I have a rMB from 2015, I easily get 10-13 hours out of it unless using flash of Java. It's a great portable laptop but BADLY needs 16GB of RAM, it would / could just be so much better if you weren't limited to 8GB especially with browsers / websites the way they are these days you chew that up in no time.
8GB of RAM ought to be enough for anybody right? I'm hoping that's true for someone who spends most of their time in Google Docs or Word and the occasional light web browsing. This MBA replaced a Chromebook which really was on its last legs.
I have a 2010 MBA with 2Gb of RAM, it only chugs on browser stuff when I've got a VM running and compiling, a terminal running various bits and 3 windows with about 6-7 tabs open. It works fine. Your personal experience is not a good way to go "What the hell are you smoking", as there's many of us with that model who've had nothing but happy happy joy times with it.
My previous MBP had 32 GB of ram and it was constantly swapping. Now I have 64, and it's holding up. I guess it really depends on your work environment, but I need Docker, IntelliJ, plus a bunch of other stuff, and it quickly adds up.
I don't know how anyone can use a laptop with only 8GB of ram. Maybe if all they do on it is Facebook and Youtube ¯\_(?)_/¯.
I'm using an M2 Air with 16GB and M1 Mini with 8GB. On the 8GB machine I have to restart Firefox every few days because otherwise it completely fills up RAM + Swap and the entire system starts getting sluggish. It's a very noticeable bottleneck while on the 16GB Macbook I don't really think about memory usage.
I would not recommend the 8GB variant to anyone who plans on using it for more than a couple browser tabs and some light tasks.
Not parent, but I'm working on a late '13 MBP, 8GB ram.
I spend basically all day doing Rails development, with MySQL, ElasticSearch, background job processing, etc. I'd be happier with 16gb, but tbh memory isn't the thing stalling my work (even with a lot of chrome tabs open) - it's usually waiting for my app to load to run some tests, or reloading my dev server.
I used a chromebook for about a year, and would RDP to my home desktop when I needed anything beefier... after that I went back to a new rMBP because I needed macOS at the time. The 16gb is rarely an issue for me, but I could easily see certain classes of workload that could make it so.
I have a Mid 2015 15" rMBP w 16GB RAM.
I'm actually worried about the SSD wear and that's why I would like to have 32GB RAM.
I'm quite okay with its performance but I routinely have ~4GB of memory swapped out,
even though I'm trying hard to keep my browser tab count below 20.
I have 4-5 Clojure/ClojureScript projects open in IntelliJ; that eats ~1-2GB RAM.
For 3-4 of them I'm running a REPL; that's around ~1GB each, which is ~3-4GB in total.
Safari with 10-20 tabs; 1-2GB
Google Chrome Canary 4-5 tabs for the webapp under development (logged in with different type of users into different environments [dev/stg/prod]); ~300MB/tab => ~1-1.5GB total
Everyday utilities also add up to 1.5GB at least:
• Slack 0.4GB
• (sometimes Gitter 0.3GB)
• Spotify 0.3GB
• AirMail 0.3GB
• OneNote 0.2GB
• SublimeText 0.2GB
• iTerm 0.1GB
• 1Password 0.1GB
(and I don't even mention Box Sync or Dropbox or Google Drive or Ethereum or IPFS node
because I usually keep them turned off while I'm coding...)
My kernel_task is usually round 1.5GB but sometimes grows up to 2+GB
So that's 2 + 4 + 3 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 1.5 = 13.5GB
Then there is only 2.5GB left for disk cache and ~0.2GB memory is compressed at this point.
So that's the minimum memory requirement after a cold boot for work.
Anything else I do start to force memory to be compressed then swapped out.
BUT THEN I also have a personal account for non-work related things which obviously forces swapping.
I have to say though I see very little stuttering or beach balling,
though typing in IntelliJ can get jittery while it's indexing.
I think macOS' memory management is quite good for desktop usage.
I do try Ubuntu/Fedora from time to time on Macs and I do envy how much less RAM they require,
BUT everything else is rather clunky on them compared to macOS, IF they even boot.
• TouchPad dynamics are terrible.
• Gestures; forget it.
• WiFi connects a lot slower.
• Skype?... no comment.
• Multiple thunderbolt or HDMI displays with mirroring.
• HiDPI support with lower than physical virtual resolutions.
• Stable Built-in VNC server and client,
especially when there are multiple screens?
• Wake up after sleep can still be a problem in 2016
(eg it sets the display brightness to 100%).
and finally why is there no desktop environment which provides
macOS' keyboard shortcuts out of the box?
That would really help transitioning from macOS to Linux.
I agree. I use a 13" 2013 rmBP with the base processor and 8 gb of RAM. There have been several times where I was running 2 external monitors (1080p), watching HD video, running 2-4 virtualbox vms, running a big compile job, and surfing the web with 10+ tabs open. Even under that load the computer felt responsive, and that is all I really care about.
I do all my work off a MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM. It can get a little tight if I have more than a few dozen browser windows open while also working in Xcode but usually it’s not bad for most of my work. Maybe I’ll grab a 16 GB model when I upgrade in a few years.
What do you need more than 16GB for? Until less then a year ago, I used to have a 4 GB RAM
(+ 4GB SSD swap) laptop, used it for everything, including software development (Android mostly). Even ran virtual machines occasionally. It wasn't that horrible.
Now I have a MacBook Pro with 16GB and this amount seems more than comfortable.
For me longevity is the main factor in not getting 16GB. I’m using a 15” 2015 MBP with 16GB for web dev work and I have no problems, but I tend to keep my resource usage low: emacs or vim, Safari usually with very few tabs, Slack, and sometimes Music. I’m getting the 16” MBP in a few weeks, with 32GB ram.
Thanks, wow, amazing that you can already run a small model with so little ram. I need to buy a new laptop, guess more than 16 gb on a macbook isn't really needed
No that's not why. If you have any application that sucks memory without releasing it, adding more memory just delay the inevitable.
As for the RAM in the rMBP. I'm only half disappointed compared to what I would have been 1 year ago. My workflow is pushing more and more stuff in the cloud, so instead of running a bunch of small VM locally I can have VM sized properly to the task at hand rather than limited to my laptop configuration.
I find 4GB RAM isn't enough for dev. Especially if I'm doing web work and have to spin up multiple VMs to run my tests on all platforms. One weakness of the MBA: no upgradable RAM.
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