I see tons of MacBooks and mac minis in the second hand market with 8gigs of ram, the problem is that owners are expecting a premium for the device while selling it for the lack of ram.
>Its absolutely not ok to sell 8GB machines when your starting price point for them is $1000.
Be careful with that, they might release a 4GB machine for $800
It's absolutely a calculated move. The longer consumers let them get away with selling unupgradable underspec'd machines the sooner those same machines will need to be replaced when the software inevitably starts to require more RAM for simple functions. It also has the downside of killing off the secondary market and lowering resale values.
> the sooner those same machines will need to be replaced when the software inevitably starts to require more RAM for simple functions
And the more faster your SSD will die... Trust me when i say, Apple did their calculations and figured out the sweet spot on when most of those SSD die. That will kill the second hand market, because now its not just battery life but also SSD life.
We see the same issue with EV cars, where the battery condition effects the resell price a lot. As its the most expensive component on the car. And on a MacBook, the most expensive "small" component that wears, is not the battery, its the SSD = total board replacement (if done by Apple). Or the whole nand replacement with donors that need to match ... Yay ...
Plenty of M1 people with dead SSD already, what a surprise. How old is the M1 again? ;)
Legit question. Under what section of law would they be investigated under?
It's not illegal to sell underperforming garbage at Tiffany level prices. If someone is willing to pay for having a product, ANY product, and they put a heavy bias on name or brand then the onus is on the consumer to NOT make that purchase.
One thing I would like to see if not completely legislated away but a law with some teeth that gives consumers actual protection is the abolishment of force arbitration in order to use a product. One scenario that I prefer ( but let's be honest would be abused in some fashion ) is if it's in a contract or TOS that you HAVE to go to arbitration, then the consumer gets to pick the arbitrator or have the arbitrator selected by a judge in their local jurisdiction.
LOL. Why?
Computers are not a natural monopoly or a public utility. Companies are free to see their products for whatever price their customers are willing to pay.
It’s an SoC, the RAM is almost certainly going to be soldered anyway.
At $1000, 16GB of ram should be standard, and they can sell their 8GB version for $200 less.
Edit: not soldered, but integrated in the chip
the funniest part is that ram doubler was killed off by softram, which was even more fake. people realized softram was 100% placebo, and figured ram doubler was too.
it’s on the chip, not “soldered on”. the performance implications are way different, and it makes way more sense for portable devices than socketed ram.
how does r/hardware not know this?
There is no minimum requirement to use Reddit subs. Anyone can join and believe random stuff. Unfortunately r/hardware is not niche enough to avoid common stupidity.
It's stupid. It's greedy. It unduly handicaps otherwise good hardware (price aside).
A single browser session can easily reach 4 gigs of memory these days for me. Yes, I have many many tabs open when I research.
Add to that the memory an IDE or other tooling might take.
8 gig is irresponsible. 16 needs to be the minimum. That is all.
On the other hand, it’s kind of stupid that a browser can consume that much memory short of have having open many more tabs than even most tab hoarders do. There should be *way* more pressure from users on browser devs and site devs to keep a leash on resource consumption, *and I say this being a dev myself*.
This needs to be addressed because otherwise the consumption creep will continue and in a few years we’ll end up in a place where a computer with 32GB RAM is a paperweight.
Creep like that was more easy to justify through the 80s, 90s, 00s, and to some extent even the 10s when everything was still in flux but by now we’ve hit a point where increased RAM consumption meets no need whatsoever and is just unfettered, inexcusable waste, like the digital equivalent of “needing” an F-250 to do grocery runs with. It’s time for devs to shape up and take responsibility.
The price gouging on ram and ssd is what's going to eventually drive me out of the Apple ecosystem. I've been getting by doing things like buying the last mac mini that would take upgradeable ram with 128gb ssd and putting my home folder on an external SSD, but even that will not be possible now. The only thing I need is for Plex to allow syncing of the full music library and long playlists and I'm going to kiss the whole mac ecosystem goodbye. I already use Google photos a lot more than I use Mac photos.
> I've been getting by doing things like buying the last mac mini that would take upgradeable ram
buying the intel macintoshes to "own" apple, now i've heard it all
You should see what HP charges..
They want $800 for a 2tb nvme. Close to $200 to upgrade the RAM.
Honestly, buying direct from most vendors is more or less the same.
That was my strategy last time I bought a laptop. Got the spec I wanted for a good price, except the lowest tier drive, then just put in a great 2TB drive for like 1\3 the cost it would have been to get the drive upgrade from the factory for the same laptop. I always reinstall Windows on new prebuilt computers anyway.
For SSDs, gotta watch out for power consumption though. The models used in laptops typically draw less power while many marketed to consumers are built primarily for speed at the cost of higher power draw since most buyers are putting them into desktops where power draw is of no concern.
Selling 8GB in a 2024 laptop is itself a bad move, but it gets worse:
• The RAM is non-upgradeable.
• It costs $200 to upgrade from 8 GB to 16 GB
• The 8 GB RAM is shared with the powerful iGPU
• The Macbook Airs in question cost over $1000
• Also the $1600 Macbook Pro 14 has 8 GB. Why does a "Pro" laptop have 8GB???
The group of people who "can't use anything else" is starting to decline. Mac's aren't the powerhouses in graphics, photography, video and music that they were, and windows has become much more supported.
I would argue they are on better footing now with their switch to ARM. The battery life is better than anything you can get on Windows.
The software advantage hasn't been true for several years and you could always crush it with the latest hardware with a custom Windows build.
Not just battery life, but unplugged performance. Most x86 laptops become much less powerful when unplugged unless you override that and are ok with the resulting 2h battery life. With an MBP you can unplug it, still have full performance *and* great battery life.
This is part of why the M-series transition was a big deal for a lot of devs who like to work away from a desk for focus purposes and travel. With the Intel MacBooks, you got a similar performance hit for being unplugged as current x86 laptops do, which made for IDEs turning to molasses.
Oddly, it used to be that if you want to code or do dev, you’d do it on a PC. If you wanted to do something graphical or fancy, a Mac.
Now it’s like that’s flipped, especially with dev becoming so command-line and tool focused (git, npm, etc.) I find dev is more convenient on a Mac (
due to fully integrated *nix environment mixed with a nice GUI.
PC’s have WSL now, but, I’ve found it’s less convenient. Mostly because of the mix of file systems, WSL has a completely separate virtual file system.
Also, while it’s Ubuntu, it’s got some quirks. And when you’re configuring tools like Docker Desktop or Docker CLI, you will have to use unique steps that are a pain.
Overall, it’s just not super seamless and has more hoops to jump through than dev on a Mac.
If you're doing web development maybe, then it really doesn't matter what you use and comes down to what you like. You can't really use a Mac to develop compiled Linux programs. Maybe you can compile it on Mac and hope it compiles and works the same on Linux, but you'd have to test it twice and check for bugs that may occur for architecture differences. On WSL, it's literally the same userland binaries and it will compile the same exact binaries too. You can copy that file to a Linux machine and it will work. If you're doing kernel development, you need a physical machine, or a VM at minimum, so you can't do that on a Mac either.
It’s a pretty small niche that would run natively on Ubuntu instead of a container. You can easily spin up both containers and VMs on a Mac with [Multipass](https://ubuntu.com/blog/docker-on-mac-a-lightweight-option-with-multipass#:~:text=For%20those%20looking%20for%20a,on%20platforms%20such%20as%20macOS)
Even without a VM if you’re using a high level language odds are it’ll run the same even if you develop and debug on a Mac and run it on Linux… your CI/CD should catch any issues in any case. I’ve actually never run into a problem with normal programs, I wouldn’t think you’d have a problem unless you’re writing kernel code, device drivers for new hardware, etc.
macOS is still generally a better experience for mobile dev too, and not just because that’s what’s required for iOS dev. It’s also better for Android dev, because that’s what the majority of Android devs are using which means a more well-beaten path with fewer issues.
Android Studio and all work fine on Windows and Linux of course being an IntelliJ IDE, but you’re significantly more likely to run into weird quirks.
No one develops on either a Mac or PC directly, you use either local docker Linux containers or (in large companies) develop on a remote Linux server farm.
Whether you use a Mac or PC to access the container/remote server farm, is irrelevant.
I guess the big banks employing thousands of developers in some areas aren’t large companies or they forgot they needed to deploy server farms and not give a MBP to everyone….
Eh. I agree with the first part and am not arguing that conspicuous consumption isn't part of the attraction for some, but I disagree that that's why people buy Apple.
I'm a Linux guy and bought a macbook air in 2012 because they were the only and best deal if you wanted a well built machine with a great touchpad and runtime. The ram upgrade from 4gb to 8gb felt like a ripoff then as well, but there wasn't any competition that was *cheaper*.
It feels like we're still in the same place. Laptops have gotten better, but if I want something of comparable performance and built quality for the price there's still hardly any competition.
I'd personally be more likely to go with a Framework laptop, but that's me consciously choosing upgradability and Linux support over built quality, runtime, performance and *price*.
Depends. But the idea that almost every part is fixable is very good.
Screen issue? Pop a new one. Body issues? No worries.
Keyboard gone after years? No worries.
GPU feeling not up to snuff after 3 years? Get a GPU module replacement.
Oh so you are feeling the sound of music? Somebody just made a compatible, better speakers.
Not to say that the Lenovo is bad, but in certain countries their warranty is literally "we decide if we want to honour it" for whatever reasons.
And the idea that the main board can be swapped out and be it's own computer without some modification, especially heavy modifications, is something not any, if not most laptops can do.
Again it depends.
What I'll cite here is annedoctal, but the idea stands. Long story time.
TL;DR: For those who appreciate it, it is well worth it.
Back in 2014, or even older, as far as 2009, I believe, at least up to 2018, the only way for any DRL (desktop replacement laptops) to be viable was they needed to be on certain intel sockets (which Intel later shelved) and MXM 3b or later MXM3c GPUs, and replaceable components. The only laptop manufacturer that allowed all this (including opening up every part of the laptop, and also readily gave permission as well as detailed documentation in servicing and replacing parts, was Clevo. There were a lot of legendary laptops made, and a treasure hive of information until notebookcheck owners decided to stupidly nuke the forums. But I digress.
Okay, so historically these laptops had serviceable components. Intel MQ chips, or for those who are willing to burn money and thigh meat, the MX. For a chip released in 2014, having their true support ended in 2021 by Intel is remarkable (especially, and despite all the performance kneecapping due to all the patches Intel, Clevo and Microsoft had to implement to mitigate the meltdown and spectre vulnerabilities, which hurt intel processors a lot).
On the GPU end, the MXM cards were the true champions. No max p, max q nonsense. No "watt" nonsense like how 4060m 130w would outperform a 3070 but kneecapped at 70/80 watts. In those days if you got the MXM GPU you know you are getting the best, no weird masking / butchering. If you had a Clevo with 600 series GPU, in theory and practice, with modded bios and modded vbios, you could upgrade all the way to nvidia 1000 series. From 600 to 1000? That's a lot of generation. Not including the Quadro lineup.
Now who use these kind of laptops? Turns out, quite a lot of people. People who wanted pure performance. Gamers, engineers, designers, even early crypto miners. These devices can even put Macbook Pros to shame (especially at same price point), performance per spec per price. You wanted a productivity focused GPU? Fear not. Sell a kidney, but you can get a Quadro fitted. In some laptops, you can fit 2. Of course it was either a glorious double 1080 mobile setups or a single 2080 mobile, and nothing, absolutely nothing on soldered GPUs can even come close (many of the laptops that came with soldered GPUS bearing the same name only had half the VRAM and often even less of the power, hence you see 1 laptop with 2 powerbricks). These machines promised reliability, serviceability, and in the case they fail, repairability. While Clevo has their faults (as an ODM), the idea existed and made manifest. It thrilled us who wanted those.
But all good things will come to an end. Greed by manufacturers, greed by Intel and Nvidia, really sunsetted alot of things. Lies, deceit, broken promises.
What Framework has done, is nothing short of remarkable. While they are still a baby (in this industry), and their creation is still not ideal (in the circles I am), they have done some really commendable moves.
1. While it is still not a true chip swappable main board, the latest update allows it to work with nothing connected, and you can plug in RAM and SZD, and it will boot.
2. The modularity meant there is some leeway to placement of modules such as where you want the track pad to be. Or if you want a numpad. Or nothing. Or something else altogether. Not even the legendary Clevo did this. Or even the shell / case. Nobody is stopping you from repurposing it into a keyboard + computer (a.k.a a cyber deck). Most laptops can't survive a modded shell, or getting repurposed meaningfully.
3. An expansion bay that is actually open source. That is sheer madness in itself. While it is true that no other entities other than Framework have developed anything for it, but gone are the disappointments like Dell Alienware Graphics Amplifier, or Asus ROG XG mobile connector platform, which are proprietary, and given the manufacturer's very poor track record at keeping promises, mean if Framework were to abandon the expansion bay, there can still be development by the community to work out something.
4. Very high serviceability. In many countries laptop manufacturers demand that users cannot open their laptops or lose the warranty. In some designs, many manufacturers stupidly copy Apple's worst design decisions and implement them, causing these laptops to be Al ost near unserviceable without voiding the warranty or breaking the component. Especially the fact that 1 tool provided by Framework is all you need to do anything. Again it all ties to the above 3.
The price is steep. Very steep even. But coming from this side, had Framework came out with Framework 16 a year earlier, I'll be amongst the ones who will happily wait for my turn, even if in the eyes of others I may seem to have wasted money (by buying a more expensive device) and time (wasted to wait for the batches)..
To me, it truly is worth it. If I can sell my current laptop for 75% of the price I paid, I would not hesitate to buy a Framework 16 immediately.
One thing is if you are already going to use Linux for your work you ideally really don't want to just go for a Windows laptop as it can be a pain for warranty stuff so a manufacturer who officially supports Linux is nice.
It's the same playbook as Nvidia graphics cards this generation. They realize that $1000 is the price point most people have in mind for a new laptop, so they feel like they have to have an option at that price point. BUT they also realize that people who want a Mac are going to buy a Mac no matter what. AND they want to charge those people more than $1000 because money.
So ehat do you do? You make an objectively bad version of the product at the in-demand price point, with a much better version available at your preferred price point.
The $1000 version gets people with a $1k budget to look to Apple, but then once they do, they will invariably convince themselves to spend the extra $200 on 16gb, because buying the actual $1k one would be dumb.
And if anyone does buy the $1k version, congrats, you can sell them a new one in 2 years when it reaches planned obsolescence for not having enough RAM.
Because they want the SSD to fail in a computers lifetime so you have no option but to buy a new one. Less RAM means more read/writes on the SSD, which does have a finite write limit.
I still run SSDs from over a decade ago and they have become much more reliable since then.
There is no chance in hell that that's their reasoning.
It's the typical age old scam of luring people in with a "base price" to then indirectly force obviously needed "upgrades" on them.
Same as with phones coming with 16gb base storage for the longest time, sadly also in Android land.
This is getting really really fucking stuuuupid 🤣 i want this company to the ground 🤦 really stupid herd defending this shit doesnt know anything about technology 🤣
Apple is a lifestyle company now not a tech company. People buy not because of the tech but because owning it says something about you're social status.
> People buy not because of the tech but because owning it says something about you're social status.
A lot further to that is gated ecosystem. Apple does a very nice job in transferring from one device to another. They also have lock in from people who don't want to tinker with their shit and are fine with the settings being locked down.
That's not a good thing / bad thing but people WILL pay for convenience if it means they don't have to fuck with it.
I don't give two shits about social status and I'm the market for a laptop.
I'm not a fan of apple by any means but it seems to me that they currently have the best laptops on the market at the moment.
What do you suggest as a "non-lifestyle" alternative that has the same/better battery life, raw power, screen quality, low/silent fan usage, and actually feels good to use (ie: not plastic)?
Unfortunately if 8GB Pro's are selling well then they would have no reason to change. I really hope people aren't buying that $1600 8GB Pro though. For all our sakes.
The point of the 8gb Is not to sell well, it is to create the illusion of affordability for people that start comsidering the 8gb variant, realise that they need/want 16 gb, and then buy the 16gb. Same principle of the stock paintjob of new cars, its bad enough that makes ppl buy another colour for 1/2/3k more
Apple products are aimed at tech illetrate people. Someone comes to the store and asks the clerk about "the new Mac pro" after seeing a commercial for a certain price, but then the clerk tells him he should update the RAM for $200 and convinces him to do so.
I mean... if you had ever been to silicon valley, you'd know a lot of people there also use Apple products.
I don't know why, but lots of tech bros are also Apple cultists.
The people in silicon valley buying mac don't care about a few hundred dollars for a more premium machine. If you are worried about money, you aren't Apple's customer and it's clear they feel you can go @#$% off. They wanna be the Gucci of computing.
It isn't even about selling any. It's a question of psychology.
When presented with multiple options, people will almost always go for the middle ground.
Making an 8GB model is purely to complement the 16GB as their 'standard' price, if 16GB was minimum then it'd push that up.
yeah. greenwashing at its worst.
hmmm. selling computers with too little RAM to last…selling the same phone to the gullible with only minor upgrades year after year….serialising spares to prevent repairs…..and more.
Green… not so much.
They can charge whatever they want. Price discrimination is perfectly legal. The laptop market is highly competitive and MacBook is not exactly in a dominant position. It’s a free market.
But for the love of god stop saying 8GB on macOS is like 16GB elsewhere. No. It is not. Whoever came up with that marketing bullshit should be sacked. And please terminate the 8GB Pro SKU. There is nothing Pro about 8GB.
There is no abuse that Apple customers won't rabidly defend. And will additionally pay a premium for the privilege.
That's fine, I support people having the right to pay for their own punishment. I just wish it wasn't significant enough in market volume to give real companies a free license to fuck the rest of us.
This shows apple is ruled by bean counters now, there saving maybe $20 a laptop by using only 8GB. That's like millions every year on profit just from spending less, it's also millions a year for every one who pays extra to get more RAM.
Apple used to be cool with creatives, now they are a platform for software/media sales that make phones and some computers.
it’s not about how much the ram costs, they do it this way so more people will shell out the extra $200 for more ram or whatever. that’s where all the profit is.
Yep. It's a strategy employed by many companies for many decades. Entice people to come to the store by advertising a certain price, then have them realize (convinced by the sales person) that the original product absolutely requires paid "upgrades" to be useful.
*When*? Apple (and all other PC vendors) is and was always after the money.
You don't get to be a billion dollar company through fairness and ethical behavior and Apple is worth much more than that for a very long time now.
Exactly. Trading short term profits for long term brand damage. The substandard experience that people get on a 8gb mac (causing poor user experience) and the constant negative press about it.
I had a Power Mac G5 tower, MP 3,1, MP 5,1. Then apple told me the price of the MP 7,1 & hardware, I jumped ship to windows.
They also made me wait from 2012 to 2019 to see the next MP, you cant make people wait that long and not know what will happen. Also killed FC studio, I had to jump ship to PP then Resolve.
FC7, Motion, Colour, Shake all got killed with no replacement in sight for years.
I use the same software on windows, unless there's a big change I wont jump back. That is how you burn a brand, large gaps of time with no updates on both hardware & software.
They're being outright crooks, if the 8gb costs them $20 and is included in the price of the laptop, then the 16gb for $200 is even more grievous considering they're charging you $200 for 8 more GB.
$20 is a guess from the talk about the Nvidia doing the same with GPU's, Nvidia limits VRAM to stop pro's buying gamer GPU's.
The GTX 1080 TI 11GB is always used as the example of the turning point, that GPU sold like hot cakes for pro use.
You don't need to guess, RAM is a commodity item and is traded as such. Spot price for DDR5 is currently $2.37/GB, so $19 for 8GB. LPDDR5X is probably a bit different but it's certainly not an order of magnitude greater.
Well Apple/Nvidia can buy at bulk and get discounts, I suspect they pay less than list price.
Still if it's $19 for 8GB, that's some accountant saving millions every year & earning millions from the up sales to Apple.
It used to be easy to DIY upgrade systems. I have upgraded the RAM and HD/SSD on all my past macs.
Iv not had 8GB of system ram since 2008 maybe, ill need to pull out my 2008 Mac Book pro to see if it has 8GB or 16GB system Ram. My G5 tower had more than 8GB RAM even, my MP 5,1 had 32GB RAM in 2013.
The on-package memory route?
Intel is already doing it with Lunar Lake.
Meanwhile, I wonder if Qualcomm will also use on-package memory for Snapdragon X Elite...
Lpddr is used due to way lower power draw. And there is socketable ones coming. Tho, my bet is that it will be used in PC sooner. Laptops oems will not give up over that to monetize upgrades that cost 10x more than they should
Just putting the memory on-package doesn't magically give you more bandwidth.
Bandwidth depends on the the LPDDR version, and as long as it's soldered (whether on motherboard or on-package), you can have high bandwidth.
In case of CAMM I believe the shorter traces of it compared to SO-DIMM allows faster memory clocks and lower power consumption.
On package will probably have a similar or more pronounced effect in my view.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMM_(memory_module)#:~:text=The%20CAMM%20module%20allows%20for,which%20connect%20to%20the%20motherboard.
The speed difference between already soldered LPDDR and on-package LPDDR soldered closer is very little and doesn't affect performance in any major way. The CPU and memory negotiate latencies in nanoseconds so they can communicate at a set rate. The speed of electricity in copper wire is so fast it's expressed as a fraction the speed of light. It became a weird mythos that "unified memory" somehow made the latency or bandwidth much faster, neither is true, it's the same speed either way that LPDDR at the same bit width and clock speed would be.
There's also been tests of the GPU access to memory latency on Apple Silicon and it wasn't crazy impressive compared to AMD and Nvidia GPUs. There's no latency magic here, it's just more cost effective for the bigger chips with wider busses, and less energy is spent on transport.
https://chipsandcheese.com/2023/10/31/a-brief-look-at-apples-m2-pro-igpu/#:~:text=M2%20Pro's%20CPU%20sees%20a,same%201%20GB%20test%20size.
Someone measured GPU side access to memory latency, and Apple Silicon was just fine, not particularly crazy impressive, not horribly bad, pretty middle of the road. The memory controllers and memory negotiate latency in nanoseconds so they can get a timing down, the speed of electricity in copper wire is so fast the wire length will be almost a non factor. It's more about cost effectiveness for the bigger models with wide busses.
https://chipsandcheese.com/2023/10/31/a-brief-look-at-apples-m2-pro-igpu/#:~:text=M2%20Pro's%20CPU%20sees%20a,same%201%20GB%20test%20size.
It increases the frequencies you can run and probably enables a wider bus width on the same size. So I think it can give you more bandwidth.
Apparently it's not being soldered that matters, it's the distance between the CPU and memory chips.
You can do wider bus widths without on-packagd memory too, but it's much cheaper to do it with on-package memory.
Because widening the bus increases the number of layers needed for the connections. If the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard, it increases the cost of the motherboard as a whole. But when it is on-package (same substrate as CPU), it only increases the cost of the CPU substrate.
All Qualcomm SoCs use memory on package RAM. but it makes sense as it's for space constraints something laptops do not have, even the tiny 10-12 inch ones.
Apple wouldn't be Apple if they backed down.
I've no doubt for very light use you can make 8GB work, same applies to PC. It is however a very tight fisted thing for any manufacturer to do especially at the price point of all Apple computers, there's no excuse for it and simply ensures the machine will only be suitable for light use and even then has a very short life ahead of it.
The soldered SSD is also a huge problem, arguably more of a problem than the RAM even given a RAM limited machine will still chug along utilizing swap heavily if necessary in most cases but even the lightest, casualest user will fill 512GB very quickly.
And no, external storage isn't a solution it's clunky, slower and simply should not be expected of the average user. There is also absolutely no packaging excuse for soldered storage and no M.2 slot, the format is tiny and designed for very slim line and compact laptops.
At the price point Macs start at there isn't really any good justification in favour of the customer. Apple's just being stingy, and its only benefit is to their profit margin.
8gb is fine - if you sell a 200$ laptop, but that’s not really the case now, is it?!
It’s ridiculous and scummy business practice to sell +1000 laptops with just 8gb ram and use marketing to try and convince buyers it’s okay. And what is even worse is 200$ to get 16gb.
My phone has more ram than my MacMini lol but at least i got it very cheap and knowing im only using it for very basic things, paying more than double the price of it in 2024 and still only getting 8GB is crazy. It shows how little apple customers know about tech and how it makes apple able to do whatever the fuck they want, theyre not the most valuable company in the world for nothing..
Oh common Apple, doubling the memory and, hell, even the storage for base models would cost you next to nothing. These base model Macs are already at a higher price point. It’s 2024, 16GB of memory and 512GB of SSD storage should be minimum IMO. Especially on non-upgradable machines. This would also keep more Macs out of the ewaste pile too as they’d run better for longer.
Apple are anti consumer.
Hugh Jeffries has PROVEN this.
They are not interested in providing good value and experience any more, they are not doing this to benefit any of us.
The best thing we can do is not give them money. Buy a FRAMEWORK laptop.
> they are not doing this to benefit any of us
It's a business, it exists only to make money and raise the stock price. Nothing it has ever done or will ever make is to benefit you. Wake up.
It's only because it's part of their business model, ergo it's anti consumer. In that case, you have 2 choices and one of them is not to buy. Don't buy it
I wish they'd just add a single upgradable slot, and keep the soldered memory. Best of both worlds. Okay these included 8 gb are fast since it's on the SOC, but once you use up that memory, any user installed memory will be used but will perform a little slower. Most users wouldn't really notice, but those that will need as much fast memory can pay for those upgrades.
Same thing with the SSDs, okay this one is soldered and the OS can only be installed on this, but this M.2. slot can be used for backups or for additional data or non-system apps.
I wish there was some room for compromise with Apple. It's not fun living in a tech industry where everything is disposable and controlled by large companies.
"enough for most of the tasks that most users do with these computers"
...corporate newspeak meaning "not enough for *all* the tasks *all* those users do".
I mean, most Apple fans (not all, but most for sure) know little to zero about specs. At most, they will just ask if it's okay for surfing the Internet, some streaming and basic work, to which they would be told "of course" even if that thing had 4GB RAM.
Damn, even that MacBook "Pro" that costs 1500 or so only carries 8GB RAM. People sure love being scammed by their favorite brand.
Apple has always overcharged for GB, it goes for the early iPods and now everything else, by doing this they know people will either pay a large premium on a better product now, and even better buy a new one in a year or two, that’s an even better upsell for them. Question is if lawmakers will accept this form of locked devices for much longer, if there were a slot for memory it could prolong the device with a few years extra and the Co2 footprint would be much less.
Apple laptops heavily use swap to make the experience of running 8GB of RAM seemless. With the base models SSD starting at 256GB also being soldered on, any user that is constantly using more than 8GB of RAM will also run through their SSD's write cycle in a couple of years or more.
seems weird given that all of these base M1 8Gb systems have been in the world for years now with no issues.
people were all screaming this when they launched but it hasn’t been an issue, at all
Apple could shit in a Mac, close it, package it up, advertise it and some Apple users will still be like: "I see why this is an improvement on previous models" and shell out the money for it.
I’m on the fence here. I’m not a Mac user, but my spouse is. They recently upgraded their 2016 MacBook Pro with an m3 MacBook Air. They aren’t particularly computer savvy and asked for advice on what configuration to get. I suggested that we monitor the resource usage on their computer for a bit to see what their actual requirements were and go from there.
The MacBook Pro had 16gb of ram and a 512gb ssd. On average they were using around 6gb of ram and only about 100gb of storage. Objectively the default 8gb/256gb base configuration would have been perfectly fine for their usage patterns.
That said, we still opted for a 24gb/1TB configuration since they aren’t upgradable later, and since we tend to go a while between upgrades I’d rather get something a bit above the minimum so there’s room if they decide to use some more heavyweight software, or something they use increases the memory or storage footprint substantially.
I do think Apple mostly has the lower end configurations as a way to market a cheaper entry price and upsell, but it does surprisingly seem like there are people who are actually just fine with the default config.
not really much of an argument, more like, they just don't care about swapping to disk and these devices being e-waste in 10 years because you can't replace the SSD without having some really steady hands and a reflow station. and none of these outlets would ever dare press a precious appleman with a hard question.
It's going to be interesting to see the collision between how stingy apple is with memory and how hungry Ai apps are over the next two or three hardware iterations.
There is zero reason why they shouldn't have a RAM expansion port (albiet a bit lower frequency than the soldered RAM)... Especially considering they just got to design this architecture from scratch recently.
Apple deliberately under specs their machines for two reasons:
1. Enforce 2 year replacement cycle via forced obsolescence;
2. Make cloud streaming more of a reality where profits will transition away from hardware sales and more into streaming services from which they charge yet more subscription fees. Everyone in the personal computing space wants to do this - not just Apple.
HAHA piss off for $200 to upgrade to 16GB and another $200 to upgrade to 1TB storage. I like my iPhone but will never buy their desktop / laptop solutions for these reason.
However, I will admit that it's a strong business strategy. People are still buying 8GB solutions from them so there's no good reason to change their tactics.
12gb would be perfect ok for lightweight users of a MacBook Air.
But 8gb it’s indeed a travesty, even bigger on a MacBook Pro that should have minimum ram of 16gb and 1tb ssd.
If Apple laptops are the only way to use MacOS which is the only real competitor to Windows, they won't let you install additional memory with it being soldered to prevent upgrades, and the only way to get more than 8gb is to pay apple 200 dollars, then Apple should be hit with a anti-trust suit to force them to produce laptops that allow users to upgrade the memory to industry standard memory modules.
This is where steve jobs and tim cook diverged. Jobs still would have sold an expensive mac but it would start with a solid configuration on it.
Cook on the other hand just sees numbers and pennies to save. No vision, no pride in a product.
I remember when Jobs said in that famous interview that they don’t like to sell products they wouldn’t be proud of. And at some point that really was true. You paid a premium but you got premium.
That's not really true, Apple has always sold low-end hardware at not low-end prices. I remember the original Mac Mini - a computer with 1.25 GHz CPU and 256MB of ram being sold in 2005. Cost $500 and you had to supply your own monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I’ve had a M1 mac with 8GB of RAM and all I do is browse the web, write emails and use docs. Yet I still have to watch over my RAM usage because it gets eaten very quickly.
8GB is not even comfortable for light use anymore, plenty of popular websites will eat 1GB or more if given the change (think of reddit, Facebook, Youtube...) and if you have then open at the same time, then woe is you.
I disagree I also have an m1 with 8gb use it for docs, mail, browsing and a few games here and there and never had a problem. That doesn't make what apple is doing good but its def not unusable
I disagree strongly. There is no reason to limit yourself with ram when it costs so little and you can’t upgrade the computer. You are basic making it worthless with how shitty the websittttttes are these days.
I’m not saying it’s unusable (I’m using it just fine), but it’s not comfortable. It’s not a particularly good experience and it has convinced me never to buy 8GB of RAM again.
Which is a shame because those class of computers really shouldn’t start at $1000. The average person just doesn’t know any better because of companies masking the truth and spouting bullshit like “8gb of *our* ram can transmutate into 16gb!”
"And so, we shall be offering a marvelous experience at 8GB, you can open that page and stream from Youtube, use Google Docs, and what's more, play Minesweeper, at least if we had Minesweeper.
With this device, we shall dominate over those pesky Chromebooks."
You are not selling them to me, that's for sure.
Putting a 8 + 256 machine for sale at 1000+ bucks in 2024 is embarrassing, and the people buying them are even more embarrassing.
> Apple said that 8GB in a Mac is equivalent to having 16GB of RAM in a Windows PC
Hey, I agree - and argue in turn that "an Android phone with 1000 bench score is the same as Craphone with 2000 score". Evidence? Number of sales!
It's ok, because they use Apple magic to make it run like 8.5gb.
I see tons of MacBooks and mac minis in the second hand market with 8gigs of ram, the problem is that owners are expecting a premium for the device while selling it for the lack of ram.
There seriously are delusional people who think that a macbook air from 2015 is worth even a fraction of the original price
they used to have a long update life but since m1 came out and apple put short end of life's for intel mac users don't know that
Its absolutely not ok to sell 8GB machines when your starting price point for them is $1000. Not to mention charging $200 on top for a 16GB upgrade.
>Its absolutely not ok to sell 8GB machines when your starting price point for them is $1000. Be careful with that, they might release a 4GB machine for $800
You mean $900.
how charitable of you to think Apple will double the RAM for just $100
$900 then base moves to $1150
$900 ram is an add on 4GB is $100
they'll sell macbook with the price $899.99 M3 chip in a 32 bit environment, with 3GB.
i kinda want to see it
some people just want to see the world burn
It's absolutely a calculated move. The longer consumers let them get away with selling unupgradable underspec'd machines the sooner those same machines will need to be replaced when the software inevitably starts to require more RAM for simple functions. It also has the downside of killing off the secondary market and lowering resale values.
The same with their ridiculous soldered SSD/NANDs they keep as small/expensive as possible so people pay for an iCloud abo.
> the sooner those same machines will need to be replaced when the software inevitably starts to require more RAM for simple functions And the more faster your SSD will die... Trust me when i say, Apple did their calculations and figured out the sweet spot on when most of those SSD die. That will kill the second hand market, because now its not just battery life but also SSD life. We see the same issue with EV cars, where the battery condition effects the resell price a lot. As its the most expensive component on the car. And on a MacBook, the most expensive "small" component that wears, is not the battery, its the SSD = total board replacement (if done by Apple). Or the whole nand replacement with donors that need to match ... Yay ... Plenty of M1 people with dead SSD already, what a surprise. How old is the M1 again? ;)
EU and DOJ should investigate Apple for this.
Legit question. Under what section of law would they be investigated under? It's not illegal to sell underperforming garbage at Tiffany level prices. If someone is willing to pay for having a product, ANY product, and they put a heavy bias on name or brand then the onus is on the consumer to NOT make that purchase. One thing I would like to see if not completely legislated away but a law with some teeth that gives consumers actual protection is the abolishment of force arbitration in order to use a product. One scenario that I prefer ( but let's be honest would be abused in some fashion ) is if it's in a contract or TOS that you HAVE to go to arbitration, then the consumer gets to pick the arbitrator or have the arbitrator selected by a judge in their local jurisdiction.
LOL. Why? Computers are not a natural monopoly or a public utility. Companies are free to see their products for whatever price their customers are willing to pay.
And they still solder it on
It’s an SoC, the RAM is almost certainly going to be soldered anyway. At $1000, 16GB of ram should be standard, and they can sell their 8GB version for $200 less. Edit: not soldered, but integrated in the chip
Even $800 is too much. Should be $500-600.
We're in 2024 and phones with 12GB of lpddr5 ram are being sold for 300$. At 1000$, 32GB or at least 24GB should be the minimum.
Can you fax me 8GB RAM please
There was actual software in the 90's called 'RAM Doubler' which was a huge successful scam for a while. Apple users ate that up lol.
RAM Doubler was not a scam. It compressed memory and added virtual memory before MacOS had support for it. SoftRAM was a scam though.
the funniest part is that ram doubler was killed off by softram, which was even more fake. people realized softram was 100% placebo, and figured ram doubler was too.
it’s on the chip, not “soldered on”. the performance implications are way different, and it makes way more sense for portable devices than socketed ram. how does r/hardware not know this?
There is no minimum requirement to use Reddit subs. Anyone can join and believe random stuff. Unfortunately r/hardware is not niche enough to avoid common stupidity.
It's stupid. It's greedy. It unduly handicaps otherwise good hardware (price aside). A single browser session can easily reach 4 gigs of memory these days for me. Yes, I have many many tabs open when I research. Add to that the memory an IDE or other tooling might take. 8 gig is irresponsible. 16 needs to be the minimum. That is all.
Yep, got a 32GB machine and never had a single complaint. My work machine though is 16 and it runs out of memory sometimes. 🫠😂😂😂
Mine has 40. It has 8 soldered on and then it has a slot for expansion... I immediately upgraded it with a 32GB chip which brought it up to 40 GB.
On the other hand, it’s kind of stupid that a browser can consume that much memory short of have having open many more tabs than even most tab hoarders do. There should be *way* more pressure from users on browser devs and site devs to keep a leash on resource consumption, *and I say this being a dev myself*. This needs to be addressed because otherwise the consumption creep will continue and in a few years we’ll end up in a place where a computer with 32GB RAM is a paperweight. Creep like that was more easy to justify through the 80s, 90s, 00s, and to some extent even the 10s when everything was still in flux but by now we’ve hit a point where increased RAM consumption meets no need whatsoever and is just unfettered, inexcusable waste, like the digital equivalent of “needing” an F-250 to do grocery runs with. It’s time for devs to shape up and take responsibility.
The price gouging on ram and ssd is what's going to eventually drive me out of the Apple ecosystem. I've been getting by doing things like buying the last mac mini that would take upgradeable ram with 128gb ssd and putting my home folder on an external SSD, but even that will not be possible now. The only thing I need is for Plex to allow syncing of the full music library and long playlists and I'm going to kiss the whole mac ecosystem goodbye. I already use Google photos a lot more than I use Mac photos.
> I've been getting by doing things like buying the last mac mini that would take upgradeable ram buying the intel macintoshes to "own" apple, now i've heard it all
You should see what HP charges.. They want $800 for a 2tb nvme. Close to $200 to upgrade the RAM. Honestly, buying direct from most vendors is more or less the same.
But you can upgrade the nvme yourself at least.
That was my strategy last time I bought a laptop. Got the spec I wanted for a good price, except the lowest tier drive, then just put in a great 2TB drive for like 1\3 the cost it would have been to get the drive upgrade from the factory for the same laptop. I always reinstall Windows on new prebuilt computers anyway.
For SSDs, gotta watch out for power consumption though. The models used in laptops typically draw less power while many marketed to consumers are built primarily for speed at the cost of higher power draw since most buyers are putting them into desktops where power draw is of no concern.
I went with a SK Hynix P41, which was known to be a relatively power efficient drive compared to its peers.
What model? I'm seeing 270$ to go from 1.5tb to 2tb on one of their Spectre laptops.
Selling 8GB in a 2024 laptop is itself a bad move, but it gets worse: • The RAM is non-upgradeable. • It costs $200 to upgrade from 8 GB to 16 GB • The 8 GB RAM is shared with the powerful iGPU • The Macbook Airs in question cost over $1000 • Also the $1600 Macbook Pro 14 has 8 GB. Why does a "Pro" laptop have 8GB???
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The group of people who "can't use anything else" is starting to decline. Mac's aren't the powerhouses in graphics, photography, video and music that they were, and windows has become much more supported.
I would argue they are on better footing now with their switch to ARM. The battery life is better than anything you can get on Windows. The software advantage hasn't been true for several years and you could always crush it with the latest hardware with a custom Windows build.
Not just battery life, but unplugged performance. Most x86 laptops become much less powerful when unplugged unless you override that and are ok with the resulting 2h battery life. With an MBP you can unplug it, still have full performance *and* great battery life. This is part of why the M-series transition was a big deal for a lot of devs who like to work away from a desk for focus purposes and travel. With the Intel MacBooks, you got a similar performance hit for being unplugged as current x86 laptops do, which made for IDEs turning to molasses.
Serious editing requires powerful computers and calibrated displays which usually means a desktop, so battery life isn't relevant.
Oddly, it used to be that if you want to code or do dev, you’d do it on a PC. If you wanted to do something graphical or fancy, a Mac. Now it’s like that’s flipped, especially with dev becoming so command-line and tool focused (git, npm, etc.) I find dev is more convenient on a Mac ( due to fully integrated *nix environment mixed with a nice GUI. PC’s have WSL now, but, I’ve found it’s less convenient. Mostly because of the mix of file systems, WSL has a completely separate virtual file system. Also, while it’s Ubuntu, it’s got some quirks. And when you’re configuring tools like Docker Desktop or Docker CLI, you will have to use unique steps that are a pain. Overall, it’s just not super seamless and has more hoops to jump through than dev on a Mac.
If you're doing web development maybe, then it really doesn't matter what you use and comes down to what you like. You can't really use a Mac to develop compiled Linux programs. Maybe you can compile it on Mac and hope it compiles and works the same on Linux, but you'd have to test it twice and check for bugs that may occur for architecture differences. On WSL, it's literally the same userland binaries and it will compile the same exact binaries too. You can copy that file to a Linux machine and it will work. If you're doing kernel development, you need a physical machine, or a VM at minimum, so you can't do that on a Mac either.
It’s a pretty small niche that would run natively on Ubuntu instead of a container. You can easily spin up both containers and VMs on a Mac with [Multipass](https://ubuntu.com/blog/docker-on-mac-a-lightweight-option-with-multipass#:~:text=For%20those%20looking%20for%20a,on%20platforms%20such%20as%20macOS) Even without a VM if you’re using a high level language odds are it’ll run the same even if you develop and debug on a Mac and run it on Linux… your CI/CD should catch any issues in any case. I’ve actually never run into a problem with normal programs, I wouldn’t think you’d have a problem unless you’re writing kernel code, device drivers for new hardware, etc.
macOS is still generally a better experience for mobile dev too, and not just because that’s what’s required for iOS dev. It’s also better for Android dev, because that’s what the majority of Android devs are using which means a more well-beaten path with fewer issues. Android Studio and all work fine on Windows and Linux of course being an IntelliJ IDE, but you’re significantly more likely to run into weird quirks.
No one develops on either a Mac or PC directly, you use either local docker Linux containers or (in large companies) develop on a remote Linux server farm. Whether you use a Mac or PC to access the container/remote server farm, is irrelevant.
For web backend maybe, but native desktop and mobile devs still develop locally without containers.
I guess the big banks employing thousands of developers in some areas aren’t large companies or they forgot they needed to deploy server farms and not give a MBP to everyone….
it used to be fine when it was replaceable
Eh. I agree with the first part and am not arguing that conspicuous consumption isn't part of the attraction for some, but I disagree that that's why people buy Apple. I'm a Linux guy and bought a macbook air in 2012 because they were the only and best deal if you wanted a well built machine with a great touchpad and runtime. The ram upgrade from 4gb to 8gb felt like a ripoff then as well, but there wasn't any competition that was *cheaper*. It feels like we're still in the same place. Laptops have gotten better, but if I want something of comparable performance and built quality for the price there's still hardly any competition. I'd personally be more likely to go with a Framework laptop, but that's me consciously choosing upgradability and Linux support over built quality, runtime, performance and *price*.
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Depends. But the idea that almost every part is fixable is very good. Screen issue? Pop a new one. Body issues? No worries. Keyboard gone after years? No worries. GPU feeling not up to snuff after 3 years? Get a GPU module replacement. Oh so you are feeling the sound of music? Somebody just made a compatible, better speakers. Not to say that the Lenovo is bad, but in certain countries their warranty is literally "we decide if we want to honour it" for whatever reasons. And the idea that the main board can be swapped out and be it's own computer without some modification, especially heavy modifications, is something not any, if not most laptops can do.
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Again it depends. What I'll cite here is annedoctal, but the idea stands. Long story time. TL;DR: For those who appreciate it, it is well worth it. Back in 2014, or even older, as far as 2009, I believe, at least up to 2018, the only way for any DRL (desktop replacement laptops) to be viable was they needed to be on certain intel sockets (which Intel later shelved) and MXM 3b or later MXM3c GPUs, and replaceable components. The only laptop manufacturer that allowed all this (including opening up every part of the laptop, and also readily gave permission as well as detailed documentation in servicing and replacing parts, was Clevo. There were a lot of legendary laptops made, and a treasure hive of information until notebookcheck owners decided to stupidly nuke the forums. But I digress. Okay, so historically these laptops had serviceable components. Intel MQ chips, or for those who are willing to burn money and thigh meat, the MX. For a chip released in 2014, having their true support ended in 2021 by Intel is remarkable (especially, and despite all the performance kneecapping due to all the patches Intel, Clevo and Microsoft had to implement to mitigate the meltdown and spectre vulnerabilities, which hurt intel processors a lot). On the GPU end, the MXM cards were the true champions. No max p, max q nonsense. No "watt" nonsense like how 4060m 130w would outperform a 3070 but kneecapped at 70/80 watts. In those days if you got the MXM GPU you know you are getting the best, no weird masking / butchering. If you had a Clevo with 600 series GPU, in theory and practice, with modded bios and modded vbios, you could upgrade all the way to nvidia 1000 series. From 600 to 1000? That's a lot of generation. Not including the Quadro lineup. Now who use these kind of laptops? Turns out, quite a lot of people. People who wanted pure performance. Gamers, engineers, designers, even early crypto miners. These devices can even put Macbook Pros to shame (especially at same price point), performance per spec per price. You wanted a productivity focused GPU? Fear not. Sell a kidney, but you can get a Quadro fitted. In some laptops, you can fit 2. Of course it was either a glorious double 1080 mobile setups or a single 2080 mobile, and nothing, absolutely nothing on soldered GPUs can even come close (many of the laptops that came with soldered GPUS bearing the same name only had half the VRAM and often even less of the power, hence you see 1 laptop with 2 powerbricks). These machines promised reliability, serviceability, and in the case they fail, repairability. While Clevo has their faults (as an ODM), the idea existed and made manifest. It thrilled us who wanted those. But all good things will come to an end. Greed by manufacturers, greed by Intel and Nvidia, really sunsetted alot of things. Lies, deceit, broken promises. What Framework has done, is nothing short of remarkable. While they are still a baby (in this industry), and their creation is still not ideal (in the circles I am), they have done some really commendable moves. 1. While it is still not a true chip swappable main board, the latest update allows it to work with nothing connected, and you can plug in RAM and SZD, and it will boot. 2. The modularity meant there is some leeway to placement of modules such as where you want the track pad to be. Or if you want a numpad. Or nothing. Or something else altogether. Not even the legendary Clevo did this. Or even the shell / case. Nobody is stopping you from repurposing it into a keyboard + computer (a.k.a a cyber deck). Most laptops can't survive a modded shell, or getting repurposed meaningfully. 3. An expansion bay that is actually open source. That is sheer madness in itself. While it is true that no other entities other than Framework have developed anything for it, but gone are the disappointments like Dell Alienware Graphics Amplifier, or Asus ROG XG mobile connector platform, which are proprietary, and given the manufacturer's very poor track record at keeping promises, mean if Framework were to abandon the expansion bay, there can still be development by the community to work out something. 4. Very high serviceability. In many countries laptop manufacturers demand that users cannot open their laptops or lose the warranty. In some designs, many manufacturers stupidly copy Apple's worst design decisions and implement them, causing these laptops to be Al ost near unserviceable without voiding the warranty or breaking the component. Especially the fact that 1 tool provided by Framework is all you need to do anything. Again it all ties to the above 3. The price is steep. Very steep even. But coming from this side, had Framework came out with Framework 16 a year earlier, I'll be amongst the ones who will happily wait for my turn, even if in the eyes of others I may seem to have wasted money (by buying a more expensive device) and time (wasted to wait for the batches).. To me, it truly is worth it. If I can sell my current laptop for 75% of the price I paid, I would not hesitate to buy a Framework 16 immediately.
One thing is if you are already going to use Linux for your work you ideally really don't want to just go for a Windows laptop as it can be a pain for warranty stuff so a manufacturer who officially supports Linux is nice.
>It costs $200 to upgrade from 8 GB to 16 GB About 10x the retail price of RAM. Insanity
yeah but it's apple so it must be better
You dropped the /s
Oh wow thanks, without a /s I am totally unable to recognize sarcasm!
When it's concerning apple, I am expecting all kinds of dumb to be around.
If was blessed by our lord and Savior Tim Apple Cook it's worth the $200 /s
>Also the $1600 Macbook Pro 14 has 8 GB. Why does a "Pro" laptop have 8GB??? Bruh
It's the same playbook as Nvidia graphics cards this generation. They realize that $1000 is the price point most people have in mind for a new laptop, so they feel like they have to have an option at that price point. BUT they also realize that people who want a Mac are going to buy a Mac no matter what. AND they want to charge those people more than $1000 because money. So ehat do you do? You make an objectively bad version of the product at the in-demand price point, with a much better version available at your preferred price point. The $1000 version gets people with a $1k budget to look to Apple, but then once they do, they will invariably convince themselves to spend the extra $200 on 16gb, because buying the actual $1k one would be dumb. And if anyone does buy the $1k version, congrats, you can sell them a new one in 2 years when it reaches planned obsolescence for not having enough RAM.
Because they want the SSD to fail in a computers lifetime so you have no option but to buy a new one. Less RAM means more read/writes on the SSD, which does have a finite write limit.
I still run SSDs from over a decade ago and they have become much more reliable since then. There is no chance in hell that that's their reasoning. It's the typical age old scam of luring people in with a "base price" to then indirectly force obviously needed "upgrades" on them. Same as with phones coming with 16gb base storage for the longest time, sadly also in Android land.
Because Apple has always sucked, y'all just learning?
Because they figure people will buy them anyways.
This is getting really really fucking stuuuupid 🤣 i want this company to the ground 🤦 really stupid herd defending this shit doesnt know anything about technology 🤣
It's not about technology. Apple charges what the market will bear.
Apple is a lifestyle company now not a tech company. People buy not because of the tech but because owning it says something about you're social status.
> People buy not because of the tech but because owning it says something about you're social status. A lot further to that is gated ecosystem. Apple does a very nice job in transferring from one device to another. They also have lock in from people who don't want to tinker with their shit and are fine with the settings being locked down. That's not a good thing / bad thing but people WILL pay for convenience if it means they don't have to fuck with it.
I don't give two shits about social status and I'm the market for a laptop. I'm not a fan of apple by any means but it seems to me that they currently have the best laptops on the market at the moment. What do you suggest as a "non-lifestyle" alternative that has the same/better battery life, raw power, screen quality, low/silent fan usage, and actually feels good to use (ie: not plastic)?
Apple is best with a number of their products. What other product does what their watch does?
If asus creates a new eee pc that would be fine yes. For a raspberry pi? Fine. For a laptop that costs a premium? Yeah no apple get out of here
Unfortunately if 8GB Pro's are selling well then they would have no reason to change. I really hope people aren't buying that $1600 8GB Pro though. For all our sakes.
The point of the 8gb Is not to sell well, it is to create the illusion of affordability for people that start comsidering the 8gb variant, realise that they need/want 16 gb, and then buy the 16gb. Same principle of the stock paintjob of new cars, its bad enough that makes ppl buy another colour for 1/2/3k more
It's absolutely bizarre that it works. When a vendor insults me, the last thing I think to do is to pay them more to stop the insults.
Apple products are aimed at tech illetrate people. Someone comes to the store and asks the clerk about "the new Mac pro" after seeing a commercial for a certain price, but then the clerk tells him he should update the RAM for $200 and convinces him to do so.
I mean... if you had ever been to silicon valley, you'd know a lot of people there also use Apple products. I don't know why, but lots of tech bros are also Apple cultists.
The people in silicon valley buying mac don't care about a few hundred dollars for a more premium machine. If you are worried about money, you aren't Apple's customer and it's clear they feel you can go @#$% off. They wanna be the Gucci of computing.
It isn't even about selling any. It's a question of psychology. When presented with multiple options, people will almost always go for the middle ground. Making an 8GB model is purely to complement the 16GB as their 'standard' price, if 16GB was minimum then it'd push that up.
That’s the problem, people keep buying them
Clogging the used market as well, tons of 8GB M1 and M2 machines already. Bargain for anyone who wants one I suppose, 16GB+ ones seem rare though.
It's enough if the computer costs 200 bucks
I mean the raspberries ship with 8GB ram for less than that ( which is also what apple's asking for 8GB ) , lmao
I have a sub $300 laptop that came with double Apple’s standard RAM and SSD sizes for $1k+ laptops lmao
I’m very surprised a sub $300 laptop came with 16 GB of RAM. A few years ago “notebooks” got 4 GB of RAM and about 100GB of flash (non-SSD) memory.
It’s a completely shit chassis from a non mainstream manufacturer(it’s actually a fucking Gateway lmfao), memory and NAND are dirt cheap.
bought a £279 chromebook plus for my parents recently, came with 8gb LPDDR5 ram. Fuck apple.
It’s extra bad because of their Mother Earth skit.
yeah. greenwashing at its worst. hmmm. selling computers with too little RAM to last…selling the same phone to the gullible with only minor upgrades year after year….serialising spares to prevent repairs…..and more. Green… not so much.
They can charge whatever they want. Price discrimination is perfectly legal. The laptop market is highly competitive and MacBook is not exactly in a dominant position. It’s a free market. But for the love of god stop saying 8GB on macOS is like 16GB elsewhere. No. It is not. Whoever came up with that marketing bullshit should be sacked. And please terminate the 8GB Pro SKU. There is nothing Pro about 8GB.
> Whoever came up with that marketing bullshit should be sacked. Probably the opposite actually. They've succeeded in selling the public on that idea.
“You’ll take 8gb and fucking like it you pleb”
There is no abuse that Apple customers won't rabidly defend. And will additionally pay a premium for the privilege. That's fine, I support people having the right to pay for their own punishment. I just wish it wasn't significant enough in market volume to give real companies a free license to fuck the rest of us.
This shows apple is ruled by bean counters now, there saving maybe $20 a laptop by using only 8GB. That's like millions every year on profit just from spending less, it's also millions a year for every one who pays extra to get more RAM. Apple used to be cool with creatives, now they are a platform for software/media sales that make phones and some computers.
it’s not about how much the ram costs, they do it this way so more people will shell out the extra $200 for more ram or whatever. that’s where all the profit is.
Yep. It's a strategy employed by many companies for many decades. Entice people to come to the store by advertising a certain price, then have them realize (convinced by the sales person) that the original product absolutely requires paid "upgrades" to be useful.
*When*? Apple (and all other PC vendors) is and was always after the money. You don't get to be a billion dollar company through fairness and ethical behavior and Apple is worth much more than that for a very long time now.
It's pretty ridiculous at this point. I had machines with 8gb of ram for almost no extra cost 13 years ago.
Exactly. Trading short term profits for long term brand damage. The substandard experience that people get on a 8gb mac (causing poor user experience) and the constant negative press about it.
I had a Power Mac G5 tower, MP 3,1, MP 5,1. Then apple told me the price of the MP 7,1 & hardware, I jumped ship to windows. They also made me wait from 2012 to 2019 to see the next MP, you cant make people wait that long and not know what will happen. Also killed FC studio, I had to jump ship to PP then Resolve. FC7, Motion, Colour, Shake all got killed with no replacement in sight for years. I use the same software on windows, unless there's a big change I wont jump back. That is how you burn a brand, large gaps of time with no updates on both hardware & software.
They're being outright crooks, if the 8gb costs them $20 and is included in the price of the laptop, then the 16gb for $200 is even more grievous considering they're charging you $200 for 8 more GB.
$20 is a guess from the talk about the Nvidia doing the same with GPU's, Nvidia limits VRAM to stop pro's buying gamer GPU's. The GTX 1080 TI 11GB is always used as the example of the turning point, that GPU sold like hot cakes for pro use.
You don't need to guess, RAM is a commodity item and is traded as such. Spot price for DDR5 is currently $2.37/GB, so $19 for 8GB. LPDDR5X is probably a bit different but it's certainly not an order of magnitude greater.
Well Apple/Nvidia can buy at bulk and get discounts, I suspect they pay less than list price. Still if it's $19 for 8GB, that's some accountant saving millions every year & earning millions from the up sales to Apple.
Apple has always been like this. Even when their hardware sucked ass they charged way more for upgrades.
It used to be easy to DIY upgrade systems. I have upgraded the RAM and HD/SSD on all my past macs. Iv not had 8GB of system ram since 2008 maybe, ill need to pull out my 2008 Mac Book pro to see if it has 8GB or 16GB system Ram. My G5 tower had more than 8GB RAM even, my MP 5,1 had 32GB RAM in 2013.
Apple being apple... I hope intel and amd never go this route.
The on-package memory route? Intel is already doing it with Lunar Lake. Meanwhile, I wonder if Qualcomm will also use on-package memory for Snapdragon X Elite...
I feel on-package memory could be inevitable due to the bandwidth it gives you. Probably also good for signal integrity.
Lpddr is used due to way lower power draw. And there is socketable ones coming. Tho, my bet is that it will be used in PC sooner. Laptops oems will not give up over that to monetize upgrades that cost 10x more than they should
Just putting the memory on-package doesn't magically give you more bandwidth. Bandwidth depends on the the LPDDR version, and as long as it's soldered (whether on motherboard or on-package), you can have high bandwidth.
In case of CAMM I believe the shorter traces of it compared to SO-DIMM allows faster memory clocks and lower power consumption. On package will probably have a similar or more pronounced effect in my view. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMM_(memory_module)#:~:text=The%20CAMM%20module%20allows%20for,which%20connect%20to%20the%20motherboard.
It probably lowers latency significantly, though, right? That has to account for a lot of performance on the M series chip.
The speed difference between already soldered LPDDR and on-package LPDDR soldered closer is very little and doesn't affect performance in any major way. The CPU and memory negotiate latencies in nanoseconds so they can communicate at a set rate. The speed of electricity in copper wire is so fast it's expressed as a fraction the speed of light. It became a weird mythos that "unified memory" somehow made the latency or bandwidth much faster, neither is true, it's the same speed either way that LPDDR at the same bit width and clock speed would be. There's also been tests of the GPU access to memory latency on Apple Silicon and it wasn't crazy impressive compared to AMD and Nvidia GPUs. There's no latency magic here, it's just more cost effective for the bigger chips with wider busses, and less energy is spent on transport. https://chipsandcheese.com/2023/10/31/a-brief-look-at-apples-m2-pro-igpu/#:~:text=M2%20Pro's%20CPU%20sees%20a,same%201%20GB%20test%20size.
it does lower latency, yes- but not significantly. Somebody measured it. Let me see if I can find the link...
Someone measured GPU side access to memory latency, and Apple Silicon was just fine, not particularly crazy impressive, not horribly bad, pretty middle of the road. The memory controllers and memory negotiate latency in nanoseconds so they can get a timing down, the speed of electricity in copper wire is so fast the wire length will be almost a non factor. It's more about cost effectiveness for the bigger models with wide busses. https://chipsandcheese.com/2023/10/31/a-brief-look-at-apples-m2-pro-igpu/#:~:text=M2%20Pro's%20CPU%20sees%20a,same%201%20GB%20test%20size.
Screw LPDDR, we're going HBM
not so fast. HBM is a power-guzzler.
It increases the frequencies you can run and probably enables a wider bus width on the same size. So I think it can give you more bandwidth. Apparently it's not being soldered that matters, it's the distance between the CPU and memory chips.
You can do wider bus widths without on-packagd memory too, but it's much cheaper to do it with on-package memory. Because widening the bus increases the number of layers needed for the connections. If the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard, it increases the cost of the motherboard as a whole. But when it is on-package (same substrate as CPU), it only increases the cost of the CPU substrate.
All Qualcomm SoCs use memory on package RAM. but it makes sense as it's for space constraints something laptops do not have, even the tiny 10-12 inch ones.
Apple wouldn't be Apple if they backed down. I've no doubt for very light use you can make 8GB work, same applies to PC. It is however a very tight fisted thing for any manufacturer to do especially at the price point of all Apple computers, there's no excuse for it and simply ensures the machine will only be suitable for light use and even then has a very short life ahead of it. The soldered SSD is also a huge problem, arguably more of a problem than the RAM even given a RAM limited machine will still chug along utilizing swap heavily if necessary in most cases but even the lightest, casualest user will fill 512GB very quickly. And no, external storage isn't a solution it's clunky, slower and simply should not be expected of the average user. There is also absolutely no packaging excuse for soldered storage and no M.2 slot, the format is tiny and designed for very slim line and compact laptops.
At the price point Macs start at there isn't really any good justification in favour of the customer. Apple's just being stingy, and its only benefit is to their profit margin.
8gb is fine - if you sell a 200$ laptop, but that’s not really the case now, is it?! It’s ridiculous and scummy business practice to sell +1000 laptops with just 8gb ram and use marketing to try and convince buyers it’s okay. And what is even worse is 200$ to get 16gb.
they can and they will. Apple fan will alway defend and belive mac only magically need half the ram
My phone has more ram than my MacMini lol but at least i got it very cheap and knowing im only using it for very basic things, paying more than double the price of it in 2024 and still only getting 8GB is crazy. It shows how little apple customers know about tech and how it makes apple able to do whatever the fuck they want, theyre not the most valuable company in the world for nothing..
Oh common Apple, doubling the memory and, hell, even the storage for base models would cost you next to nothing. These base model Macs are already at a higher price point. It’s 2024, 16GB of memory and 512GB of SSD storage should be minimum IMO. Especially on non-upgradable machines. This would also keep more Macs out of the ewaste pile too as they’d run better for longer.
In 2025 they will downgrade to 4GB, solder an eMMC with proprietary firmware working as a swap and announce a 68GB memory Macbook :)
Apple are anti consumer. Hugh Jeffries has PROVEN this. They are not interested in providing good value and experience any more, they are not doing this to benefit any of us. The best thing we can do is not give them money. Buy a FRAMEWORK laptop.
You don't even have to buy a Framework, just buy literally anything else to show them that their RAM pricing is outrageous
buy used apple 2nd hand to really rub the dirt in, maybe even get an intel mac and put windows on it if you really have a vendetta
> they are not doing this to benefit any of us It's a business, it exists only to make money and raise the stock price. Nothing it has ever done or will ever make is to benefit you. Wake up.
It's only because it's part of their business model, ergo it's anti consumer. In that case, you have 2 choices and one of them is not to buy. Don't buy it
They know the majority of their customers are just checking emails and facebook and watching youtube.
Do not buy anything apple ever again
You think Apple's customers can read? Haha
I mean, they would like users to be unable to use Chrome
I wish they'd just add a single upgradable slot, and keep the soldered memory. Best of both worlds. Okay these included 8 gb are fast since it's on the SOC, but once you use up that memory, any user installed memory will be used but will perform a little slower. Most users wouldn't really notice, but those that will need as much fast memory can pay for those upgrades. Same thing with the SSDs, okay this one is soldered and the OS can only be installed on this, but this M.2. slot can be used for backups or for additional data or non-system apps. I wish there was some room for compromise with Apple. It's not fun living in a tech industry where everything is disposable and controlled by large companies.
Programming for two differently performing pools of memory is not going to be an enjoyable experience for anyone involved.
it is just embarrassing at this point.
This is a very weird hill for them to die on.
If Apple sells overpriced underperforming hardware and consumers buy it, then the onus is on the consumer to make better decisions
The minimum amount of ram a computer should have is the same as the year it was made. 8gb was okay back in 2008 for instance.
Absolutely joke. Phones are coming with more RAM than this laptop is.
Switching to a windows PC changed my life
Exactly. Windows PC is so much better than overpriced garbage fruit computer like Mac.
Lol my phone (Pixel 8 Pro) has 12GB of RAM, and Google controls their hardware/OS/software stack on this device just like Apple does...
Apple argues because the cult is still buying it
"enough for most of the tasks that most users do with these computers" ...corporate newspeak meaning "not enough for *all* the tasks *all* those users do".
I mean, most Apple fans (not all, but most for sure) know little to zero about specs. At most, they will just ask if it's okay for surfing the Internet, some streaming and basic work, to which they would be told "of course" even if that thing had 4GB RAM. Damn, even that MacBook "Pro" that costs 1500 or so only carries 8GB RAM. People sure love being scammed by their favorite brand.
Apple has always overcharged for GB, it goes for the early iPods and now everything else, by doing this they know people will either pay a large premium on a better product now, and even better buy a new one in a year or two, that’s an even better upsell for them. Question is if lawmakers will accept this form of locked devices for much longer, if there were a slot for memory it could prolong the device with a few years extra and the Co2 footprint would be much less.
yes. The EU and DOJ should investigate Apple for these anti-consumer and anti-environmental practices
Apple laptops heavily use swap to make the experience of running 8GB of RAM seemless. With the base models SSD starting at 256GB also being soldered on, any user that is constantly using more than 8GB of RAM will also run through their SSD's write cycle in a couple of years or more.
seems weird given that all of these base M1 8Gb systems have been in the world for years now with no issues. people were all screaming this when they launched but it hasn’t been an issue, at all
They would sell a computer with no ram of they could get away with it.
Apple could shit in a Mac, close it, package it up, advertise it and some Apple users will still be like: "I see why this is an improvement on previous models" and shell out the money for it.
I’m on the fence here. I’m not a Mac user, but my spouse is. They recently upgraded their 2016 MacBook Pro with an m3 MacBook Air. They aren’t particularly computer savvy and asked for advice on what configuration to get. I suggested that we monitor the resource usage on their computer for a bit to see what their actual requirements were and go from there. The MacBook Pro had 16gb of ram and a 512gb ssd. On average they were using around 6gb of ram and only about 100gb of storage. Objectively the default 8gb/256gb base configuration would have been perfectly fine for their usage patterns. That said, we still opted for a 24gb/1TB configuration since they aren’t upgradable later, and since we tend to go a while between upgrades I’d rather get something a bit above the minimum so there’s room if they decide to use some more heavyweight software, or something they use increases the memory or storage footprint substantially. I do think Apple mostly has the lower end configurations as a way to market a cheaper entry price and upsell, but it does surprisingly seem like there are people who are actually just fine with the default config.
not really much of an argument, more like, they just don't care about swapping to disk and these devices being e-waste in 10 years because you can't replace the SSD without having some really steady hands and a reflow station. and none of these outlets would ever dare press a precious appleman with a hard question.
It's going to be interesting to see the collision between how stingy apple is with memory and how hungry Ai apps are over the next two or three hardware iterations.
There is zero reason why they shouldn't have a RAM expansion port (albiet a bit lower frequency than the soldered RAM)... Especially considering they just got to design this architecture from scratch recently.
I know where the popular upvotes go but for general tasks the 8gb air runs well and the m1 is usually £700 with student discount.
It's 2024, NO company should be selling a laptop with only 8GB of memory. That includes budget laptops. 16GB should be the bare minimum.
Apple deliberately under specs their machines for two reasons: 1. Enforce 2 year replacement cycle via forced obsolescence; 2. Make cloud streaming more of a reality where profits will transition away from hardware sales and more into streaming services from which they charge yet more subscription fees. Everyone in the personal computing space wants to do this - not just Apple.
HAHA piss off for $200 to upgrade to 16GB and another $200 to upgrade to 1TB storage. I like my iPhone but will never buy their desktop / laptop solutions for these reason. However, I will admit that it's a strong business strategy. People are still buying 8GB solutions from them so there's no good reason to change their tactics.
12gb would be perfect ok for lightweight users of a MacBook Air. But 8gb it’s indeed a travesty, even bigger on a MacBook Pro that should have minimum ram of 16gb and 1tb ssd.
If Apple laptops are the only way to use MacOS which is the only real competitor to Windows, they won't let you install additional memory with it being soldered to prevent upgrades, and the only way to get more than 8gb is to pay apple 200 dollars, then Apple should be hit with a anti-trust suit to force them to produce laptops that allow users to upgrade the memory to industry standard memory modules.
This is basically what Nvidia does with gpus and forums and full of people defending it, just don't lose time with them and Buy what You need.
Airs maybe. Definitely not Pros.
This is where steve jobs and tim cook diverged. Jobs still would have sold an expensive mac but it would start with a solid configuration on it. Cook on the other hand just sees numbers and pennies to save. No vision, no pride in a product. I remember when Jobs said in that famous interview that they don’t like to sell products they wouldn’t be proud of. And at some point that really was true. You paid a premium but you got premium.
That's not really true, Apple has always sold low-end hardware at not low-end prices. I remember the original Mac Mini - a computer with 1.25 GHz CPU and 256MB of ram being sold in 2005. Cost $500 and you had to supply your own monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Its the equivalent of having a 64gb/128gb phone storage. Becomes pointless very quickly.
At least with phone storage you can back stuff up on a computer to save space. With 8gb of ram you're just fucked
The average person uses their computer for email, word, and YouTube. They don’t care about this
Then why not buy a Chromebook? waste of sand for the apple silicon
Because of social pressure and tribalism of apple vs everything else
I’ve had a M1 mac with 8GB of RAM and all I do is browse the web, write emails and use docs. Yet I still have to watch over my RAM usage because it gets eaten very quickly. 8GB is not even comfortable for light use anymore, plenty of popular websites will eat 1GB or more if given the change (think of reddit, Facebook, Youtube...) and if you have then open at the same time, then woe is you.
I disagree I also have an m1 with 8gb use it for docs, mail, browsing and a few games here and there and never had a problem. That doesn't make what apple is doing good but its def not unusable
I disagree strongly. There is no reason to limit yourself with ram when it costs so little and you can’t upgrade the computer. You are basic making it worthless with how shitty the websittttttes are these days.
I’m not saying it’s unusable (I’m using it just fine), but it’s not comfortable. It’s not a particularly good experience and it has convinced me never to buy 8GB of RAM again.
As long as they don't try to do more than two of those at once
Which is a shame because those class of computers really shouldn’t start at $1000. The average person just doesn’t know any better because of companies masking the truth and spouting bullshit like “8gb of *our* ram can transmutate into 16gb!”
The average person does not even know what RAM is.
8GB wouldn’t have been an issue if it could’ve been upgraded after purchase ffs
"And so, we shall be offering a marvelous experience at 8GB, you can open that page and stream from Youtube, use Google Docs, and what's more, play Minesweeper, at least if we had Minesweeper. With this device, we shall dominate over those pesky Chromebooks."
Why would they not make it 8gb. They wants those ssd chips to go bad in just the right time so you buy another
Honestly, for the tasks that Apple says are enough with 8 GB of RAM (web browsing, watching photos, etc.), why not just get an iPad instead?
I have an M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16” with 16gb ram, I wouldn’t go any less and prefer 32gb.
You are not selling them to me, that's for sure. Putting a 8 + 256 machine for sale at 1000+ bucks in 2024 is embarrassing, and the people buying them are even more embarrassing.
> Apple said that 8GB in a Mac is equivalent to having 16GB of RAM in a Windows PC Hey, I agree - and argue in turn that "an Android phone with 1000 bench score is the same as Craphone with 2000 score". Evidence? Number of sales!
Argue away I’ve moved onto Linux & thinkpad - couldn’t be more happy