M1 or M2 MacBook Airs *with 16 GB RAM* (and this is the catch). These are notoriously costlier (and difficult on retailer sites where you get deals) to have compared to their 8GB counter part - Apple already making it difficult for users to keep the laptop around for longer, because that default 8GB RAM is going to run out sooner than you think. And you can not upgrade it once bought.
Anything on Windows (or Linux considering you'd install that) I wouldn't even touch below 24-32GB or 16GB to begin with and then expandable up to at least +16GB.
It is so shocking to see people declare their laptop just works at the soldiered xGB RAM. Well, a year and half later it will start feeling the pinch.
This all depends on your usecase. My daily driver is an older $300 Dell laptop with 8gb of ram running bunsenlabs with i3wm. All I did is stick a 500gb ssd in it and it works absolutely fine. With standard dev workflow, I can get close to 6 hours of battery life, never run into memory issues. But my development is mostly python and C.
I do agree that Macbook air from a hardware perspective is a very good configuration for a general purpose laptop, but the MacOS absolutely ruins these laptops, at least for me. Having a work issued Mac, its kind of amazing to me with how much bullshit OS things people, especially technical ones, just put up with.
My intel MBP 13" has only lasted as long as it had because I got the 16gb of ram, and wouldn't consider anything lower these days. The upgrade from 8 to 16 only a few years ago though was about $200 (already too high imo), but now every ram tier is a laughable $500 CAD upgrade. FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS for 16g more, and even though I know it's a great computer, it just feels sinister. Considering it's an additional $500, I'd be paying a full grand for the 32gb package. Like it's only priced for idiots who finance a new car every few years and get all the options
Yeah. Unfortunately high RAM - no strike that; reasonable RAM laptop is hard to find at reasonable prices. And by the time FrameWork or something like that reaches my corner of geography I think it’d have been too late for me to try those things.
There was sale recently in my country across online retailers like Amazon. There was decent discount on 8GB one, but the 16GB one? It’s not even available. It is never available with retailers.
Yep, custom order or your shit outta luck. The 8GB is... fine, but not really an upgrade unless I was doing something that didn't tax ram at all. I tried it out when mine was in for repair, and I did notice the increased performance of the M series chip, but it showed it's limit pretty quickly when I spun up the 8 docker containers or w/e I was using regularly.
Furthermore, I want a red one. Sick of this silver stuff.
Anything on Windows (or Linux considering you'd install that) I wouldn't even touch below 24-32GB or 16GB to begin with and then expandable up to at least +16GB.
It is so shocking to see people declare their laptop just works at the soldiered xGB RAM. Well, a year and half later it will start feeling the pinch.