Macbook M1 Choice

[feisi200]

Hello  i am gonna need to buy Macbook as a Xamarin developer that needs also way to develop for iOS. 

I am still choosing between Macbook Air M1 and Macbook Pro M1 (Probably gonna end up buying the Pro because of the better lasting battery). 

But my main question is about RAM. 

Does the 8GB vs 16GB makes a big difference ? I am using my windows pc with 16GB ram and my laptop with 12 GB. Should i opt for 16GB or will the 8GB do the job ?

Thanks for advices.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, feisi200 said:

Hello  i am gonna need to buy Macbook as a Xamarin developer that needs also way to develop for iOS. 

I am still choosing between Macbook Air M1 and Macbook Pro M1 (Probably gonna end up buying the Pro because of the better lasting battery). 

But my main question is about RAM. 

Does the 8GB vs 16GB makes a big difference ? I am using my windows pc with 16GB ram and my laptop with 12 GB. Should i opt for 16GB or will the 8GB do the job ?

Thanks for advices.

You would likely be fine with 8GB, but how much more expensive is 16GB?

[Sauron]

6 minutes ago, feisi200 said:

Does the 8GB vs 16GB makes a big difference ?

Yes, macOS is a memory hog and xcode with the emulator use their fair share of ram. Plus you can't upgrade it in the future because Apple, so it may be best to go for the safe option.

[feisi200]

6 minutes ago, Cool_Evlo said:

You would likely be fine with 8GB, but how much more expensive is 16GB?

Probably like 300$ If it would be way better i would probably go with it, but if not i would rather keep those money.

[feisi200]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Yes, macOS is a memory hog and xcode with the emulator use their fair share of ram. Plus you can't upgrade it in the future because Apple, so it may be best to go for the safe option.

Okay thank you for for advice i will see if i can found a little bit used mb pro for cheaper, because new m1 mb pro with 16GB / 256 ssd costs 2050$. Alternatively i might buy new m1 mb air with 16GB 256 ssd summaring for 1650$ which saves me a whoping 400$ (not bad for such a small differences)

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, feisi200 said:

Alternatively i might buy new m1 mb air with 16GB 256 ssd summaring for 1650$ which saves me a whoping 400$ (not bad for such a small differences)

Do you need it to be a laptop? the mac mini is cheaper

[igormp]

23 minutes ago, feisi200 said:

Does the 8GB vs 16GB makes a big difference ? I am using my windows pc with 16GB ram and my laptop with 12 GB. Should i opt for 16GB or will the 8GB do the job ?

If you're going to be using many emulators and xcode at once, then yes, having 16gb will make a difference. 8gb is fine if you have tons of small things that can be easily swapped in and out, but you'll feel things slowing down with your use case.

[feisi200]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Do you need it to be a laptop? the mac mini is cheaper

Yeah i do. I already have powerfull windows pc, but i am often somewhere else than home.

If it is a work meeting. School or anything else. Thats why i want my work machine to be portable, because i need it to be able to work from anywhere when i'l need it.

[ProjectBox153]

Get 16GB of RAM. More RAM doesn't hurt, and macOS can take advantage of it. 

[feisi200]

2 minutes ago, igormp said:

If you're going to be using many emulators and xcode at once, then yes, having 16gb will make a difference. 8gb is fine if you have tons of small things that can be easily swapped in and out, but you'll feel things slowing down with your use case.

Well i am using currently Visual Studio and i hope i will continue using it on new mac. 

[feisi200]

1 minute ago, ProjectBox153 said:

Get 16GB of RAM. More RAM doesn't hurt, and macOS can take advantage of it. 

yeah, it will hurt my wallet a lot more xD, but i guess it will be a better option. Do u think M1 Air with 16GB can easily handle the app development using Xamarin ? 

[igormp]

4 hours ago, feisi200 said:

Well i am using currently Visual Studio and i hope i will continue using it on new mac. 

Keep in mind that Visual Studio support isn't 100% there yet: https://developercommunity2.visualstudio.com/t/Visual-Studio-for-Mac-plans-for-Apple-M1/1288531

Docker also has some issues, but I'm not sure if you use containers in your workflow.

4 hours ago, feisi200 said:

yeah, it will hurt my wallet a lot more xD, but i guess it will be a better option. Do u think M1 Air with 16GB can easily handle the app development using Xamarin ? 

The biggest difference from the Air and Pro is the battery life tbh, you won't feel any difference performance-wise.

[ProjectBox153]

3 minutes ago, igormp said:

The biggest difference from the Air and Pro is the battery life tbh, you won't feel any difference performance-wise.

I'd argue that cooling would also be a major difference, just like the larger battery. The Pro has a fan to keep the M1 cool during longer workloads, so that could be a bonus. 

[feisi200]

4 hours ago, ProjectBox153 said:

I'd argue that cooling would also be a major difference, just like the larger battery. The Pro has a fan to keep the M1 cool during longer workloads, so that could be a bonus. 

Well i am a Developer and not a Video editor or something like that. So i think those spikes with small bottlenecks when doing something intensive for longer period of time will be enough and will save me 400$ (when already paying a whoping ton of money)

[ProjectBox153]

1 hour ago, feisi200 said:

Well i am a Developer and not a Video editor or something like that. So i think those spikes with small bottlenecks when doing something intensive for longer period of time will be enough and will save me 400$ (when already paying a whoping ton of money)

What about the battery life though? I've heard some things about the MBP battery being a lot better than the Air. 

[feisi200]

Just now, ProjectBox153 said:

What about the battery life though? I've heard some things about the MBP battery being a lot better than the Air. 

Yeah that is true not gonna deny that. But still in real usage... 13 hours is more than enough.. My current laptop has about 6 hours battery and i am considering it good. So anything over 10 hours is more than enough for me.

[AzzaNezz]

More ram is always better,but losing 300$ now on bigger upgrade will save you a lot of frustration down the line.

Find some iOS developer forum and ask the same question there to be sure.
 

[feisi200]

12 hours ago, AzzaNezz said:

More ram is always better,but losing 300$ now on bigger upgrade will save you a lot of frustration down the line.

Find some iOS developer forum and ask the same question there to be sure.
 

I have a friend that uses macbook for ios development and he uses around 12GB when having is 16GB (intel version though)

[AzzaNezz]

40 minutes ago, feisi200 said:

I have a friend that uses macbook for ios development and he uses around 12GB when having is 16GB (intel version though)

My buddy make apps for ios,and he has work laptop with 32 gbs,he said that he is at about 16-18gb of ram.(what exactly he usses and how idk).

[riklaunim]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:48 PM, feisi200 said:

Should i opt for 16GB or will the 8GB do the job ?

8GB can just be "quick obsolescence" when you will need more - as you can't add more on your own. And 8GB is pretty low for any serious development.

 

You may also wait for 2021 models with newer chip or pick one of previous Intel models with less RAM/storage restrictions.

[Franck]

16 hours ago, riklaunim said:

8GB is pretty low for any serious development.

Unless you are pretty hacky for 32 bit development you cannot assign more than 2 gb so 8 gb is WAY more than enough even for serious development.

[riklaunim]

1 hour ago, Franck said:

Unless you are pretty hacky for 32 bit development you cannot assign more than 2 gb so 8 gb is WAY more than enough even for serious development.

OS + IDE + building the app from time to time + launching iOS emulator + browser + whatever else. So no, not really. And if someone is doing some bigger web development with like Kubernetes/Docker then the requirement for storage and RAM can rise a lot. I'm using 32GB RAM and average 1TB NVMe SSD to keep those happy.

[Franck]

32 minutes ago, riklaunim said:

OS + IDE + building the app from time to time + launching iOS emulator + browser + whatever else. So no, not really. And if someone is doing some bigger web development with like Kubernetes/Docker then the requirement for storage and RAM can rise a lot. I'm using 32GB RAM and average 1TB NVMe SSD to keep those happy.

he's using mac for building on mac, he has no need for emulator. The OS run at about 900mb to 1.2 gb. My IDE is heavy at around 650mb right now. he would still be left with 6gb to fill to my needs.

 

If you need 32 gb for development and it's not for Machine learning or large CAD heavy app you are very badly optimized. And that is not a "serious development case".

[riklaunim]

1 hour ago, Franck said:

If you need 32 gb for development and it's not for Machine learning or large CAD heavy app you are very badly optimized. And that is not a "serious development case".

Did you ever used microservices? For a large service scaled on Google Cloud? It's not a single app, but mutliple independent services thus high storage and RAM usage.

1 hour ago, Franck said:

he's using mac for building on mac, he has no need for emulator. The OS run at about 900mb to 1.2 gb. My IDE is heavy at around 650mb right now. he would still be left with 6gb to fill to my needs.

iOS has an "emulator" in XCode. If you really want to fit in 8GB then fine, but you can't add RAM to M1 Mac. The moment you will need more you will have a problem and I assume Macbooks are bought to be used more than a year or two. So if the OP isn't on super tight budget and isn't intending this purchase to be temporary then I would recommend 16GB and good amount of storage.