[dangus]

So what you're saying is that the same 8GB of RAM that MacBook Air M1 had 6 years ago is a good idea for a brand new laptop?

Like I said, the MacBook Neo is squarely a low-end device. Make excuses all you want, it trades RAM, storage, keyboard backlight, and battery size for a nice chassis and portability.

[carlosjobim]

Yes, it's an excellent idea. For normal people a computer is a tool to get things done, and any 8GB Apple Silicon machine will serve them very well.

Think about it this way: If you loose 5 days of productivity then you have lost $500. A Windows or Linux machine is guaranteed to cause many more days than that of productivity loss per year.

And with "normal people" I mean everybody who is not a developer or hacker, including millions and millions of people who work professionally with computers.

The RAM doesn't matter as much as people here insist. What do I care that my computer has half the RAM, when it completes any and every task blazingly fast and never freezes up or crashes? RAM turns into an abstract.

Look at it this way: You're arguing that a diesel truck is always better than a motorcycle because it has more horsepowers. Okay, but the motorcycle gets me where I want twice as fast and is more comfortable, and doesn't break down all the time. That's what I care about.

[dangus]

I don’t understand why there’s a strange assumption that Windows or Linux users are just burning productivity all the time and macOS users are the only ones where “everything just works.” Heck leave Linux out of it for all I care: Windows isn’t some kind of immature OS that that requires tons of fiddling. It’s basically the same thing as macOS when it comes down to non-technical users. They open up the windows store or Mac app Store click a button and get their apps and they’re on their way.

It’s just a biased take that is 100% subjective.

I think this narrative comes from the Windows XP user experience from 30 years ago that no longer exists.

Yeah, the RAM fucking matters because Google Chrome has 90% browser marketshare, because Spotify is the market leader, not Apple Music, because more people use Microsoft Outlook than Apple Mail, more people use Slack than…well, Apple doesn’t have a workplace chat program. These are big memory-sucking apps.

8GB of RAM is great for Apple native optimized apps but regular users run many more things than that.

[carlosjobim]

Linux is too complicated for a normal person to use productively, and it doesn't have the productivity software needed by non-hackers.

Windows: Yes, the user experience is that bad. My observations of Windows users is that it's hard for them to get things done effectively because of the faults of the system. Talking about non-hacker people, who might be very proficient in photo editing or spreadsheets or word processing.

Just booting a Windows machine is a chore. These have the same specs or better specs than Macs, but how come you can instantly use a Mac by opening the lid, and Windows PCs take their merry minutes to be ready?

I won't even mention malware and such.

For a normal, non-technical person, there isn't any problem in using stock Mac Mail, Safari, and native productivity tools. And honestly, those memory hogs you mention aren't a problem either on Apple silicon. It's still faster to use than on a PC with double the RAM.

[dangus]

Can you go into more specific details about these observations you made? Which people were they?

Do you have any benchmarks that show this “faster than a PC with double the RAM” claim?

Because when I saw real world tests on the Neo versus the Acer Aspire AI 14, the Acer machine was faster at video playback in Adobe Premiere (as an example) due to the lack of memory pressure.

I can tell you at work we have a mixed environment and the Windows users and Mac users don’t seem to have any difference in difficulty doing things like showing their work in presentations. Our company metrics show zero difference in employee productivity based on what operating system they use (I’m a manager and can see these things).

[carlosjobim]

Well, just about everyone I know who uses Windows machines. The most common problem is that the laptop starts downloading and installing Windows updates as soon as it boots up. This hogs all of the CPU and all of the internet bandwidth. And there's no way for non-technical users to understand what's going on. They just say "Well, my computer is slow because it's old. Better go and buy a new one soon, what has the most RAM per dollar spent?" Because their techie friends told them that this is the only thing which matters on a computer.

Or there's a ton of pop-ups of every kind when they're using the machine. Most people just click the biggest button on any popup appearing, without even looking at what it says.

And these are people who work professionally with their computers, but they're not sysadmins or operating system experts.

I don't doubt what you say about Adobe Premiere playback speed. That might be an exception where more RAM does actually matter. But that's hardly a reason to dismiss the 8GB Macbooks. They are great for most users and most professional users.