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Omega_Jimes ,

The 8gb ram MacBook works great for your average Mac user. The person who uses it for writing resumes and surfing YouTube which I’m sure is a huge chunk of the market. Devs/Gamers/power users can’t make do with 8gb, but my sister in law who just does paper work and teams meetings all day is served well by her 2016 laptop, and wouldn’t have any issue with an 8gb MacBook.

wax ,

It has terrible future proofing however. Sure, apple is generally good at supporting their devices, but I’m sure a device with more than 8 would remain usable for a longer time.

Magnetic_dud ,

Generally good at supporting phones but not at supporting computers, a 5-6 years lifetime is unacceptable from an environmental point of view.

I experienced it last week when I turned on an old Mac with MacOS 10.7. It can’t run anything. Everything that you download doesn’t run anymore, Firefox and chrome are limited to some ancient version like 40 that breaks every modern website and due to some expired SSL root certificate you can’t access any website that’s using let’s encrypt which is a big chunk.

And it’s like this not from recently but at least 5 years, so it was put in a corner and never turned on anymore until last week

It can theoretically be updated to some newer version but the updater to 10.8 has been delisted from the store so you have to alternatively source that.

For comparison, a PC that was purchased the year prior to that Mac is running the latest version of windows 10 without any issue (except slowness due to the 1st gen core architecture)

wax ,

Ah, thats terrible then. A computer should last longer than that, especially with a battery replacement mid-life

TwoCubed ,

Given how terrible Teams performes, I’d dread to have merely 8GB to run it on.

echodot ,

If you ran teams on the CERN supercomputer I’m pretty sure it would use up all the RAM as well. The more you have the more it seems to eat up.

Very much like Chrome.

Goodtoknow ,
@Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah it works fine by swapping and eating away the SSD

EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

The NON-USER-REPLACEABLE SSD.

ColdWater ,
@ColdWater@lemmy.ca avatar

Except it’s cost 3x more than average 8GB ram laptops

supercriticalcheese ,

Not cost effective by any means, but then again none buys apple for cost effective anything. Some people just the brand it seems 🤦

Opafi ,

If the alternative is Windows which is increasingly filled with ads or Linux which shifts the burden of computer administration to a user who might not have a clue about what they’re supposed to do if their WiFi doesn’t “just work”, paying for a managed walled garden that doesn’t try to install candy crush without you asking for it isn’t such a bad option.

echodot ,

The alternative is praying and absolutely exorbitant price a device that cannot be fixed by the user.

RisingSwell ,

Pretty sure it’d still drastically outperform every single other 8gb ram laptop out there though, perhaps even 3x faster. Not saying it shouldn’t have a ton more ram though, 8gb on anything expensive is pretty rude.

ColdWater ,
@ColdWater@lemmy.ca avatar

Maybe if you compare CPU performance but most people only use it for web browsing and documents editing which is most averages laptop can do the same and maybe more because it’s not running Mac OS

abrinael ,

How long is the average laptop usable, though? I still have a 2012 MacBook Air with 4GB of ram that gets daily use with no visible issues. I don’t feel like it’s slow. I don’t feel like there’s much (the only issue is usually flash) daily business it can’t do (mostly web/email/pdfs/virtual meetings or classes/excel/word). I’ve never had it repaired or upgraded. I’ve also had about 4 windows laptops since about 2011. My primary desktop is a windows gaming PC and I complain more about its quirks than I do about the Mac.

WordBox ,

If your use case doesn’t require a lot, it’s not really going to matter mac or windows… If you’re spending the same amount of money. I have a 2010 Dell m11x that’s just fine for productivity. It was $900ish then.

pycorax ,

My 2009 Macbook became slow as heck after installing Mountain Lion on it 4 years after I got it, taking half an hour to even boot up. Ironically, Windows on it was a lot more usable. I agree that yea, there are cheap Windows laptops that are pretty bad but all the laptops I’ve had after that which I paid similar or slightly less for, have been far more reliable and longer lasting than my Macbook ever had.

And as for complaints, doesn’t that really depend on what you’re used to? Every time I have to use a Mac, I find a quirk that I can complain about every other minute but that’s just because I’m used to the Windows workflow or Linux where I can modify it to work the way I want it to.

PriorityMotif ,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

Rocking a Dell latitude 3460 Core i5-5200U (2016?) with SSD and upgraded 16gb ram with win 11 running fine. It’s a flimsy pos I think it was meant for the Indian market, but I paid sub $100 for it 4+ years ago. Sure, I’m not gaming on it, but it works just fine for laptop activities.

jeremyparker ,

The 8gb ram MacBook works great for […] writing resumes…

Um I’m not sure where you heard that but ChatGPT requires a shit ton of memory

(Sorry, I’ll show myself out)

sturmblast ,

Apple has their niche, but you’ll never find me owning a Mac. They are not useful for me. And fuck the proprietary nature of Apple in general.

That being said, I run 64GB of RAM and it’s glorious!

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yup, I have a Mac for work and I’m not a fan, I don’t even like the look of them, much less the UX. The keyboards suck, they don’t have actual mouse buttons on their laptops (I really miss my middle mouse button), and the gestures on the trackpad annoy me. I use a Logitech mouse (MX Master 3 at work, Triathlon at home), and both are way nicer than anything I’ve used from Apple.

I much prefer my Linux machines at home. They don’t lock up, my laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad) has real mouse buttons and the Trackpoint, the package manager just works, and updates don’t take forever and a day like on macOS. Oh, and I use Docker for work, and on Linux it uses far fewer resources because I don’t need a full VM.

Oh, and I can easily add more RAM to both of my Linux machines. I am not interested in any Apple products, and them selling with 8gb RAM just makes no sense to me since memory upgrades are so expensive and must be done at the time of purchase. So screw em.

olympicyes ,

I have a Linux workstation and a MacBook. The arguments about keyboard and trackpad are personal preference at best. You can use whatever external devices you want with the Mac. I used Logitech mice with mine too.

If you want a package manager on Mac use Homebrew. It’s better than you’d expect for a system that doesn’t include a native package manager. I use docker on both Mac and Linux and can’t really tell the difference.

I bought my last MacBook with 64gb ram. It was probably overkill but I didn’t see any reason not to since you can get one refurb for essential 50% off. It sucks that you can’t upgrade the ram, so make sure you have a good idea what you need when you’re buying the machine. Anyone buying one with 8gb is essentially buying a Chromebook. That’s not adequate for a power user like you.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yes, it’s personal preference, but I can’t realistically use an external keyboard and mouse on an airplane or whatever. I like my ThinkPad way more than my MacBook Pro for actually getting work done. It feels nicer to type on, and my hands don’t need to leave the home row to press mouse buttons. Apple’s trackpad is nicer, but I think it’s solving the wrong problem.

That said, I have a very keyboard-driven workflow. I use:

  • ViM for editing
  • terminal for searching (macOS’ open is nice)
  • shortcuts for switching apps (alt+tab and `alt+`` mostly)
  • tmux for terminal window management

That mostly maps to macOS decently well, but there’s also random differences I need to work around.

use Homebrew

I use macports, which I much prefer.

Rant about homebrewHomebrew feels bolted on, macports feels more like an actual package manager. Stuff keeps working across macOS releases, which is nice because o use fish as my shell and don’t want to fix that every time I do an upgrade.

Rant about macOS as a devBut it feels like putting lipstick on a pig. I constantly have to fight builders that grab the system version of something instead of my macports one (I think I’ve resolved everything now?), especially Python. I can’t do system upgrades through it. And so on. It’s just an add-on package manager, and while it’s nice, there’s friction at the edges.

That said, I very much prefer macOS to Windows, but I prefer pretty much anything else to macOS. I would prefer FreeBSD if it had better hardware and docker support.

I use docker on both Mac and Linux and can’t really tell the difference.

Do you have Docker Desktop or CLI-only? Because IIRC Docker Desktop on Linux runs in a VM like on macOS, whereas CLI Docker ruins directly on the kernel, so it’s way faster.

Here’s some practical issues I have with Docker Desktop on macOS:

  • random breakage where I have to restart Docker (the VM, not an individual container) - i.e. “API version doesn’t match…” like every other week
  • uses way more RAM - containers are just processes on Linux
  • disk space is separated and needs to be adjusted if I forget to run a prune - docker on Linux just uses my regular disk
  • rebuilding is kinda slow - assuming a Docker Desktop issue because “sending tarball” takes forever

We have a bunch of docker containers, and I’m regularly running 10+. I feel like I’m constantly fiddling with Docker on macOS, whereas it’s mostly transparent on my Linux machines.

So to me, it’s just a crappier experience. I honestly can’t think of a single upside, other than the pretty GUI, but learning a few CLI commands is a small price to pay IMO.

And that is also my general experience with macOS. It looks pretty, but it just feels like I’m interacting with the system way too much, whereas on Linux the system gets out of the way.

Rant about macOSSome specifics: - “snapping” Windows - macOS kinda has this now, but Linux has had it for as long as in remember (15 years?) - launcher (Alt+F2 or Meta) on KDE Plasma is unobtrusive - the system updates when I tell it to, not overnight randomly - Steam actually works for most games - Flatpak and Appimage are nice

Rant about work policyIf my work let me pick whatever computer I wanted, it would probably be a Framework or Lenovo laptop with Linux. But my options are locked down, crappy Windows (IT box) or MacBook Pro (no IT nonsense), so I pick macOS. In fact, I think only 2 of my coworkers prefer macOS, but we use them to get around IT policies and the outside team that started the project convinced the uppers that we need it. However, as a lead, I need to be the support for our team, which means I should probably use the same devices as them. My last job let me pick my OS, so I ran Arch for 5-ish years before switching to openSUSE Tumbleweed, which I still run today (like 5+ years now). I’m not going to leave because of Linux vs macOS and I love my team and boss, but I do prefer Linux.

Anyway, I’m kinda excited because I’ll be getting an upgrade soon. I’m on an Intel Mac, but I could get an M3 if I push, or maybe I’ll wait for the M4. I’d much rather run Linux on that hardware though.

olympicyes ,

It sounds like you want to have a mobile server, which makes sense too for some use cases. I just switched from 2018 Intel to M1 Pro Max and the difference is absurd. They were giving them away at MicroCenter refurb so I got one with overkill specs. Sometimes you can throw hardware at your problem and in this case it worked. It is faster, quieter, cooler, longer battery life, etc. I use BetterTouchTool to address some of the UI issues you noted and forget I have it until I use someone else’s Mac.

I initially set up the new machine via Thunderbolt and copied the apps, which was a mistake. That said every homebrew installed app worked. It was not too hard to purge the Intel homebrew and reinstall the Apple silicon version, and battery life got much better after doing so. Apple Silicon is a game changer. Everything I’ve seen about M4 says it’s supposed to be on TSMC N3E. Personally I’d go with whichever generation lets you get the most ram and ssd.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I’m a fullstack engineer that mostly focuses on backend, so yeah, I basically want a copy of our production app running on my work computer. I have Docker configured so it only uses 4GB or so, but when I add our frontend (1-2GB), web browser (1-2GB), Microsoft crap (1-2GB), etc, the RAM adds up, and that’s just running half of our backend infrastructure.

The silly thing is that almost all of my job is on Linux services, except our mobile app, which is React native and largely targets iOS (though we also support Android). I work across the stack so I need to be able to run all three (backend, web, and mobile).

But I have to pick and choose what I run because my 16GB system is barely enough. So yeah, I wish we would’ve gotten 32GB at the outset, because swapping to disk is by far the biggest performance issue.

So yeah, get more memory than you think you need.

olympicyes ,

I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts about this medium article describing the use of Lima VM for docker on MacOS.

medium.com/…/the-most-performant-docker-setup-on-…

sunbunman ,

And I’m here contemplating upgrading to 32 GB…

cdegallo ,

I built a gaming PC for the first time since ~20 years ago. Decided to dump 64gb into it for no good reason other than ram is cheap and I figured I might as well.

8gb…jeebus.

aphlamingphoenix ,

I did the same thing. It’s one of the cheapest upgrades you can get for a PC, but Apple will charge triple the actual cost to maximize profits.

Blueteamsecguy ,

This is not exclusive to Apple, any pre-built reseller does the same thing, Apple just has their flair of a little bit more

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yup. My MacBook Pro for work has 16GB and I keep running out of RAM. I can’t fathom being limited to 8GB…

I guess it works for basic browsing and whatnot, but for any kind of professional work, you’re going to have a bad time.

accidentalloris ,

I daily drove a laptop with 8gb of RAM less than a year ago. Works just fine for most tasks. Granted, at Apples typical price point, I’d want more than that, but it is far from unusable. Running VMs wasn’t fun though.

uranibaba ,

How did you do that? My laptop is at 14gb now and I am not using it (typing on phone)

Harbinger01173430 ,

Me, with my PC that has 32 gb of ram: 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

n3m37h ,

Laughs in 64 GB, just don’t look at the timings…

CaptPretentious ,

Puny mortal! (128GB)

nomadjoanne ,

Damn… We bow to you

maynarkh ,

I still can’t see you from up here! (192GB)

n3m37h ,

Cries in 64Gb

the_third ,

I mean, it’s sounds a lot, but when I mesh some medium sized part from my 3D scanner for some diy project 50GB of that get used easily.

PriorityMotif ,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

64GB^ddr3^

Hux ,

I don’t disagree that 8GB is generally less than I would accept for normal usage, but the way this article is written you can tell the author really doesn’t have any reasonable grasp of memory management.

GiddyGap ,

Pretty sure my phone has 8GB of RAM. Apple should probably rethink this.

spikederailed ,

They have, they want you to buy the more expensive model with greater profit margins.

echodot ,

Yeah they’ve spent $1 extra on manufacturing costs, but charge you an extra $2,000 for the privilege.

Who doesn’t love a 20,000% profit margin

Poem_for_your_sprog ,

laughs in 64GB ram

bruhduh ,
@bruhduh@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9b0f9ea6-2efe-4c05-87f1-6e9466a443eb.jpeg

Bonehead ,

Oh come on...640kb is more than enough for everyone...

DdCno1 ,

He never said that, by the way.

Bonehead ,

No, and we all know it, but it's still going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Septimaeus ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    vin ,

    Your guess is bad and you should feel bad.

    aphlamingphoenix ,

    Since the act of writing to an SSD is an act of wear that will eventually lead to a broken storage device, using an SSD for swap is a uniquely bad idea, right? Are Macs still designed so that you can’t replace your own hardware easily? I’ve never owned one, but I was asked to service one many years ago and it was a real pain.

    helpImTrappedOnline ,

    Those SSD are both hardware and software locked to the mother board. Once the SSD goes, the whole machine goes. The same can be said about RAM…once that goes, the mother board does too.

    Perhaps the goal is to use the SSD as a sacrifice in order to extend the life of the obviously more important RAM.

    T156 ,

    Although RAM is vastly more durable than the flash chips of an SSD, so that wouldn’t make sense.

    It might make more sense from a cost viewpoint, since flash is typically cheaper than RAM.

    helpImTrappedOnline ,

    I know. I wrote it as a crap excuse. The SSD that stores user data is infinitly more important than RAM.

    echodot ,

    Those SSD are both hardware and software locked to the mother board.

    I know they did it with RAM which is bad enough but to do it with SSDs as well. That alone is a reason not to get an Apple device.

    helpImTrappedOnline ,

    They might not specifically software lock the drive, but I do recall somethibg about them enabling disk encryption by default. So you’re data is essentially tied to the system.

    support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/…/macIt is enabled automatically, and unless you actually know to store the key somewhere you’re fucked.

    Asifall ,

    What’s the thermal impact of a ram module? Don’t they use like 2 or 3 watts even in a desktop? Can’t be much…

    anon_8675309 ,

    The reality distortion field is collapsing.

    cmgvd3lw ,

    This option kind of make sense. For those using laptops for very light use, such as basic web browsing, Document editing, replying to emails and want to have a Mac could buy them.

    If apple could sell 16GB variant at the price of 8GB, then that would be the best.

    jkozaka ,
    @jkozaka@lemm.ee avatar

    but for the price…

    orclev ,

    If that’s all you’re doing you could save a $1000+ and just get a cheap Chromebook. Or if you want to be sustainable and reduce e-waste you could spend around the same amount on a framework laptop that’s upgradeable and then spend a tiny fraction of that every few years keeping it up to date, rather than going the Apple approach and chucking the whole thing in the trash every few years and buying a brand new one.

    No matter how you slice it, an 8GB macbook is a crap deal.

    cmgvd3lw ,

    I said, want to have a Mac. Anyways you are right.

    PraiseTheSoup ,

    Indeed, many people must have a mac as it is a fashion accessory.

    NoisyFlake ,

    Some people prefer a Mac because it integrates nicely with the rest of the Apple ecosystem.

    PraiseTheSoup ,

    Some people prefer a Mac because it integrates nicely with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. matches the rest of their overpriced wardrobe.

    Jestzer ,

    I think a lot of people buy Macs because they think the only other choice is a computer running Windows.

    magiccupcake ,

    This stuff is almost ewaste.

    This is just not enough memory to make a computer last, especially since you can’t upgrade.

    Websites and apps that a lot of people use just aren’t really expecting to only have 8gb ram available. Any kind of multitasking could easily run out of ram

    echodot ,

    I’m fairly sure my computer uses more than 8 GB of RAM every time I much as look at the Chrome icon.

    ForgotAboutDre ,

    Macbooks, even these low spec ones tend to outlive other laptops substantially. The better build quality and higher resale value keeps them in use much longer.

    The argument these devices are e-waste doesn’t make sense and doesn’t track.

    Dariusmiles2123 ,

    8GB is enough as that’s what I have on my 2019 Surface Go.

    But that’s a device I bought 399.- (almost the same as dollars) 5 years ago.

    So I don’t think it’s okay to sell a new laptop with Pro in its name for a high price in 2024. Especially because it wouldn’t cost them much to upgrade the RAM.

    It’s like buying a 30bhp car in 2024. Yeah it’s enough, but not for the price of a normal car.

    lurker8008 ,

    I’m other words, base config is good for people needing a Chromebook but want an Apple device.

    echodot ,

    And wanting a macbook is a perfectly acceptable reason for getting a MacBook. I just get annoyed when people try to argue that it’s an actually sensible decision.

    Skelectus ,
    @Skelectus@suppo.fi avatar

    8 GB non-upgradeable. Not unusable yet, but probably will be in a few years. Then they can sell you a new one.

    ABCDE ,

    They said that with the release of the M1 Air.

    steventrouble , (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    PlexSheep ,

    By any chance, does that dell run windows?

    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    But can it compile UE4 from source?

    explanationIf you compile using multiple threads by core count and low RAM, you may see crashes depending upon size and configuration of the project.

    Cheems ,
    @Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

    sure it could! It would just take two weeks!

    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    But not with the default option of using as many threads as there are CPU cores.

    steventrouble ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    Please do educate me on as to how to get Unreal Engine 4 as a “plugin” (of what?) without building it.

    The only ways I see to get UE4 on Linux is to install the AUR, which compiles from source, or Compile it with your own settings from the GitHub project.

    steventrouble ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    Sorry, that didn’t work last time I tried.

    sabin ,

    Just because you can get away with 8 does not mean you should. Go google around and find just how cheap an additional 8 gb of laptop RAM is these days.

    steventrouble , (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    sabin ,

    I didn’t say 64. I said 16 which is perfectly reasonable. Your comment reads like damage control from an apple employee.

    Kolanaki ,
    @Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

    “Nobody needs more than 64k of memory.”

    echodot ,

    A much quoted comment but often misunderstood.

    No one needed more than 64k of memory at the time, and that was true they didn’t need more at the time.

    Adding more memory than you actually need doesn’t do anything it just sits there taking up an expansion port and doing nothing. It’s like having a multi-core processor and then running single core apps, there’s no point.

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