M1 Macbook air - 8GB or 16GB? Which one should i buy?

[Ragnar Lothbrok]

Right now I'm using a windows computer and it has 16gigs of ram. Whenever I open task manager, I see that I'm using around 13-15GB ram on average.

 

Reason I'm confused is that the salesperson at the store tried to convince me to buy the 8GB ram model because Apple has optimized its hardware and software to use less ram. He also gave me an example of how the iphones have less ram than android phones. And I could also save about $300 if I choose not to upgrade to 16GB.

 

What do you guys recommend. Is it true what he is saying and that I should go for the 8GB model? Or should I ignore him and buy the 16GB model and futureproof the laptop?

 

Another question I had was about waiting a month to see what the new macbooks will be like. But I'm pretty sure they will be more expensive than the M1 air right now even with the 16GB upgrade.

 

Let me know your thoughts.

 

Thanks.

[RockSolid1106]

Linus did talk about this in his video. 

You should go for the 16GB model if you're going to be using the laptop for some long time.

There's no way to upgrade the memory later.

And since you state that you are already using over 13GB of your ram currently, it would be safe to say 8GB wouldn't be enough no matter how good the optimizations are.

[WereCat]

Just get the 16GB.

You can't upgrade the RAM so once 8GB becomes an issue, you have to buy a new device rather than spending a little bit more now. 

 

Anyways, it doesn't matter how well "optimised" the MacOS is. It all depends on what applications you use and how many browser tabs you like to use, etc... that has nothing to do with "optimisation"... its all just data that will occupy the RAM. 

 

If you just read/write text documents and watch YT then 8GB will be enough though. 

[appleache]

higher the better, especially if you use it for work. mac's component is non user replaceable, the "optimization" they can do is just making a virtual ram space on your ssd, which would just make stuff slower and potentially wear out the ssd more due to the rosetta transcoding occupying some ram space. apple cannot do magical optimization on 3rd party software, like chrome or adobe. the store prob just have bunch of 8gb piled up, for a good reason.

[BondiBlue]

Get 16GB now. You can't add RAM later, but you can always use external storage. 

[Roswell]

While Macs do have much better memory management via aggressive compression and having a lighter OS, 8GB is still not ideal if you plan on doing more than just web browsing and productivity.

 

The Air isn’t getting refreshed, they’re only adding new pro models so I wouldn’t bother waiting. The 14 inch base pro is rumored to be $1800 and the 16 inch should stay at $2400.

 

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/24/upcoming-macbook-pro-to-see-price-hike/

[captain_to_fire]

Many have suggested 16GB of RAM but I'd say for the most part, 8GB is enough. Unless of course you're planning to use the base M1 MBA for more than three years. The swap memory issue turns out to not be an issue at all. I would agree that macOS is indeed way less bloated than Windows 10 because it doesn't carry a lot of backwards compatibility bloat like 32-bit compatibility unlike Windows 10.

 

 

[Ragnar Lothbrok]

9 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

Many have suggested 16GB of RAM but I'd say for the most part, 8GB is enough. Unless of course you're planning to use the base M1 MBA for more than three years. The swap memory issue turns out to not be an issue at all. I would agree that macOS is indeed way less bloated than Windows 10 because it doesn't carry a lot of backwards compatibility bloat like 32-bit compatibility unlike Windows 10.

 

 

I do plan on using this macbook for at least 4-5 years. I rarely upgrade new computers

[Darkseth]

Then absolutely invest in 16gb, if you can afford it.

[BondiBlue]

1 hour ago, Ragnar Lothbrok said:

I do plan on using this macbook for at least 4-5 years. I rarely upgrade new computers

If you can afford to do so then I'd definitely get the 16GB option. If you weren't planning to keep the computer for a long time then it might be different, but 16GB is the way to go IMO. 

[Ragnar Lothbrok]

I decided to go with the 8GB version for now. and I'll upgrade it to one of the new M1x macbook pros once a couple of months goes by and I get some good CC offers where I live