TechAltarI used a MB Air M1 with 8GB of RAM until ~2 years ago and rarely ever felt that it didn't have enough RAM, or power in general. Sure there are use cases where one might need more, but many seem to think 8 gigs is some unusable junk. I think it's not, if the price is right. Which on the Neo it is.
Sam D
Markus 👨💻@spaceraser @Techaltar That's not my experience. IMHO, every OS works perfectly fine with 8GB RAM. More often, it is dozens of programs running in the background and starting automatically when the system boots up that fill up the RAM. In my experience, Windows users tend to have such programs more often then others (Spotify, Steam, Printer driver, Brother Scan Center, useless "Tuning"-Tools, AV Scanner, TomTom/Garmin-Sync Services, Discord etc). But that's just my personal observation.
@markusr @Techaltar I guess if windows can't handle all those things being open, but OSs like linux and macos can, then that sort of makes my point. Like people don't really use just one program at a time all the time.
MostlyBlindGamer@Techaltar I haven’t looked at it yet, apart from a few posts here and there, but tech people tend to forget the population that just needs a web browser, a file system and a familiar form factor.
Tom Reynolds@Techaltar it’s crazy to me how many people are acting like 8GB wasn’t Apple’s standard config for almost every Mac up until 18 months ago.
Graham@Techaltar I want to hope that if the ram-pocalypse continues we’ll see a renewed focus on performant software. You should be able to do an awful lot with 8GB.
Romulus@Techaltar given the current prices on ram, apple overprice doesnt seem like a bad deal
Murteza Yesil@Techaltar
Forget about people shouting that 8GB is not enough. Base model of my laptop, Lemur Pro (lemp11) by System76, comes with 8GB RAM. My father lived happily for years on a Toshiba Tecra with Solus OS with 8GB. So many people will use laptops with 8GB RAM for years to come, and not complain, because 16GB is enough (more on that later). Issue with Apple is not that it is selling laptops with 8GB RAM, issue is forcing people to be stuck at 8GB physical RAM.
Dell, HP, Lenovo, and more OEMs sell laptops with 8GB RAM, nobody cares. When not enough, upgrade. Option is there.
What we are against is false marketing. 8 GB RAM on Mac isn't equivalent to 16 GB RAM in other systems. They are going to talk about memory compression technology as if that is unique to Apple. Linux had memory compression for years. Read more about ZRAM. People have been using Zram on Android devices for years too, but it was exposed to users under many different names. Ever heard of RAM Plus on Samsung? Every device with 8GB RAM can feel like having 16 GB RAM thanks to memory compression that is available to every device.
Neo is not a bad device, nor are the technologies and engineering which went into it making it. What annoys me the most is the limitations Apple subjects its devices to, and therefore their customers, and those customers cheering for it.
Forget about people shouting that 8GB is not enough. Base model of my laptop, Lemur Pro (lemp11) by System76, comes with 8GB RAM. My father lived happily for years on a Toshiba Tecra with Solus OS with 8GB. So many people will use laptops with 8GB RAM for years to come, and not complain, because 16GB is enough (more on that later). Issue with Apple is not that it is selling laptops with 8GB RAM, issue is forcing people to be stuck at 8GB physical RAM.
Dell, HP, Lenovo, and more OEMs sell laptops with 8GB RAM, nobody cares. When not enough, upgrade. Option is there.
What we are against is false marketing. 8 GB RAM on Mac isn't equivalent to 16 GB RAM in other systems. They are going to talk about memory compression technology as if that is unique to Apple. Linux had memory compression for years. Read more about ZRAM. People have been using Zram on Android devices for years too, but it was exposed to users under many different names. Ever heard of RAM Plus on Samsung? Every device with 8GB RAM can feel like having 16 GB RAM thanks to memory compression that is available to every device.
Neo is not a bad device, nor are the technologies and engineering which went into it making it. What annoys me the most is the limitations Apple subjects its devices to, and therefore their customers, and those customers cheering for it.
junkman@Techaltar I believe the whole Glass UI is Apple's way to deprecate their M chipsets.
The hardware is so good you need something dumb to wear it down rapidly.
grinceur
Hudson@Techaltar I don’t know… my wife frequently had a huge safari tab farm, multiple word and excel docs open, and found her m1 8gb insufferable. She won’t manage open apps to save her life. M4 16gb saved her from herself and the device’s constraints. She’s the quintessential non techie office worker.
@hpridham it's a good thing that I didn't say 8gb would work for your wife's specific usage pattern :P
OBender@Techaltar 8 gigs is enough for optimized software. However, nowadays nobody seems to bother learning to produce high quality programs. 20 years ago it was the opposite, and we seem to make the full circle. Hopefully for the best.
Winston Smith@Techaltar I agree. It is too low for a 1000$ machine, but Ok for the Neo, although Windows machines with 16GB hit the price mark
Sam IzbyI use Asus N61 with 4GB. It's enough for Linux.
/Бин/Баш@Techaltar Tech bros be like "here's my new electron app. It uses 750mb of RAM to show you a single website". Can't do that too often in parallel on 8G. But yeah, most default users are fine with 8.
Skye@Techaltar the thing is that 8GB is no where close to modern computing standard, that entails Windows 11 and chrome already together take 6. Please try out Linux, there is Asahi for M1 macs. I'm interested in knowing how the process is for you.
Christopher O’R@Techaltar I’m still on my M1 MBA. Love it and perfect for my needs.
Pixelcode 🇺🇦@Techaltar I don't get it. I have 16 GB of physical RAM and another 16 GB of swap memory. Still, Ubuntu freezes multiple times a week due to memory exhaustion and requires raising an elephant. Using Firefox, IntelliJ, two Matrix clients, Nextcloud, an e-mail client and a music player simultaneously is a real challenge for me.
Pascal Leinert@pixelcode @Techaltar Die blöde Kiste friert bei mir auch bei 32 GB RAM und 79 GB Swap ein.
@pasci_lei @Techaltar Ach du Schande! 🤯 Da muss doch irgendwo ein Speicherleck sein 🤔
@Techaltar I also think the problem is windows and not just windows, but corporate windows. My work laptop should be very decent performance wise, but it lags all the days while my private laptop has no issue. I guess all the corporate trackers and "security features" Cut down the performance a lot.
Graham Ollis 🇺🇦🌻🌮@Techaltar 8gb is enough to run software that fits in 8gb. I suspect developers will be writing more memory efficient software now that memory is unaffordable.
@Techaltar my M1 8GB MacBook air was absolutely fine unless I was running a second display, being unified it ate into my available ram and noticed slowdown when doing anything intensive.
Saying that using it just as a laptop it could handle almost anything I threw at it.