forced to allow us upgrade the SSD. They always argue environment as one of the reasons they do things. Not allowing us to upgrade RAM or SSD is complete against that same philosophy.
SSD sure, but the RAM is also used as video memory so the soldering right next to CPU/GPU makes sense.
@@Thezftw Saw some test. It doesent make sense. 0 difference
storage and RAM are on the SOC die. this is part of the reason they are so fast. They don't work like windows machine. It's no different to buying a smartphone, you can't upgrade ram afterwards. It's not like apple have a gun to your head and say buy their stuff. You know before hand what you are paying for. If you don't like it, don't pay. and if you want to upgrade them do so at time of purchase.
They've never argued environment for upgrades LOL. they are charging more because you are getting more.
@@percy9228 Wrong. Storage is very much not on the SoC die. Only the storage controller. The storage chips, which determine the actual performance, are soldered down but not located on the die. And they are the same exact storage chips you would find on an NVMe drive from major manufacturers.
RAM - fine. But storage - no.
@@chic_luke I apologise I was wrong. storage is not on die and Ram is as you said. damn for storage they definetly charging a massive premium then
I remember when you were sub 100K and look where you are now.
Thank you for all your hard work!
Let’s go 300K!
thanks for being there along with me
I was tempted to get the m3 macbook pro base model for android development. But 8gb is just not enough everywhere you look. I ended up getting used m1 macbook air 1tb ssd 16gb ram config. The experience with this machine is amazing. It can handle the project I am working on pretty well (about 84 screens). It is super light and the battery is the best. If you are on a tight budget, m1 air is the best value.
Are u using an emulator or a physical device ?
@@mahmoudaakil1564 Emulator.
A CAVEAT THOUGH FOR EVERYONE: Without airconditioner in your room, this macbook will become hotter as you continue to build and run your app. It will almost be untouchable. It will still work though, but without separate keyboard and mouse, you'll be in an uncomfortable situation. I don't know if it's the same case with macbook pros that has fan/active cooling.
Fantastic video. I learned a lot and glad i just ordered a new MacBook Pro with 18gbs ram. All the best! thank you.
The problem is not about paying for 8gb of ram, the problem is that Apple doesn’t allow you to upgrade anything.
Not to mention, usable memory is actually lower since some memory is used for the GPU. It’s an absolute insult that Apple is selling entry level products with 8GB of RAM.
That problem is becoming the norm in the industry with most of win ultrabooks and some newly released gaming laps have soldered ram:v
Well, that's kind of understandable considering the soldered RAM is part of what makes the processor so fast. If we're talking about software development or video editing obviously 16GB should be the bare minimum, but we have to understand that the 8GB MacBook Air is also marketed to students and people who will use it for light tasks and who want a laptop that will last them the whole day without having to plug it in. I do agree that $200 for an extra 8GB is outrageous.
@@bren.r It depends on your use case, if you're doing heavy video editing it might be an advantage. Let's say you're working on a MacBook Pro with 48GB of unified memory and the system/CPU is consuming 10GB of memory, that means there are 38GB left for the GPU/video software to use. This wouldn't be the case if you had a computer with 24GB of RAM and 24GB of VRAM.
Be happy that the battery doesn't come inside the chip(unified battery)😂
Totally you are the most amazing dev I have ever saw in my entire dev life since 2010, just wanted to tell you cheers,
I feel like if you are developing software professionally, then just go crazy and spec way more RAM than you'll ever need. $3k, $4k, it's a drop in the ocean for your primary professional tool. It's better to waste money and have more RAM than you will ever need, than to try to predict how much RAM you'll need and to come up short. Software devs are blessed, the tools of our trade are cheap compared to e.g. video or audio gear. If you're not a professional and you're on a budget, then find some way to buy a machine with 16GB, even if it's an older gen. A CPU upgrade just makes a machine faster, but a RAM upgrade gives a machine new capabilities.
well said
Very well said. I'm still on a laptop that's over 7 years old. It has 64 GB of RAM because that's how I wanted it to have when I bought it and I knew I'll use them. This did help me greatly in being able to have many things opened at once and even using RAMDisks, which I love.
Now I'm bitter that 128 GB laptops are still not really a thing. They're rare and the RAM is at terrible speeds (even on desktops). While right now I don't reallly need 128 GBs, since I want my next laptop to also last for 7 years (preferably 10), I know I will eventually use 128 GB of RAM. Hopefully with Arrow Lake I might be lucky (or Zen 5, but I kinda want Intel)
True, i had top 2017 PC with 32 at 3200mhz, i used to use 20 daily, better to have more than less and more important on apple equipment which sucks for upgrading something: you can’t
I would have to disagree slightly: for development in a compiled language (C++,Rust and so on) having a good CPU can be life changing when dealing with large projects, more so than RAM. And for gaming Vulkan compatibility is becoming more and more a requirement, which most old pc's don't meet. For everything else, 100% agree, RAM and repairability are the most important factors if you want a long lasting device.
(To drive the point a bit, my Samsung Tab from two years ago, a tablet running android, compiles at times thrice as fast as my windows professional grade i5 laptop from 2013)
Not everyone can afford the luxury. I earn below $150 a month
I'm front-end developer for 1.5 years(job, not pet projects). Bought my first Mac a half year ago for work. I'm using Air M2 8gb for web and mobile development. 90% of time it is enough. If you are starting programming journey moast of the time you don't need M3 Max 64gb. Don't spend money if you are not sure.
@@cannibalriga7469 thanks.. I needed a comment like this
@@gintoki_sakata__ I use an M1 mac mini with 8gb / 256ssd, mostly for web development (side projects at home). I have no complaints with this machine, it does everything I want it to do. There are certain workflows that are more intensive. Obviously doing any kind of AI stuff, you're going to need a more powerful machine. Ditto for mobile development. It's really dependent on what you plan to do with the machine. These specs are more than enough for web development.
@@lennypinskiy6598 speak for yourself. If you are drawing buttons in a notepad then its enouph. i just want to say that home projects are not real ones.
I got the 36GB Macbook M3 Pro. Been working like a bunch of docker containers, running some crazy systems locally and haven't shutdown my computer since I bought it 2 month ago. Pretty good stuff.
@@reggieescobar2772 my guy that's like the highest end laptop you can get, I would be very worried if that wasn't the case 😅
I went with the 8 GB base model simply because I know this year for some personal reasons I'm not going to work that intensively with my machine and not going to push it that far anyways, until I need to, then I will buy whatever the new model they lunch and max it out.
Same
I use the 16gb version of the m3 macbook from apple refurbished for unity. It gets the gpu results of a m1 pro, the battery life of an air, and the cpu results of like an m2 pro. If you are on edge about spending too much money, get an m3 refurbished you will not regret it.
Bought an M3 Air 15 16/512 and it is a brilliant laptop. A pro device for people who don’t need something that needs to sit there churning through sustained tasks
@@robgardner4754 that kind of defeats the pro name
@@barknbryce6993 Well he got an Air, not Pro
m3 refurbished? these things are barely out, so they probably have the same price as new
@@xAnonymousComedia they don't have the listing anymore but I got a m3 macbook pro 16gb ram 512gb storage for $1520 which is basically $300 off retail.
Hey Alex, I had a suggestion. Why don't you compare the M2 Air 16gb 256gb variant with the M3 Air 8gb 256gb variant. They cost the exact same.
very good; finally someone who realised that getting the latest CPU with 8 GB RAM may be a worse choice than some CPU that's a bit slower but that doesn't run into that hard memory bottleneck
@@alphaspace1100 what do you think? I am buying the MacBook for browsing, tutoring and studying. Is it better to buy m2 with 16gb/512gb or m3 with bigger SSD or RAM?
I am using 8gb M1 mac pro for last year as work machine for flutter development. Works fine for me, I have no issues at all with emulator and simulator, android studio and other programs. Swap file are huge, but I don't care much. My company want to change machines to 16gb M3 macs, so I waiting for replace now :D
Although I still personally struggle with the idea of 8GB ram on a laptop $1500+, I completely agree with your conclusion. Re: how well macs depreciate and resale value ... I can see older but higher-speced macs reselling well, but do lower end macs also have that great a resell value? I imagine a M3 MBA 8gb model wouldn't resell as well in a few years.
They will have no resell value because they're most likely dead in a few years when the SSD reached its TBW threshold (from the constant swap attacks) and the thing transformed into e-waste...
Awesome moving timelapses!
Paid 800 for my Lenovo with Gpu, 1tb SSD and 16gb of ram new. Installed Ubuntu. Had good use of it as web dev and better system. Sold it for 500. Got new Lenovo. For MacBook I would have to pay 1800 and sell for 1200. Better screen and battery on MacBook, but would cost me double the money over 2 years. Lenovo model I had was Ideapad pro 16. Base models of apple macs are keeping value well but the more expensive ones are not.
@@forthphoto totaly agree with you, I am using lenovo with 10th gen i7 and 20GB ram.
Bought it new for around 1100$.
I really do not care about resale value.
Using very heavy docker images like oracle DB, aerospike, etc... and with 2 intelij window opened and bunch of browser tabs.
It struggle a little bit in windows. But using it the same way in linux , it is just flawless and smooth.
But... screen, keyboard and trackpad are terrible in comparison with my 15 year old lenovo! Let alone macbooks!
There are two schools of thought on spec'ing out a Mac: 1. Pay extra now to future-proof it for 5 to 10 years of use. 2. Buy the value sweet spot now, and then upgrade later when you need more. Which one is better now depends on what Apple does in the future, especially if they bump minimum RAM to 16 GB in the near future.
I have a 2013 MBAir which is still used regularly.
It has 4GB of RAM and the SSD is still alive. The charger died a few months ago, but before that MacBook was still used regularly by kids.
I started freelancing and my own app development using that MBAir and it was fine.
8GB is okay for beginner iOS developers today, you will need a few years of experience to hit the limits of it :)
Sure, upgrade RAM if you can, then MB will last longer.
16gb should really really be the base model, just like an iphone 16 should have a 120hz screen.. probably also not gonna happen😂
My old 16G M1 Macbook Air died because i spilled water over it. I needed a quick replacement. So i bought the M3 8G Macbook air and it is enough. I mostly develop Apps for Android and even with Emulators, 25 Chrome tabs and more it does not struggle. It is amazing.
@@Spaffel how’s it going. how about containers and vm running?
@@tharlinhtet97 it going great. I have some Docker Containers for local test-apis and database and it works like a charm
Your storage ssd is gonna die in like 1-2 years
8gb is the weak link with my m1. Hope to jump to a pro.
I’ve still got my M1 MacBook Air. I mostly do Xcode, Python 3, and Xojo for programming and Pages for reading the occasional MS Word document. 😅
friend, based on your experience, you continue to recommend the MacBook air m1, because I want to learn python from scratch but I want a computer that will last for years without changing equipment all the time and I want to learn to program and use databases, I hope you can help me, thank you
Dell is an absolute scam.
the docker container argument definitely holds on any computer.
Yup, i have a MBA 15 M2 and I thought it would be enough for my angular development environment and it kind of is ... but once I start my docker server or just anything else "heavy", its struggles definitely 16GB has to be the new minimum
i was suffering with 8gb m1 pro in react native development =) , 18gb m3 the minimum step for comfortable app development. Thank you Alex, your videos are great.
I run android emulator, ios simulator, vscode, xcode and brave browser with at least 7-8 tabs at the same time on my M1 Macbook air 8gb/256gb. Yeah it struggled a bit but it wasn't as bad (system freeze) as this M3 Macbook "Pro".
I have the m3 with 24gb of ram and I usually use 18gb of the 24 for development
How do you know?
@@AZisk activity monitor
nowadays many programs eat memory like nothing; I regularly need 24-32 GB for unity development (on PC tho but it would probably be similar on MacOS)
@@alphaspace1100anyone that’s reading this, please don’t use 8GB machine for Unity development. Thanks. That is all
Bear in mind that RAM usage is not an absolute (in most macOS apps) and is proportional to the amount of available RAM. If you have an 8GB Mac, a given app may use 3GB. If you have a 16GB Mac, the exact same app may use 5 or 6GB, and so on. Well designed apps, including macOS iteself, will allocate based on available RAM, and increase the size of caches accordingly.
You need to look at the the amount of Swap memory used and the bandwidth of memory reads/writes to determine if you could benefit from more RAM.
Thanks for finally putting a video of real world usage of 8gb M3.
Been looking for this for years now.
Would like to see the same tests on 16gb
You've been looking for m3 benchmarks for "years" ?
@@Nemesis-db8fl Real world usage is not the same as benchmarks
There's nothing "Pro" about 8GBs of RAM since at least 2014. The last PC I built with only 8GBs of RAM was in 2010.
here we go. another commenter who didn’t watch the video
If you are soppy enough to base a laptop on what the marketing term is, then you really shouldn't; I suspect you will be buying an AI PC because you think it is an AI machine! Ignore the marketing and names, do your research and base a purchase on your own sense. Really! Thinking a "pro" label makes it a pro machine is nuts! The iPhone Pro is not a pro iPhone. Apple uses "Pro" to define their most feature-packed device within a line! Come on...common sense needed...
I see the M3 MacBook Pro as a pro machine for business users/office professionals who are not usually going to be power users. It's Pro as in Professional. I could see this being a perfect laptop for someone who works in marketing, real estate, sales, etc that need the long battery life, HDMI output, SD card input, more-durable-than-the-air but still portable chassis, and so on, but not necessarily need the higher RAM and performance that the M3Pro and the M3Max offers.
I think so many people get hung up on the word 'Pro' and confuse it for power user. These pro machines are not for power users, but they are every bit professional devices for those that make their living with them.
@@AZisk I watched the video. That doesn't keep me from having a problem with Apple calling a laptop with 8GB of RAM in 2024 a Pro model. I got the impression you agree. Or you wouldn't have to go back to 2007 in your own history for a computer with just 8GB. Apple's upgrade costs keep them from selling more units. It's their choice but I'd have 3x as many Apple products in my home if they had more realistic pricing on RAM and storage. Anything other than a base model isn't worth buying unless it comes with ample storage and RAM. Upgraded models don't hold value the way base models do.
@@martyk656 I''m with Andy here - just because Apple calls it Pro doesn't mean it's going to match some people's opinion of Pro. However, as I've mentioned in prior videos, THIS machine (the M3 MacBook Pro) is the least Pro MacBook Pro that Apple has released since I've been using them (2013). I'm ok with that, just look at specs, not the name.
If someone needs virtual machines and docker the minimum is 16 GB… or an external machine to do the virtualisation is also possible too
I am the demographic for the macbook air 8gb lol. i just need it for every day use/ light gaming... (very light) its perfect for me, and i know it will last YEARS!
Hey! Can you please make videos on how M3 handles Premiere Pro and After Effects compared to Windows laptop? I love your objective comparison videos.
If you plan on reselling or trading-in, it's a good idea to stick to base models. for instance, if you need 16GB of RAM and plan on reselling, get the M3 pro mbp. It's more expensive than the M3 mbp upgraded to 16GB, but you make up for it in resale value
If you are working or have a business buy what you need and write it up.
IDK why, but this video gives me anxiety
My work laptop has 16G ram. It’s not enough for my work. I mean it runs very well considering the memory pressure but it is slower than if I could close some stuff. But closing some stuff would make me slower. Xcode, android studio, android and iOS emulator and simulators take up the most ram. Then there’s Teams, OneNote, Safari, Zed, iterm2, Figma, Mail, Music and those are just the ones permanently open. Sometimes need more too. It generally works just fine in terms of everything “working” and happening eventually. No UI hitching and such. Just compile times are longer than if I quit some things.
Personal laptop with 32G of ram and same cpu compiles noticeably faster in the same setup
Me with windows laptop with 4 gb ram 🙂
I'll keep my Legion 9i with a 4090 and 64GB ... I can do anything and not worry about "do I need" or "is it enough".
64GB is enough for some tasks, but not enough for other tasks :)
For that much money, if you are not gaming, m3 pro max specced would provide you much better performance. As a senior engineer who codes at least 40 hours every week (some projects on Mac, some on linux through windows (using ELD) because of NDAs and different company policies) I wish windows could do the stuff mac intuitively does. I mean I still use windows desktop with 4080 super for gaming, multimedia and basically everything else but when it comes to coding/developing, it’s a no brainer
@@miishatWhat about me a non experienced coder learning and wanting to use python or Java and/or swiftui and Xcode for only 2-3hrs a day on my m2 8gb MacBook Air? (With not much running in the background) Is it ok? Thanks
@@blank.9301I have never used the macbook air so no first hand experience but this channel has some videos on it if I remember correctly.
I think 8gb will be fine as long as you are not working on large projects. I work with log files which are often 1-10 million lines each. Vscode cant handles this files even with 32gb unified memory. So I can’t imagine how it would be with 8gb. I use terminal based editor (neovim) for large projects.
@@blank.9301 I replied to your comment in details but looks like youtube removed the comment. I don’t know why. They can’t remove straight up scams but can very much create inconvenience for people.
Anyway, my point in that comment was that I never used macbook air for coding so I have no first hand experience but from what I have seen online, you will be fine as long as its not a huge project you are working on, or huge files.
For example, I have projects where I need to go through log files that are 1-10 million lines each. VSCode can’t run those projects even with 32gb memory so idk what would happen with 8gb. For any project with logfiles, I work from the terminal (neovim)
Thanks for this, I was almost tempted to buy a 8GB M3, thinking running a couple of VM's and LLM's would be no problem.
😆 you’ll need a lot more than that to be comfortable
@@AZisk My business laptop is M1 Pro 16gb, which runs ok doing that. But I realise now that its not that much different from an M3 on a MB Air.
Brasil dev: I have a base 14-inch MacBook Pro m2 pro, 16gb ram and 512gb hd. I previously had the 8gb m1 13 pro, and I couldn't develop in c#/unity on it. I don't even do 3D, but even just opening Unity and Rider would make it slow and sometimes crash. So I don't recommend the 8gb to anyone who develops software, not even for web development because I also tested it and had a bad experience with 8gb.
The tests disregard apps opened for several hours and tabs opened in browsers, IDEs. If your budget only allows for a base Mac mini, buy it and be happy. The important thing is to get started.
I highly recommend 16gb of ram, much more than 512gb of HD, even though I know that after installing everything I use, I use about 250gb.
why just dont buy mac ? (expensive for no reason)
I am on the fence over buying a M3 Max 16' 36GB 1TB SSD to kind of future-proof myself, or get the M3 PRO 16' 18GB 512GB SSD.
I do know that future-proof is an illusion, but it is always there bothering me that I might not be getting the best machine I can for work.
I also understand the idea of not buying a mac and upgrading my Desktop, atm it is good, but could use some upgrades.
@@matus9787 Battery life: The battery life is truly exceptional. I purchased the $2000 model, which I believe offers the best value for money.
Noise: There is some noise present, but it is only noticeable when opening 3D applications. In such cases, I would not recommend any Mac computer due to the limited availability of 3D libraries and the prevalence of performance issues. However, I am currently developing a top-down game that does not require extensive graphics processing.
@@alopradocai I recommend that you only buy the $4000 version if you absolutely need it. You can buy a MacBook Pro 16 now, and in 3 years, you can sell your current one and use the money, plus a little extra, to buy a new 16 m5 pro 2nm.
@@lamphantom2289 Yeah that is what I'll probably do! Right now I will wait a little longer for any news too.
The conf from apple in June might bring some news regarding changes or new chips.
I'm also a Brazilian developer! :D
Oh good, I thought it was just me. Android Simulator is absolutely unusable with 8GB ram the last few revisions. That Intel HAXM module was magic.
I had an Macbook Air M1 with 8gb because I had a notebook(Dell) from my last job, I started to work in a new place where you had to use your own computer
I worked with a Macbook Air for 1 month to see if I could but was insane the amount of swap, in the end I bought a Macbook Pro with 16gb which still doing some swap but works fine (I have a friend who have a 64gb MBP but never reached more than 30gb, the ideal for development I think would be 24-32gb)
The Air with 8GB is fine for middle school kids or blue-collar workers that use it for general web browsing and light photo editing. Maybe even light video editing if someone stops using browser tabs.
Past that, get 16GB of RAM.
@@akin242002in my opinion, 8 GB memory are completely acceptable, but in any situation, where the advantages of a MacBook would actually matter (like video editing), your RAM would really limit you. All the use cases you described can probably be done with an old MacBook/normal laptop for way cheaper without any real perceived performance hit
That AMD advantage rog strix you have there sells for more than $100, by the way, one computer guy to another. Just saying. Also, putting pro and adding fans and what not isn’t an “upgrade” it’s an entirely different model. I wouldn’t compare a Tesla model X to a cyber truck. Also, the difference is the maxed out components from 2020-2021 are still maxed out components in 2024-2025. They are still extremely capable. I love MacBooks, however you cannot compare the value to the person vs the value to the market. The market value for apple products comes from marketing, pr, ravenous fanbase which keeps the value high.
I absolutely loved your review here. One of the best MacBook reviewers on UA-cam in my opinion. You leave no stone unturned in your reviews. Please continue. I love your videos. ❤❤
Wow, thank you!
I love to see you do the exact same thing using your Macbook Air 24 gb model. I bet it would be fine for that week. But love to know for sure.
Seems like any need for emulators or vms you’re best to get 16gb of ram. Why put yourself through the pain?
I did it to warn people:)
8 gb in a laptop? Half what I have in my 200$ phone? Yeah, right.
I am a doctor was thinking of getting 8gb m3 .. will it be enough!
Things i will be doing is power point,taking notes ,and some web browsing( i have at least 10 tabs open)???
Its more than enough doc, dev's need high memory to work with but most people would be completely fine with the base variant. For eg. I am a designer currently using the base variant, I have 10 chrome tabs open at all times and a software that I work on and its a breeze.
For your work a base variant is enough, you can get the 512 gb ssd or use an external ssd like me.
Love from Jamaica thank you
SSD Swap is completely fine for the computer. It'll theoretically take 80+ years with constant swap (20GB/a day). It doesn't even reduce performance that much. Realistically, you won't keep this laptop longer than 5-6 years.
just bought a 2 day old "open box" from best buy (confirmed was returned in 2 days under their 15 day return window) 14 inch space black macbook pro with the 12 core cpu, 18 core gpu and 18gb ram with 1tb ssd for a nice discount = $2048 OTD insead of $2646 msrp w/ tax. coming from a dell xps 13 - 2019 model, i am very impressed!
@8:42 "... before I truly understood the value of time."
🤣🤣🤣
Qualcomm X Elite is going to change a lot in the race for more battery life and portability for Windows. Hopefully they don't give us only 8 GB and it can be expanded as usual.
MacOS always tries to fillup the RAM with cache and improve performance for cold start and apps reopen. So even if you close things or have nothing opened, the RAM will look like it has a lot of data loaded. But actually MacOS handles RAM very well and these models do Swapping very fast.
The problem is that it's incredibly irresponsible environmentally to produce machines which will be obsolete in such a short time, or worse, they'll be bricked by a faulty SSD. It would cost literally a few dollars for Apple to add another 8GB RAM and double the SSD at the very least. And it's ridiculous to call such a machine, clearly designer for fast failure/obsoletion, "premium".
The HDMI port matters so much to me. To me this is the best presentation laptop. Dongles use 5-15 watts of power and plugging directly into the HDMI port gives phenomenal battery life when hooked to a projector. Videos can be shown in HDR, SD cards can be plugged in no sweat, speakers are great. Presentation presentation presentation. There is a very specific audience for this device. I have a m1 Max 32GB machine, and the M3 14inch Macbook Pro is a great secondary device.
I am working as an IT Support Specialist and in our company the employees mostly work with m1 or m2 MacBook 8GB Ram and a lot of them report problems caused by the ram. The 8GB ram is to less for a professional environment and multitasking
Videos like this are great but they will never be enough for the people who do not care about facts and reasonableness when it comes to Apple. They are the same ones who are in every comment section typing about Isheep and how they can buy a better windows laptop for half the price. When you ask them which laptop they are talking about, they disappear. Like zombies, they show up in another video saying the same thing. The fact is you can’t find one JUST AS good for half the price. If the main features of a laptop are display, camera, battery, keyboard, speakers, trackpad, chip and build quality. They know all these things, but they won’t shut up, ever. I would love to see a video one day about the type of person who worries excessively about how others value products differently or spend their money.
Haha hitting the spot for lot of them out there lol.
But yeah, you are right.
Yeah 4 years later i bought m1 with 8gb and i regert it now
I actually was about to buy a 16Gb M2 Air. Fortunately they didn't have that spec so they offered me to put a little bit more money and get 24GB 512GB SSD version which i'm absolutely happy with. this thing can run vscode and ios simulator and android emulator at the same time without using swap and best part is it doesn't even make a sound. It's literally a powerhouse for programmers. oh and btw don't worry about the fan, it's doesn't even get warm let alone getting hot
8GB can be enough. With a very light linux distribution. Mac OS & Windows aren't that. Oh and on a windows device you can install linux and upgrade the RAM on many devices which you can't really on a ARM apple device as of now. Plus if you're constantly swapping to the SSD it will die earlier. If it dies the whole machine becomes e-waste...
Is 16GB enough?
For today maybe, but I highly recommend go with 32GB RAM for a production machine. It would be a much better choice.
Hey Alex, love your videos, could you do a competition between a windows snapdragon VS a MAC air? Thanks man keep it going !
yes, when the X series comes out i will
@@AZiskcool Alex, because i need a good machine for the go, and im between a MacBook air or snapdragon. Any idea when is this gonna happen?
@@psydude21not till later this year, but i don’t have any specific info
I don't have too much hope for the Snapdragon X Elite, it seems that they carefully curate the benchmark results to make it look better.
It's a win win for Apple. Either you cough up a small fortune for extra RAM and storage today, or you'll be buying a new laptop in 18 months.
yes that’s right
$200 for an extra 8GB of RAM isn't a small fortune. Overpriced, yes. Fortune... far from it.
@@akin242002 For plenty of people, spending an extra 10%-15% on a product is a small fortune. Obviously not for you, and that's great. You are Apples target market - more money than sense.
@@AZisk what do you think the cost is to Apple? Less than $10?
@@RRR4847-o9g You are not, because if you want 16GB/512GB then it is clearly listed in the Apple Store as £1500. You are not being charged £200 more for RAM and £200 more for storage, it just appears so. The equilibrium config is 16GB/512GB and upgrades and downgrades spin-off from that. So the expectation that if Apple had a base 16GB/512GB at the current 8GB/256GB price is baseless and absolute nonsense. All you will do is kill off the cheaper models and if you propose that, then you are selfish. Just look at all premium ultrabooks in Windows-land 512/16GB are around £1500-1600 (XPS 14, Surface Pro, Surface Laptop, Galaxy Book4 Pro, LG Gram, etc). So come back and talk sense when Windows OEMs sell premium ultrabooks at $1100 for 16GB/512GB (only mid-range).
Well... 8 GB is enough for some web browsing, content consumption, remoting, light development work. And that's mostly it. One can slightly increase the mileage by enabling RAM compression (I guess macOS does this by default on that machine, in Linux it can be enabled, not sure about Windows).
I loved the video! Thank you. Learned a ton! xo
Glad it was helpful!
Apple: OK stop it! 8GB is not enough? Next generation: Starting 9GB. (with extra 99 bucks of course) You all happy?
Well, you wouldn’t get in a Honda Jazz to do Nascar 😂
no, you wouldn’t. But, I’ll take that Honda Jazz to the grocery store all week long
Very true. Nice test of its abilities though, Alex 👍
being using a 2020 m1, 8GB since 2021 and even though i cannot say it is faster, it gets the job done, to me it is just fine for the job.
In conclusion, buy a framework laptop
What is that?
Framwork is 🗑️
@@quebuena111something that desperately wants to look like a MacBook.
do you have a framework?
5:56 Yeah I've noticed on Windows that once you get to 3/4 usage then it really starts to get slow.
Can you do the same with 16GB model?
My daughter is 26 years old. The laptop I bought for her for high school had 16GB of RAM.
Most people are unsure of the purpose of a laptop and can survive with just a mobile phone.
I have a 8gb m1 air that I use for development when I'm traveling. As you mentioned it is perfect for most tasks and I do enjoy using it, but as soon as you need virtualization (windows/android/...) it's rough. I have to do tricks like doing 80% of the mobile cross-development on iOS and using a physical Android for the rest, remoting into a cloud Windows PC, etc.
How's your experience with m1 macbook air so far. Can you tell little bit more about your workflows. I'm planning to get m3 macbook air for my university and I'm kinda confused between all of these. I do full stack web dev, ios dev, some radio astronomy from sdr as a hobby
@@QuantumCanvas07 I am also planning to have m3 base model for my uni. Not that much dev. Only have to pass big data and Ml courses.
Went for the 24GB 15" to replace a loud 16" M3 Max and I'm happy so far. I have similar workflows to you but drivinga Pro Display XDR with it. I noticed slight stutter a couple of times when typing in Spotlight and closing a tab but the load was low so I've no clue what that was. Using the Hot utility to easily see if I'm thermal throttling. No issues so far, using Android Studio next week though so 🤞
I'm only missing the display quality a little but prefer the how light the 15" Air feels compared to the 14" even though they're similar in weight. 120hz OLED MBA 15" would be my perfect laptop I think.
if you have 8 GB of RAM, then you shouldn't invest your next $100 in better CPU/screen/whatever and rather make sure to get at least 16 GB to make the device usable, especially for the long term. Therefore the statement that $100 more for the MacBook Pro is a great upgrade is true, but only if you already got a sufficient amount of RAM imo (16 GB+) When your biggest bottleneck is RAM, get more RAM and not a better screen.
The selling argument also gets ridiculous when you're imagining to sell an 8 GB device in 2030 for good money. No one would buy that. literally no one who knows that they're doing, bc by then your OS alone may need these 8 GB, especially if they want to integrate "AI".
Apple should stop selling 8 GB models for the public, like they did with the MBP M1 with 128 GB SSD. It was education only, and that's really how it should be.
These SSDs are not particularly high quality and Apple likes to use SWAP even if you have much RAM available. So unless you are an extremely basic user with not many apps open or browser tabs, the computer will probably be fine for the lifetime of it.
Sure, 8GB will work, it’ll just be slow experience the more things you have open at once. You could have the most efficient car in the world, but if you cripple the gas size, you’ll still be frequently refilling.
My experience, it's definitely not enough. The moment I start using docker, firefox browser, visual code (worse if jetbrain rider) , performance start crawling on my 8gb M1 macmini. Memory utilization already peaking red lines. In my opinion 32 GB is the minimum for developers. I have the 2020 MacBook pro 16" with 32GB from work and it's still power horse for all of my development workflow.
I've used my 8gb M2 air 13 as an intro to the apple silicon for just over a year for a good amount of my development time.
I've found it handles most work just fine, some architecture compile hoops to jump through but as far as hardware performance issues it generally runs fine.
The only times i've had issues and noticed some slow down is when i've had docker instances open, or running several servers locally or running ios simulator.
No major issues just some slow down that i could really live with if i needed to but i've now ordered a 16gb M3 air 13.
almost all of my work is node, js, ts, python with vscode (5 or so extensions).
I was extremly surprised. any 8gb linux or windows laptop would have choked to unusable levels easily. I do use my windows zephyrus 7945hx 32gb machine for c++ and game development though, the macs just not worth the hoops to get macos usable for me here. I dont see any change here with the m3 16gb either, i still plan to use the zephyrus where the muscle is needed, with its awe inspiring 45 minutes to 1 hour battery, the mac's slaughter here with an easy 8 hours under actual use and in excess of 12 hours on lighter loads.
what apple did 4 years ago with the 8G M1 is simply amazing, for a lot of ppl out there it is still "sufficient", but I won't bet my money on an 8G M3(and PRO) hopping it will last for another 4 years. when M4 (or M5) comes out with 16G base, the M3( and PRO) 8G won't hold the value as good as the M2/1 had.
I have a M3 Max with 36GB and somehow it has to use SWAP when I’m using Docker, VSCode and my terminal with the project running :(
I always found 8 GB A foot in the door option. My mom has iphone and apple watch, so the $999, 8GB Macbook Air was perfect. No content creation or coding, just media consumption and maybe light photo editing. Anything with Pro in the name should start at 16 gigs and go up from there
I started using apple products due to how tired I was being vulnerable with windows and having to micromanage all the silent process behind my knowledge making the pc slow. Now a Mac user I must say that as data scientist and AI dev I am decoupling from the MS environment. Every technology tree has pros and cons, my recommendation is to spend a bit more on memory or use an external memory for your OS , that will eliminate the abuse of the OS on the hard drive.
Funny my windows 11 pro machine doesn’t have these problems with memory
It genuinely takes talent to sell that gaming laptop you you showed for 100$. Not disagreeing that apple products keep their resale value extremely well, but I'm genuinely curious. I've been on windows for my entire life and have always managed to sell my used laptops for a quarter to a third of the price.
That m2 max MacBook used price sounds ridiculously low too. What the heck are you doing?
Using 8gb mba m1 base model. 2 react native projects, several nextjs + react projects no problem at all. This thing is a beast
Lol i had to force restart every 2 hours since the ram gets filled up. I do the same Android studio+ xcode simulator + some terminals
if someone's confused like me on 8GB and 16GB, i bought a m2 air 8 gb for my development, but, i was very wrong for my decision, yes it worked well but, it was lagging in many places. 8gb will never be enough for development, its better to go for 16gb always, i sold my laptop after using for 5 months and also had to work with minimal apps open, so, i upgraded to 18gb m3 Pro. And after that life changed :D
16 gb should be in base model. Apple is losing sales, 8 gb ram is a turn off.
At last a reviewer with brains & common sense 👏
As a developer I 16gb is not enough sometimes, though 16gb is mandatory. If you have no price constraint go with the higher RAM. It is true for both mac and windows.
I use my base M1 Air for web,office,tuner studio/megalogviewer setting up my track car and media consumption...8/256 is just fine for my use.You should choose your machine based on usage.