2024-03-15 22:29:11
You probably didn’t miss it, Apple recently updated its MacBook Air (13 and 15 inches) with an M3 chip. But one point has not been modified since April 2016: by default, Apple equips its MacBook Air with only 8 GB of RAM. And almost 8 years later, this allocation is far too low.
No Apple, 8 GB in a Mac does not correspond to 16 GB in a PC
The disgruntled may argue in the comments that this is one of our little whims, but the observation has been the same for many years: for multiple uses, the quantity of RAM provided by default is far too low. This is a subject that we talked about in one of our podcasts and we must understand one thing: the problem worsens over time.
The 15-inch MacBook Air, sold with 8 GB of RAM, as in 2016. (MacGeneration image)
Every year, applications require more and more memory, popular websites require more RAM, and certain uses evolve when the amount of RAM does not change. Tools that are based on AI (in the broad sense) require a lot of RAM for certain models and this is a point that we highlighted in our test: practical and widely used tools like Whisper can monopolize several gigabytes of RAM. If you’re just launching the program, that might be enough, but it’s 2024 and macOS no longer needs MultiFinder to handle multitasking and can even do it without displaying a bomb. The competition has also understood this well: Microsoft requires 16 GB for its AI PCs. It’s almost laughable to see Apple communicate on the ” world’s best consumer laptop for AI » while equipping the basic version with 8 GB of RAM.
MacBook Air M3 review: even better
One of the new features of the 2024 vintage can quickly cause problems: the possibility of connecting two screens. Indeed, if you connect two modern monitors (4K), you will use a significant part of the RAM and therefore reduce in fact the memory available for applications. This is one of the deleterious side effects of the unified memory dear to Apple: as the video memory and the central memory are not separated, the GPU can take up a large part of the memory, sometimes several gigabytes per monitor.
The price problem
We are of course aware of the price issue. Apple tends to charge its RAM comes at a very high cost – the upgrade from 8 GB to 16 GB on the base model costs €230 – and for a time, versions with 16 GB of RAM were not widely available commercially. This point was a problem: you had to buy from Apple and add an option, while third-party resellers sometimes offered promotions, but only on the variant equipped with 8 GB. With the MacBook Air M3, things are changing: Apple offers directly references with 16 GB of RAM, available on Amazon. The price is obviously higher (€1,760 for 13 inches and €2,060 for 15 inches) but the two MacBook Airs are much more durable.
Note also that Apple is obviously well aware of the problem: the 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro recently received 16 GB as standard in one of these variants.
And still 256 GB as standard
We could also talk about storage, because Apple is still limited to 256 GB at entry level, even if the 2024 iteration at least has the advantage of using two chips. But the storage problem is a little less important: if it is more or less impossible to update the basic equipment, it is still possible to connect an external SSD or store the data in the cloud. Whereas for RAM, you will not be able to add a USB module…
In any case, you probably understand our point: 8 GB is not enough for many uses in 2024 and Apple should really move to 16 GB as standard for the sustainability of its MacBook Air.
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#RAM #MacBook #Air