Should my friend just get a second-hand 8GB MBA or pay a little more for 16GB? He just does basic stuff.

[Oneechan69]

He does basic stuff like web browsing and using Office. I told him to get a 16GB M1 MacBook Air from a site like Swappa, even if its like $100 or whatnot more than an 8GB model. I just think it will last much longer than 8GB because apps could just more RAM at least like 5 years from now. I think is only just enough in 2023 and there's a good chance that it eventually it will not be enough.

Edit: Would you justify spending another $100 or so for the future-proofness of more RAM (or at least potentially more future-proof)?

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Tell him to get a MBP Max 64gb/4TB model. The internet will be super duper fast bro.

 

[Oneechan69]

Tell him to get a MBP Max 64gb/4TB model. The internet will be super duper fast bro.

Very funny, anything more than 16GB would be overkill, its just that if I were him I'd get 16 since that would give him a lot more headroom for the future.

 

[sfphoto]

"basic stuff like web browsing and using Office"

Why even get an 'M' model, and do you know anyone whom has had 'great' success with Swappa?

What has he/she now and what is their budget?

A later model Intel w/ low hours (check) can be had for $300+/-, just sayin'

 

[sfphoto]

We have several vintage Macs in our office (2007-2014) running El Capitan & High Sierra (max OS).

"basic stuff like web browsing and using Office"
They run MSOffice 11 and Chrome/FFox versions numbers in the 100's.
The software has not been too old.
Once it does become unusable (I suspect 3-5 years) the machines Apple produces at that time might well be quite different than today's models.

One big plus of pre 2018 Apple machines is the ease of user upgrades (adding SSD's and Ram) and for 'Books' the option to replace one's own batteries.

 

[glhiii]

Well, my wife loves her 2010 MBA 13" running High Sierra. Works fine for most things. I have 3 computers: M1 16", 2022 M2 13" MacBook air, and a 2017 MacBook (16gb I7 512gb). The MacBook works fine for just about everything. If I were buying one, I would be sure to get the 2017 version. The keyboard is much better, and in general it's improved over the previous models. I love the MacBook. It's much more portable -- you can carry it around with two fingers and put it in a bag and hardly notice it's there. Not true of any of Apple's other portables.

 

[smirking]

The 8GB M1 Airs are still beasts. There's nothing a light user needs that you can't do on 8GB of RAM now and in the near future.

Future proofing is a fool's errand under the best of conditions and even more ludicrous when you're talking about a basic user. I'm a developer and I ran some pretty unbelievable workflows off of an 8GB M1 a few summers ago.

 

[sgtaylor5]

The 8GB M1 Airs are still beasts. There's nothing a light user needs that you can't do on 8GB of RAM now and in the near future.

Future proofing is a fool's errand under the best of conditions and even more ludicrous when you're talking about a basic user. I'm a developer and I ran some pretty unbelievable workflows off of an 8GB M1 a few summers ago.

Someday, I’m going to have to get a new laptop, and I’ve been seeing more and more apps use Electron rather than native. That means, of course, that they will use more memory. Only reason I’d think of getting 16/256 and not 8/256. Other than that, I’m a fairly light user in terms of memory usage.