The NVMe drives in a MacBook Pro are the same speed, or in some cases slower, than any modern PC laptop with NVMe Gen4. [1]
The arguments I've seen defending Apple seem to boil down to one of a few different base arguments:
* The software is better optimized! (dubious, needs evidence)
* Even when the software isn't as optimized, the OS does memory compression so swapping doesn't happen as often! (true, but so does Windows and Linux, so it's not a differentiator for Macs)
* Okay but when swapping does happen, the SSDs are super fast! (true, but not any faster than a comparably-equipped PC, and often slower if you're looking at PCs in the same price range as the Mac)
I could be missing something but I haven't yet seen any credible argument backed by evidence that Macs are anything but mediocre with 8GB of memory.
BUT, even if there were such arguments, it would add literally a few dollars to the BOM to make 16GB the base, so why are we all bending over backwards to defend Apple?
edited to add: don't tell me that it would cost more than a few dollars to make 16GB the base -- another common false argument is that the memory in a mac is somehow "special." It's not, it's completely standard LPDDR4X or LPDDR5, sourced from the same suppliers as everyone else uses.
I think the adjective “mediocre” is a tad heavy-handed here. I’ve had a variety of laptops – PC and Mac – since the mid-2000s. Apple Silicon is far and away the biggest leap forward I’ve seen, bar none. On a recent 5 hour flight, I shut off WiFi and only had a terminal open. At the end of the flight, I still had over 90% battery remaining. That is monstrously impressive, if only for the screen’s power consumption.
Add to that the fact that the terminal is nix instead of Windows (Powershell is not the same, and if you’re falling back to WSL then congrats on admitting nix tooling is superior), and it’s a very compelling machine.
Yeah, I use an M1 machine for work, and you’re right about the efficiency. But as a creative pro or a developer (two of the target markets for Macs), your machine is the main tool you use to get things done. Calling a machine “Pro” and shipping it with 8GB of memory in 2023 is a slap in the face to those professionals when it’d be less than 1% more expensive to double it to 16GB.
That’s why used the term mediocre, and I stand by it.
I don’t have much to say about the terminal stuff other than that my personal thinkpad that runs Linux does the terminal thing a hell of a lot better than my Mac does.
If you’re running Linux on a laptop, then yes, that’s even better. However, AFAIK nothing has battery life close to Macs. I’d consider one if they did.
My work Mac is perma-docked, but my personal Air spends most of its time on my lap, and I greatly value the battery life.
My Thinkpad T480 with high capacity battery gets about 10 hours of run time under Linux, running an editor, browser with a million tabs open, docker containers, and the occasional video playback. That’s enough for me, and I’m not convinced that a Mac would have meaningfully higher battery life with the same workload (especially running Docker, which is a hog on MacOS).
The arguments I've seen defending Apple seem to boil down to one of a few different base arguments:
* The software is better optimized! (dubious, needs evidence)
* Even when the software isn't as optimized, the OS does memory compression so swapping doesn't happen as often! (true, but so does Windows and Linux, so it's not a differentiator for Macs)
* Okay but when swapping does happen, the SSDs are super fast! (true, but not any faster than a comparably-equipped PC, and often slower if you're looking at PCs in the same price range as the Mac)
I could be missing something but I haven't yet seen any credible argument backed by evidence that Macs are anything but mediocre with 8GB of memory.
BUT, even if there were such arguments, it would add literally a few dollars to the BOM to make 16GB the base, so why are we all bending over backwards to defend Apple?
edited to add: don't tell me that it would cost more than a few dollars to make 16GB the base -- another common false argument is that the memory in a mac is somehow "special." It's not, it's completely standard LPDDR4X or LPDDR5, sourced from the same suppliers as everyone else uses.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/17qhxbl/ssd_ben...