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Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#31

Post by throwaway290 »

Macha wrote: post #8

Your average consumer is not really using more than 16GiB of RAM, which was also an artificial limit for a while in laptops due to having to choose between LPDDR3 (power efficient, 16GiB limit) or DDR4 (larger capacities allowed, uses more power). Apple and other manufacturers thus had to keep 8GiB models around so they had something to boost to entice you to the more powerful models. So a few professional laptops we…

Are you saying MBP is a machine for your average consumer? Whom is MBA for, then?

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#33

Post by Macha »

throwaway290 wrote: post #31
Macha wrote: post #8

Your average consumer is not really using more than 16GiB of RAM, which was also an artificial limit for a while in laptops due to having to choose between LPDDR3 (power efficient, 16GiB limit) or DDR4 (larger capacities allowed, uses more power). Apple and other manufacturers thus had to keep 8GiB models around so they had something to boost to entice you to the more powerful models. So a few professional laptops we…

Are you saying MBP is a machine for your average consumer? Whom is MBA for, then?

Are you telling me the 13", 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage base MBP is a professional machine? The Macbook Air's target market seems to me to be "I want a Mac, the cheapest Mac because I want to save money, but I'm also willing to pay double what a non-Mac laptop would be" with a secondary market of "I don't care about money, performance or longevity, I just want the lightest mac".

Personally I wouldn't recommend any Mac for the average consumer. If they just need "a computer", there's a number of perfectly servicable Windows machines for €600, while the Macbook Air starts at €1149, and if they want to play video games the Mac isn't really a candidate due to worse software support amongst games than Windows or even Linux at this point. Those are the two most common asks for advice for a computer I get.

If you need a Mac for professional creative use, or want a *nix system for development use, you already know what you want/need, and you're unlikely to be asking me.

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#34

Post by moondev »

buffington wrote: post #30
moondev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In October 2019 I bought two 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 SODIMMs for my laptop for $140 each. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N124XDS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... You can now get a single 32GB DDR4 3200MHz SODIMM for under $120 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FBNQXC4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

Are you posting these links to suggest that the commenter is incorrect about prices remaining the same? If so, I'm not sure comparing prices of DDR4 are the same thing, since the commenter was talking about LPDDR4.

* 64GB of 2666MHz DDR4 in 2019: $280

* 64GB of 3200Mhz DDR4 in 2022: $240

memory has been getting faster and cheaper, and it really wasn't that expensive to begin with.

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#35

Post by throwaway290 »

Macha wrote: post #33
throwaway290 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying MBP is a machine for your average consumer? Whom is MBA for, then?

Are you telling me the 13", 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage base MBP is a professional machine? The Macbook Air's target market seems to me to be "I want a Mac, the cheapest Mac because I want to save money, but I'm also willing to pay double what a non-Mac laptop would be" with a secondary market of "I don't care about money, performance or longevity, I just want the lightest mac". Personally I wouldn't recommend an…

I'm not asking you indeed. My point is that 8 GB RAM is not a professional machine and is incorrectly labeled. You seem to be restating this point.

MBP is supposed to be professional, but I can't imagine using a 8 GB machine. Even on 16 GB M1 RAM is the bottleneck and I get OOM errors.

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#36

Post by Macha »

throwaway290 wrote: post #35
Macha wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you telling me the 13", 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage base MBP is a professional machine? The Macbook Air's target market seems to me to be "I want a Mac, the cheapest Mac because I want to save money, but I'm also willing to pay double what a non-Mac laptop would be" with a secondary market of "I don't care about money, performance or longevity, I just want the lightest mac". Personally I wouldn't recommend an…

I'm not asking you indeed. My point is that 8 GB RAM is not a professional machine and is incorrectly labeled. You seem to be restating this point. MBP is supposed to be professional, but I can't imagine using a 8 GB machine. Even on 16 GB M1 RAM is the bottleneck and I get OOM errors.

Oh yeah, like my original stance was that basically the 8GB MBP exists to have a cheaper entry price, and to have something that's a no brainer upgrade to make users actually looking for a professional machine buy the next one up.

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#37

Post by porcc »

moondev wrote: post #34
buffington wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you posting these links to suggest that the commenter is incorrect about prices remaining the same? If so, I'm not sure comparing prices of DDR4 are the same thing, since the commenter was talking about LPDDR4.

* 64GB of 2666MHz DDR4 in 2019: $280 * 64GB of 3200Mhz DDR4 in 2022: $240 memory has been getting faster and cheaper, and it really wasn't that expensive to begin with.

Compare this with CPU operations per second per dollar and it paints a totally different story

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#38

Post by fallingfrog »

For reference (taken from this: https://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm )

1995: 4 Mb of memory was $129

2002: 256 Mb of memory was $34.19

For those who weren't around, the progress in both memory and CPU terms during the 90's was astonishing. Order of magnitude improvements every 2 years. We have nothing like that rate of progress now.

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#39

Post by ev1 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #31
Macha wrote: post #8

Your average consumer is not really using more than 16GiB of RAM, which was also an artificial limit for a while in laptops due to having to choose between LPDDR3 (power efficient, 16GiB limit) or DDR4 (larger capacities allowed, uses more power). Apple and other manufacturers thus had to keep 8GiB models around so they had something to boost to entice you to the more powerful models. So a few professional laptops we…

Are you saying MBP is a machine for your average consumer? Whom is MBA for, then?

MBA is for people running Facebook Messenger and Instagram to use in coffeeshops, obviously :)

Re: Ask HN: Why does my '15 MacBook Air have the same RAM (8gb) as a '22 McBook Pro?

#40

Post by tragictrash »

Macha wrote: post #36
throwaway290 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not asking you indeed. My point is that 8 GB RAM is not a professional machine and is incorrectly labeled. You seem to be restating this point. MBP is supposed to be professional, but I can't imagine using a 8 GB machine. Even on 16 GB M1 RAM is the bottleneck and I get OOM errors.

Oh yeah, like my original stance was that basically the 8GB MBP exists to have a cheaper entry price, and to have something that's a no brainer upgrade to make users actually looking for a professional machine buy the next one up.

This is literally their marketing strategy. The same thing applies to popcorn sizes at the movie theaters. I can't remember what it's called or find a reference to the strategy, hopefully someone smarter than I can provide it.
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