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Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

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Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#51
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-integer scaling on the Airs puts me off. I want perfect text rendering at a great resolution as that's well over 50% of the reason to get a MacBook. So it's the Pro for me

Can't you set the resolution to whatever you want?

Yes but the effective resolution of the 13 inch air when it is at 2x scaling is pretty cramped, which is why the default is to use blurrier fractional scaling.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#52

As an Apple fan, what Apple charges for RAM is insulting. Pre 2012 it was standard practice to buy your MacBook Pro with the minimum RAM, and you could upgrade the RAM yourself buying from Crucial and the like for WAY CHEAPER than what Apple sold the RAM for. To stop that Apple started soldering the RAM to the logic board. I’d have no problem buying RAM from Apple if they charged a fair market price. Sadly Apple seem…

> Sadly Apple seem hell bent on ripping us off.

Did you mean "Fortunately, Apple are laser-focused on maximizing shareholder value"?

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#54
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no actual increase in available RAM and no improvement in performance then. That'll be an extra £999, sir.

For anyone who skipped subtraction in school, 16 GB minus 4 GB for AI still leaves you with 12 GB usable. And AI won't be running all the time.

Barbie told me math is hard...

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#55

Should upgrade ssd to at least 1TB

I doubt that's needed. 1TB is great and all, but unless you're downloading games or handling a lot of media, you're unlikely to use it all. I don't think most people need that much, and will get by just fine with 512GB or even less (my current work laptop for software dev has a 256GB SSD, and while I could use more if I wanted to, I don't need to think about disk usage, even with a small Windows 11 VM on the same dis…

My MacBook Air M1 has 16GB RAM and the base 256GB RAM. I decided I wanted to try some native Apple Silicon games like “Resident Evil: The Village” and “Death Stranding”. So I took a 1 TB WD_BLACK external SSD, installed macOS Sonoma and made sure to boot from that hard drive when I wanted to play games. It works perfectly. Sadly there is no way to add RAM externally ha ha.

I boot from the 256GB storage that is soldered on the MacBook Air M1’s logic board when I want to do anything else. I have about 174 GB free currently.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#56

Still pretty puny for RAM these days

Is it? I don't know what the most popular Windows laptops are, but tooling around Lenovo's site, the starting configs for laptops seem to be either 8, 16, or 32 GB. Some soldered, some not.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#57
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-integer scaling on the Airs puts me off. I want perfect text rendering at a great resolution as that's well over 50% of the reason to get a MacBook. So it's the Pro for me

Can't you set the resolution to whatever you want?

The panel resolution is fixed, so it'll have the same number of pixels on it regardless of what you "set the resolution to."

For maximum visual fidelity, it'd be ideal to scale to some power of 2. Apple's stock settings offer resolutions that ... don't always follow that rule.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#58

Still pretty puny for RAM these days

I was thinking the opposite: it's actually surprising how long 16 GB has remained a useful amount of RAM? At home I use a 10 year old 16 GB laptop and the amount of RAM never seems to be the problem. Any sloth is always due to one or both of the outdated GPU and outdated CPU.

(First time I bought a PC with 16 GB RAM was 2011. It wasn't a ridiculous amount of RAM back then, just usefully more than necessary. 16 GB has probably been a sensible amount for 15 years now.)

(Whether I'd buy a computer today with 16 GB of soldered-in non-upgradeable RAM - that's another question. And my answer would be: I wouldn't. However that is not because it would be useless on day of purchase!)

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#59
post #12
post #9

I hope one day they can fix the engineering problems so I can buy a machine and keep it for more than two years without fear of some cheap components exploding. A purchased computer should work for a decade at least. If this sounds over the top, look at what the repair shop guys are saying... Edit: Thanks for the downvotes, its not popular but an unfortunate reality. These issues are related to 2016-present Apple lap…

My 2014 pro is still going strong

My 2012 11" MBA is the same, love that machine. It's an issue with 2016-present laptops unfortunately

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#60
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2014 pro is still going strong

There are some people with 300k on their original Chevy Silverado transmission. But there are MANY people that have them blow up every 100k miles. So, would you say the 4l60e is a good transmission because yours went 300k? Im in the Central valley and have helped at least 5 friends replace or rebuild theirs. If you visit a transmission shop, this is the transmission that keeps them in business because it's one of the…

Well the repair cost if you have this problem on a computer would approach the used value of the computer, so its likely to become ewaste. It wasn't a problem before the 2016 machines, and its still a problem on the current machines. Meanwhile my pre-2016 apple laptops are still in use by family members without issue
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