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by smoldesu
962 days ago
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> Some users do need 16GB (or more), but I suspect they’re a fairly small minority. So why put it in the base model? Most users don't need 3 whole Thunderbolt ports either, why put that on there too? More RAM in the base-model Pro signals that it is a higher-end product. It raises the bar for the entire product category and makes it easier to not depreciate an entire year's worth of functional computers (you know how Apple is). It decreases the write pressure on the soldered SSD, and ensures that future MacOS releases, AI features and games don't get bottlenecked by a $15 component. It reduces the friction when casual users want to use their current Mac for more demanding workloads. It future-proofs against needing a newer machine and increases the value of said laptop secondhand. In every way, the old Macbook Pro 14" pricing model was a more sustainable, attractive and user-friendly. This spec drop is a sad excuse to direct would-be 13" owners to a more expensive alternative. > I’m puzzled by the idea that there’s something inherently bad about swapping. If you're doing it to non-replaceable flash storage, then yeah there is something inherently wrong about relying on swap. |
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At a guess, because varying the number of physical ports between models complicates production more than varying which RAM chips are soldered to the board. (Apple has generally shunned having physically identical USB-C ports with differing capabilities.)
>If you're doing it to non-replaceable flash storage, then yeah there is something inherently wrong about relying on swap.
All modern multitasking desktop OSes rely on swap and have since the mid 90s.
SSD lifetime concerns are way overblown in my opinion. The first MacBooks with soldered SSDs came out in 2016. I'm sure there are individual instances of SSDs failing, but the much-heralded SSD lifetime apocalypse seems not to have materialised.
What you really want with an SSD isn't the theoretical highly-conservative estimate of its lifetime write limit, but the probability that it is going to be the thing that fails on your laptop after n years, in comparison to all the other things that could fail. My guess is that by the time the SSD has a significant probability of failing (which is going to take many years, even with heavy usage), then many other components are going to have a higher probability of failing.