SangeetDev
Beginner
Adding my anecdote with 8GB RAM with Macs here. I had a M1 Macbook Pro base model which I used for about a year or so for fairly heavy programming and dev usage.
Here's the thing with Mac's memory management that you guys need to understand.
Macs are ridiculously good at swapping things in and out of memory so quickly that there's minimal to no performance impact as long as you're not using all of 8GB RAM at once.
Macs are very good at figuring out what's being used and what's not being used and when in a memory pressure situation, they will transferring contents of RAM to SSD in realtime. See for yourself in this video:
So, unless you're doing a task which needs all of 8GB RAM at once, then you'll be fine. Macs can swap Chrome tabs in an out of RAMS so quickly that you won't even notice that they are being loaded from SSD.
That been said, I did switch away from M1 because 8GB RAM couldn't keep up with my extreme workload as it grew, but hear me out.. My usage was ridiculous.
I almost always had at least 2-3 different browsers with around 10-20 tabs total. IntelliJ IDEA with 2-3 projects open, front-end, back-end servers dev server running, Flutter app running on Android Studio with a fairly small docker container running. That's what it took to finally choke my 8GB RAM Macbook.
So, seriously.. unless you've used the M1 Mac, I'd strongly recommend not comparing these with your experience with Windows/Linux. The near instant swap and ridiculous memory management makes 8GB more than competent for even heavy web browsing if that's all you're doing.
Again, the thing to note is that unless you're using all of 8GB RAM at once with all foreground and background tasks needing total 8GB RAM, you can't choke Macbook. This little fella can hold upto 30GB of stuff in swap. I've noted that. No amount of even heavy Chrome, Excel usage can choke this little fella. I'm serious. You really need to go virtualization and docker to finally test the limits of 8GB MBP.
Also, another problem that usually comes up is that people tend to fill up their 256GB storage and once that's done, there's no space for swap left. That's when their 8GB Macbooks are useless. But as long as you're keeping about 50GB storage free, you should have plenty to swap in and out.
I am currently using M3 Macbook Air with 24GB 512GB config (1.62L after student discount) and honestly, other than a slightly newer design, it's functionally the same as M1 Macs. If anything, then I prefer the wedge shape of M1 Air.
M1 Air is a ridiculous laptop if you can afford it and at 76k currently, it's a freaking bargain compared to any x86 thin and light (and I've used plenty, LG Gram, Thinkpad L13, etc) and I've sometimes seen it for cheaper than 70k on Flipkart too.
I've managed to choke my 16GB LG Gram (amazing laptop btw if you really need Windows) on Ubuntu way more easily compared to my 8GB M1 MBP. It's not even a competition.
I don't mean to argue. Just posting my anecdote and findings with M1 Macbook.
Here's the thing with Mac's memory management that you guys need to understand.
Macs are ridiculously good at swapping things in and out of memory so quickly that there's minimal to no performance impact as long as you're not using all of 8GB RAM at once.
Macs are very good at figuring out what's being used and what's not being used and when in a memory pressure situation, they will transferring contents of RAM to SSD in realtime. See for yourself in this video:
So, unless you're doing a task which needs all of 8GB RAM at once, then you'll be fine. Macs can swap Chrome tabs in an out of RAMS so quickly that you won't even notice that they are being loaded from SSD.
That been said, I did switch away from M1 because 8GB RAM couldn't keep up with my extreme workload as it grew, but hear me out.. My usage was ridiculous.
I almost always had at least 2-3 different browsers with around 10-20 tabs total. IntelliJ IDEA with 2-3 projects open, front-end, back-end servers dev server running, Flutter app running on Android Studio with a fairly small docker container running. That's what it took to finally choke my 8GB RAM Macbook.
So, seriously.. unless you've used the M1 Mac, I'd strongly recommend not comparing these with your experience with Windows/Linux. The near instant swap and ridiculous memory management makes 8GB more than competent for even heavy web browsing if that's all you're doing.
Again, the thing to note is that unless you're using all of 8GB RAM at once with all foreground and background tasks needing total 8GB RAM, you can't choke Macbook. This little fella can hold upto 30GB of stuff in swap. I've noted that. No amount of even heavy Chrome, Excel usage can choke this little fella. I'm serious. You really need to go virtualization and docker to finally test the limits of 8GB MBP.
Also, another problem that usually comes up is that people tend to fill up their 256GB storage and once that's done, there's no space for swap left. That's when their 8GB Macbooks are useless. But as long as you're keeping about 50GB storage free, you should have plenty to swap in and out.
I am currently using M3 Macbook Air with 24GB 512GB config (1.62L after student discount) and honestly, other than a slightly newer design, it's functionally the same as M1 Macs. If anything, then I prefer the wedge shape of M1 Air.
M1 Air is a ridiculous laptop if you can afford it and at 76k currently, it's a freaking bargain compared to any x86 thin and light (and I've used plenty, LG Gram, Thinkpad L13, etc) and I've sometimes seen it for cheaper than 70k on Flipkart too.
I've managed to choke my 16GB LG Gram (amazing laptop btw if you really need Windows) on Ubuntu way more easily compared to my 8GB M1 MBP. It's not even a competition.
I don't mean to argue. Just posting my anecdote and findings with M1 Macbook.
