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Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

macworld.com

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Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#241

Post by Const-me »

aurareturn wrote: post #8

8GB is still good enough for office workers and students. Heck, I used an M1 8GB Air for 1 year as a dev. Although I wish I had more RAM, it still served me well. For $899 (on sale sometimes), the 8GB M2 Air is absolutely a steal. The screen quality, thinness, battery life, build quality, SoC, quietness, coolness, metal enclosure, touchpad, and speakers are simply unmatched by anything in the PC world at that price -…

> are simply unmatched by anything in the PC world at that price - sometimes any price

Technically, comparable Windows laptops do exist, but hardware vendors don’t want to sell them.

For some reason, hardware vendors really want to sell Intel CPUs, and discrete GPUs. Both choices are suboptimal for most people, because modern AMD chips are more power efficient than Intel, and their integrated GPUs are pretty good by now.

If I wanted a new laptop today, I would look for a model with Ryzen 7 7840U. The chip has 8 Zen4 CPU cores, 12 RDNA3 GPU cores, and 15-30W TDP. Quietness, coolness, performance, and battery life should be very comparable to Apple’s M1 laptops.

Sadly, most laptops which have Ryzen 7 7840U include soldered LPDDR5[x] memory, but there’re couple models with DDR5 SO-DIMM slots: Framework 13, and HP EliteBook 845 G10.

BTW, I have an older laptop with Ryzen 5 5600U. It’s a generation older, but CPU performance and power efficiency are already good there. GPU performance is not great as GCN5 cores are way slower than RDNA3.

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#242

Post by rs999gti »

The problem is Macs are not for poor people. They are the Bentleys and Mercedes of the laptop world.

All prices for everything in the brand are overinflated, because you are paying for the brand and prestige.

You want Honda prices for upgrades on your Mercedes.

An equivalent Windows laptop can do mostly everything the Mac can do except have an Apple on the lid.

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#243

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

runjake wrote: post #192
ianai wrote: post #181

I think the best reaction would be shame. Just a big round of shame for a trillion dollar company being so greedy to cripple their top equipment. Tech’s stagnated for over a decade and largely because of greed and at the expense of innovation. Prove me wrong? Do something genuinely new, like a mass produced cpu on germanium. Make a modern OS that’s a successor to unix-and plan9. Edit-Or at least a moddable iphone tha…

> Tech’s stagnated for over a decade I don’t know where to begin with this, but on topic, the M1 came out in 2020 and was a big tech leap in how PCs are done. Sure, all the individual technologies within existed elsewhere first. But Apple executed and delivered great products.

What was the leap though? Pay huge sums for the best TSMC node and put as much as possible on package? Own the whole stack?

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#244

Post by jsbisviewtiful »

ianai wrote: post #197
runjake wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tech’s stagnated for over a decade I don’t know where to begin with this, but on topic, the M1 came out in 2020 and was a big tech leap in how PCs are done. Sure, all the individual technologies within existed elsewhere first. But Apple executed and delivered great products.

Sure. Running an OS that is carrying a lot of legacy OS X with introduced bugs and cruft. I love *nix and hope to keep using it for a long time more. But if you plunked 2002 me into modern day, apple’s offerings would be pretty cool but not what I’d expect after 2 decades. You could buy a desktop with 4 gigs of ram in 2010.

Most of your comments in this thread read like you are completely unaware of the tech and manufacturing leaps we've already passed and are currently trying to pass. You are allowed to complain if you want to, but your complaints are unsubstantiated. Signalling we haven't made significant and or substantial advances since 2002 is a joke - especially if your barometer is buying RAM.

There's always research ongoing to improve tech and a lot of it is on the market already, but just because researchers figured something out doesn't mean it's feasible on a large manufacturing scale or that thermodynamics will even allow it to work well. Comparing devices in 2002 to 2023 and not noticing the drastic improvements just shows a lack of understanding and or signs of living in complete denial to just complain.

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#245

Post by dahart »

ianai wrote: post #181

I think the best reaction would be shame. Just a big round of shame for a trillion dollar company being so greedy to cripple their top equipment. Tech’s stagnated for over a decade and largely because of greed and at the expense of innovation. Prove me wrong? Do something genuinely new, like a mass produced cpu on germanium. Make a modern OS that’s a successor to unix-and plan9. Edit-Or at least a moddable iphone tha…

Good luck! People have been trying to shame Apple for their premium pricing since the day they started selling computers, and it has never done a thing to change their strategy nor sales. I think the issue is that a lot of tech people don’t fully understand what Apple is selling, what value is there, and why it appeals to so many consumers, despite whatever reasons we think we have. Nobody needs to prove you wrong, because most consumers do not know and do not care what germanium and plan9 are. Most consumers do not want to mod their phone or plug it into a keyboard & mouse, heck most programmers don’t even want that.

Framing it as greed and lack of innovation seems like a not well thought out argument. Which companies are you buying tech from that aren’t aiming for a profit, and wouldn’t change more if they could? As a dev I feel like I’ve been forced out of the Apple ecosystem, and I’m having a hard time being a fan these days, but I wouldn’t dare claim they’re not innovating. The M-series is a massive innovation and challenging everyone, and it follows behind literally world-changing innovations like iphone. For its time, OSX was an innovative successor to unix built on unix. They have a long list and a solid history of innovation that continues to this day, despite always having had seemingly high prices on RAM, so let’s look for a better argument why they should offer it for less.

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#246

Post by paulryanrogers »

rs999gti wrote: post #242

The problem is Macs are not for poor people. They are the Bentleys and Mercedes of the laptop world. All prices for everything in the brand are overinflated, because you are paying for the brand and prestige. You want Honda prices for upgrades on your Mercedes. An equivalent Windows laptop can do mostly everything the Mac can do except have an Apple on the lid.

> An equivalent Windows laptop can do mostly everything the Mac can do except have an Apple on the lid.

Or develop / test / use Mac software.

Or even check how Safari works for your SAAS (without resorting to BrowserStack or similar).

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#247

Post by rs999gti »

wafriedemann wrote: post #196

The problem I have with 16GB as a upgrade is that the base model is widely available and often on sale. 16GB does exist as preconfigured option, but it is a lot harder to come by. It's mainly sold as BTO, which means you have to pay full price. That makes that extra 8GB of RAM ridiculously expensive. I mean it's already ridiculously expensive, but the fact that base models sell with huge discounts increases it even f…

Macs are luxury goods, price is the price. If you have an issue with it then you are not the market.

No one goes to a Lambo dealer and complains about the cost of an oil change. Price is the price for luxury goods.

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#248

Post by 1000100_1000101 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #201
ianai wrote: post #181

I think the best reaction would be shame. Just a big round of shame for a trillion dollar company being so greedy to cripple their top equipment. Tech’s stagnated for over a decade and largely because of greed and at the expense of innovation. Prove me wrong? Do something genuinely new, like a mass produced cpu on germanium. Make a modern OS that’s a successor to unix-and plan9. Edit-Or at least a moddable iphone tha…

I’m in the market for a new Macbook. Should I get the M2 instead of the M3? The base M2 had 16GB RAM

The base M3 MBP isn't a true MBP. It's to replace the 13" MBP w/ touchbar, which was always a lower-end black sheep of the MBP family. Now that they've removed the touchbar, they've consolidated it into the regular MBP lineup, but it remains crippled.

If you were considering a 14" or 16" M2 Pro MBP, the equivalent M3 Pro MBP would not be the base model, and WOULD be an upgrade... just avoid the base M3 (non-Pro) config.

If you were considering the M2 MBP w/ touch bar, then the base M3 MBP is the equivalent chip.

On the other hand, if you don't need the GPU improvements, or the mild CPU speed bump, that M3 gives and you can find an M2 Pro cheaper because they're "old", go for that.

edit: Adding "Pro" to M2 and M3 to indicate which were the proper MBPs.

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#249

Post by rs999gti »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #246
rs999gti wrote: post #242

The problem is Macs are not for poor people. They are the Bentleys and Mercedes of the laptop world. All prices for everything in the brand are overinflated, because you are paying for the brand and prestige. You want Honda prices for upgrades on your Mercedes. An equivalent Windows laptop can do mostly everything the Mac can do except have an Apple on the lid.

> An equivalent Windows laptop can do mostly everything the Mac can do except have an Apple on the lid. Or develop / test / use Mac software. Or even check how Safari works for your SAAS (without resorting to BrowserStack or similar).

> Or develop / test / use Mac software.

Or even check how Safari works for your SAAS (without resorting to BrowserStack or similar).

You're making my point still. Because you are developing software and testing in the Mac environment, over there everything is more expensive.

Re: Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it

#250

Post by fastaguy88 »

What a brouhaha. Apparently the people buying MacBook Pro's are so non-professional that they are duped into buying a machine with too little RAM? I think they get a 30 day return free, so if they find out they were duped, why not just upgrade. And while the upgrade cost may be extortionate compared to NewEgg, a 16Gb machine is just $200 more, still considerably cheaper than the same model was in the Intel days.

I suspect that people who have decided to pay extra for the Pro model may actually have some idea how much RAM they need.

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