So I watched my productive HP running windows with 8GB never has ram problems. Same was for my 2012 MBP 8GB running Mojave. My new MBA has 16GB running Sonoma so I can’t tell. But so many people complaining about Ram problems running 8GB so it must be the latest macOS creating all those problems.
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Review: Two Weeks With the M3 MacBook Air
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Nah. This board is full of users reviewing the Air without having used one; this review by an actual user was useful for finding that most of the criticisms around 8GB RAM and overheating are, predictably, overblown.
Lol, it’s this mentality which led to lots of people at my job having 8gb RAM (Intel) Macbook Pros, and are now complaining about it.
It really depends on your use case. People doing graphics or coding certainly need more RAM. People doing text or number processing likely don't. Your company's procurement policies should take that into consideration. There is no fixing shortsighted planning.
Oh I agree. It was poor planning on their part. We don’t do coding or graphics, but we often have dozens of tabs open all over the place, as we support a major cloud platform. When I started, I opted against both of their go-to laptop choices since they both have 8gb of RAM.
If you
eclecticlight.co
Found this article quite interesting after I saw “window server” became quite huge on my M3 MBA.
WindowServer is hungry for memory on M1 Macs
Each additional Safari window increases WindowServer’s memory use by 1.7 MB on an Intel Mac, but 50 MB on an M1 Mac – thirty times more.
eclecticlight.co
Many of the complaints I have seen have been either YouTubers running benchmarks while running things in the background to show that they can slow things down, or posters noting that their Activity Monitor is showing memory pressure even with 16 GB (like the OS isn't designed to use RAM that is available to it). I don't know if I have seen any complaints about RAM problems from people that actually have 8 GB Apple Silicon Macs. I have an M1 Air and an M1 mini, both base 8GB/256GB, and have never seen any RAM problems. Would I be happy if Apple threw in another 8GB for no extra charge? Sure! Do I regret getting the base models? Not at all, as they are actually much better than I expected, and any money I would have put towards the RAM or SSD upgrades will instead be put towards upgrading to a newer Mac sooner.
Then let me be the first. I upgraded by daughters base M1 Air to a 16/512 M3 Air specifically because of performance issues due to RAM (due to Chrome, and the state of the internet these days).
I'm not saying everyone needs 16GB, but it also doesn't take much to make 8 painful. I'm sure everyone who had an issue with 8GB has stopped replying because they keep getting absolutist responses. Sure, my daughter should switch to Safari (despite requiring plugins for school that didn't work on Safari). Yes, my daughter shouldn't keep so many tabs open. On the other hand, it's just so much easier to get enough RAM to let her use the computer as she sees fit than it is convince her to change her usage.
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Thanks! It is nice to see an actual user experience complaint, rather than the hypotheticals.
I do mainly use Chrome, and though I often get the battery message of Chrome using high energy, and despite it showing 10 or more entries in Activity Monitor, I cannot say I’ve noticed the actual use of it being painful. Of course, I’ve been using Macs for 40 years and used the Internet on dial-up, so it is certainly possible I have lower expectations. That said, I also have a MacBook Pro M3 Pro with the base 18GB RAM and I don’t treat it differently than the M1 Air, and don’t find Chrome much different between the two. In the past I would have blamed my slow internet speeds for that, but I finally got a better ISP a couple of years ago, so perhaps the sites I visit are just lower stress than those of your daughter, or I just accept Chrome as flabby. YMObviouslyV, though I think we agree on your “state of the internet these days” comment, as I often wonder if web designers are now paid to burn as much bandwidth as possible.
I do know that I don’t notice the limits of 8GB on my M1 Air, while I certainly did with the 8GB on my 2018 Intel Air, but I expect much of that is likely due to the lower speed of the 2018.
I never had issues with 8gb, but I use Edge & Safari instead Chrome (probably they require smaller footprint). My usage is just typical office and entertainment. The only one I saw memory pressure become yellow is when I run virtual machine (which took few GB for its virtual RAM).
My point is there are lots of happy users with 8gb, and it’s not correct to say that they’re sorry for their decision due to their poor planning. Again, it depends on each user’s use case.
My point is there are lots of happy users with 8gb, and it’s not correct to say that they’re sorry for their decision due to their poor planning. Again, it depends on each user’s use case.
I run with lots of things open and, if I bother to check, quite often my memory pressure will be yellow. But I don't find a yellow memory pressure graph to be painful. If I have to look at a graph to tell me that things are slowing down, I personally don't think they have slowed down much. If things actually feel slow, then I consider it an issue. I do have things get to the point where things do start to slow down, but that happens maybe once in a couple of months, at which point I restart Chrome and close other applications and if that doesn't work I restart my Mac. I used to turn off my computer every night, so restarting every couple of months seems pretty minor for me, but other people will have other expectations. I just find it frustrating to see people claiming these are unuseable with 8GB, as these are easily the most useable computers I have ever owned, even though I upgraded my 2011 MacBook Pro to 16GB RAM over a decade ago.
Would I have added the extra 8GB if it was $100 CAD upgrade? Sure. Do I want to encourage Apple to keep that upgrade at $250 CAD by purchasing it? No. Would I be happier if it was included at the exact same price as the current base model? Of course! Is the 8GB base MacBook Air unusable? Definitely not.
Yes - I should mention that all my comments that my base M1 Air is “good enough for casual use” is based on me not running Chrome, and I don’t intend to. Chrome = you need RAM. This should result in criticism of Google and not Apple. Chrome should come with a warning label.
I have no idea whether my memory usage is yellow. I never check.
Edit: Just had another instance of the joys of Windows: Opened a 22MB PDF on my 16 gb Lenovo, and the computer is grinding to a halt. Outlook and Excel was running, that’s it. Tried to open Skype, but the window is not showing. Closed the PDF, everything works again, including Skype.
For kicks, opened all sorts of crap on the 8MB Air, opened the same PDF, and everything works fine.
It’s not about numbers.
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Great video as always. I think as a videographer, you're always going to need a 16/512 model as a minimum - so I think this is a good video for those who do 'lightweight' creative work i.e. you're making 4k videos of 10-15 mins or so, showing them that the 16/512 MBA is probably fine for you.
8/256 is still probably fine for most people, as he says at the start (not defending Apple putting in 8GB of memory as the starting spec - it really should be 12 at this point).
8/256 is still probably fine for most people, as he says at the start (not defending Apple putting in 8GB of memory as the starting spec - it really should be 12 at this point).
Reding on the Kindle app on a MacBook Air in bed shouldn’t be underestimated.
Especially not if I’m drinking Espresso at the same time, where I need my hands to hold the cup.
But I don’t have to hold the MBA in my hands while reading, which is needed with iPad’s. The old MBA was too laggy, but I'm back on track now!
Especially not if I’m drinking Espresso at the same time, where I need my hands to hold the cup.
But I don’t have to hold the MBA in my hands while reading, which is needed with iPad’s. The old MBA was too laggy, but I'm back on track now!
Can you elaborate a bit on that?
I’m deciding between 16/512 M3 15” MBA vs M3 14” MBP with same specs and about the same price… the only reason why I’d prefer MBA is due to noticeably more screen real estate, but I’m worried about a fanless design in the long run. Would it often run warm and thus deteriorate faster? I want to keep it for at least 5 yrs (or more)…
From what I know, 14” MBPs wouldn’t get warm at all while watching videos, but what you mentioned above about MBA worries me. What is the quality of videos where your MBA gets warm? Is it like regular HD on youtube or more like 4K or so?
I have 15” MBA and found it very useful (especially for old eyes like mine). I read somewhere that 15” is closer to 16” display while 14” closer to 13”. So the difference is noticeable.
I can watch YouTube from morning to afternoon with single charge and no indication it started become warm.
I agree. I have an M1 Air and never had it get warm playing videos. Not sure what that situation is.
I have an M1 Air, so perhaps the M3 get warmer, but I do not notice my Air getting warm when watching videos. I just tried watching a 4K video and still didn't notice it getting warm, even specifically looking for it. As a test, I just did a Handbrake MP4 conversion of an EyeTV recording I had made of SNL, and at that point the bottom did get warm, as it took an hour and a half to convert the video because it still had commercials and was converting from my NAS at 31 FPS (the highest CPU usage spike I noticed in Activity Monitor for HandBrake was 641%, as it is great for multicore usage). It was warm enough to feel, but it wasn't so warm as to be uncomfortable for bare legs. I also watched part of that earlier 4K test video while encoding this with no issue. I had/have 26 Chrome windows open (13 open/13 minimized) during the test, most with around 10 tabs each, though the window with this MacRumors tab has 39 tabs open. Loading a new MacRumors tab in Chrome with the encode running was a bit laggy for loading the article images, though. I didn't close Mail, Messages, Calculator, Remote Desktop, or any other app to test.
So maybe I got lucky for once in my life and somehow got the best example of the M1 Air 8GB/256GB made and I should actually be having memory and heat issues that some mention, but in my experience the MacBook Air became a truly excellent computer with the transition to Apple Silicon.
Just to complicate your decision, though, I was so impressed with my Air that I also got a 14" M3Pro MBP and it is a great computer, too. By the time you add the RAM and SSD upgrade for the Air, the Pro is getting a little too close in pricing for me for the 13" Air, but if you want the 15", I can certainly see the appeal. Sorry, I don't have any direct experience with the 15" to offer, but the fact I am still surfing on this Air even though I could be using my new M3 MBP is a testament to the Air, I believe.
Maybe people just have different expectations. I’ve never had my MBA become hot enough for me to notice anything, but once again, I’m comparing with my work Lenovo, where the screen dims after an hour or so of what most would consider light use (my work is usually email, browsing, and light Excel/Powerpoint). To the point where I can’t use it in my kitchen, where I actually like to sit and work because the environment is brighter than in my home office. The MBA has zero issue after a whole day, and is brighter to begin with.
Or... performance has become good enough that most people are fine with 3-5 year old machines. Which isn't new.
However, the m2/m3 are incrementally better, and this is how tech normally works. If you're upgrading every generation "just because" you're part of the problem mate. The m2/m3 are aimed at people with 2019 and earlier machines. Not people with M1s and M2s respectively.
I agree. MBA changes have almost always been incremental within the same design and model. These are just spec bumps. Major redesign and significant changes occur every 4-5 years. I have an M2 MBA, which I love, and I would not buy step up to the M3 from the M2.
That said; if I had an intel MBA and wanted to update, I would buy the M3 over the M2 for no other reason than it is likely to get one or two more years of MacOS updates. The retail price of the M3 is only $100 more (and you can find discounts at major retailers) than the M2....so the OS updates are worth it to me. The performance improvements and other minor changes are just a bonus.
Yes, I couldn't see a reason to buy an earlier M-version when I bought the M3 MacBook Air. Great Machine!
I we are to buy new Mac's I found it worth it to buy the most recent when I do so. Better to save up, skip something else - life is about choices in every way 😊
Yeah that makes total sense.
WHEN I upgrade, I go for the latest (i.e. the faster chip) for exactly that reason - going for older model hardware when actually buying a new machine is just short-changing yourself on hardware support.
That's totally sensible.
What isn't sensible is as above though - skipping from year X to year X+1 just because.
If you're actually held up by your machine constantly, sure - if you're making money with it and will see a real productivity gain, go for it.
But the reality is you probably won't see any major productivity boost going from year N to N+1 unless you have a very specific niche workload that is 100% CPU/GPU bound (e.g., you spend all day rendering or whatever). But most people aren't doing that.
Agree macOS bloat. I had a TiBook many many years ago that ran MacOS 10.3 pretty fast with 512 MB RAM and an HDD not to mention a G4. I mention this because it's mostly the same GUI, OS design, and applications as today. Actually I recall the GUI back then was a bit baroque compared to current MacOS.
Yet I can watch Monterey render the icon view of Applications on my MacBook Air 2020 with 16 GB RAM and an SSD that is orders of magnitude faster than that spinner HDD. Not productivity-limiting but strangely not smooth...
Meanwhile Mojave runs buttery smooth on a Mac Mini with 8GB RAM while leaving 4GB available for applications.
And while Mojave at least feels smooth, I can still see tons of opportunity for improvement in efficiency of the OS looking under the hood.
Someone needs replace all the desktops of Apple systems developers with old TiBooks and lock them in a room until they come out with a MacOS that runs well on that system again. Then Intel systems will be smooth again, M3s will feel like some sort of 0 inertia machine, and laptop battery life will be close to infinite...