It’s important to note, and is often overlooked, that macOS is especially good at memory management. That 8 GB will go much farther than it would on it another PC. Not to mention that the vast majority of people using these will be using it to browse the web and other very minor tasks. For the price, it’s pretty great.
Comment on Apple introduces Macbook Neo - cheaper Macbooks starting at $599
popcar2@piefed.ca 11 hours ago
Honestly I’m expecting this to take up most of the mid-range laptop market. 8gb RAM and only 256GB storage is lame, but the rest of it probably makes it really good value (especially with components getting more expensive recently).
Unless you’re buying used or refurbished, most laptops I found at ~$600 or less kinda suck. Either it has terrible specs, or uses cheap plastic, or has a terrible screen, etc.
I don’t like Apple, but hopefully this is a wake-up call for other vendors. Lower end laptops should stop being cheap garbage.
homes@piefed.world 11 hours ago
djdarren@piefed.social 4 hours ago
I have an 8GB M1 mini in service as my Home Assistant server. 4GB to UTM to run HAOS, the rest for macOS and Ollama running a small LLM for speech to text. I’m genuinely amazed that it hasn’t fallen over. Tried the same thing in Asahi but without macOS’ memory management and access to GPU acceleration, it just wasn’t feasible.
kingofras@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Eh. 8GB is unified memory, meaning it also needs to carry the graphics load. You’re making it sound like it is just working memory. MacOS is also more graphics heavy than PC, especially Linux based OS, so whatever efficiency you’ll get from the OS in terms of memory compression and management, you’ll also have to offer for the smooth expose, missing control and all the frosted glass translucent garbage they force on the users.
8GB is shit low. Email and browsing, ok. But as soon as you have 40 tabs open in chrome, it will be email or browsing. Garageband sure, again dont run anything else in the background. But I doubt you’ll even be able to edit a 1080p project in iMovie without stutter on battery power. The biggest issue is that you can’t upgrade it, so whatever software upgrades happen, 8GB is all you’ll ever get.
DireTech@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
Ok at this point it’s been 5 years since the M1 and it’s crazy people are still acting like 8GB is unusable on them. My work Mac is 8GB. So is my wife’s. I run Xcode, iOS simulator, safari, VSCode and the corporate security software at the same time without issue.
Would I want that little for video games? Hell no.
It’s still fine for the typical user. As a developer, I find the base 256GB far more of an issue since it’s impossible for me to fit multiple versions of Xcode and simulators on it simultaneously.
kingofras@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
This is a step backwards from M1 in terms of cores, core speed and bus speed. This is not going to feel like an m1 base even.
homes@piefed.world 10 hours ago
I seriously doubt many people using this will be doing much video editing with 40 tabs open. Your expectations are unrealistic for the type of user who will be buying these.
makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Additionally Apple has a bunch of cloud storage deals. I think most people store all of their photos and videos in iCloud which for most people is the majority of their storage space. I bet this is right in the sweet spot for usability, which doesn’t surprise me given Apple’s laptop history
kingofras@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
They were talking about memory not storage
9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
They were also talking about using it to browse the web and for very minor tasks, which is relevant.
makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Right, but storage and memory are clearly the bottlenecks on this computer and we’re pointing out how Apple is alleviating those bottlenecks
BladeFederation@piefed.social 6 hours ago
That is so true, and can’t be underestimated. The budget laptop market absolutely blows these days. I got a 1300x768 screen, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB storage (albeit HDD), and ~2 GHz CPU in 2016. That was at Best Buy, who tried to sell $100 HDMI cables at the time, and wasn’t even a great deal, though I was fine with it.
Now the budget market is…pretty much the same. Slightly better 1080p screen, same RAM, less storage (but usually an SSD), slightly better CPU. It’s GRIM out there.
ComputerAbuser@piefed.ca 9 hours ago
8GB RAM and 256GB SSD isn’t great, but it’s not surprising at this price point with the price of memory and storage right now. Anyone who has built a system recently can attest. If RAM/SSD pricing wasn’t so god awful I could imagine double the capacity at this price point.
in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 7 hours ago
Always buy refurbished laptops, including MacBooks.
zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
Agree. Probably best notebook for students and also for smaller companies, if you’re not relying on high end hardware.
deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
I got a laptop from 2017 off eBay for $50 with those same specs. Installed Linux on it and it was good to go. 600 is absolutely outrageous in a world where used hardware exists.
MurrayL@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
You got a 2017 laptop with an A18 Pro chip? Wow that’s incredible!
deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
No, 8gb of RAM (obviously older DDR but still) and 256gb or storage.
Of course the CPU and older components will be less powerful, but like… What do we use computers for now that we didn’t in 2017? AI? Oh nooooo, what will I ever do without local AI…
I got a bargain, but say you can only get it for double what I paid. That’s 1/6 the price. Why pay 600% more for a computer that’s not even that much better?
woelkchen@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
An iPad Air costs the same but comes with a much better M4 processor. The main difference is a less crap operating system in macOS.
popcar2@piefed.ca 11 hours ago
Sure, but a tablet isn’t a laptop.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
You can’t really use an iPad as a laptop. The hardware exists and should work, but the software is awful.
It’s often several seconds to switch to Safari on my iPad Pro with M series chip. We’ve had app switching in computers for 40 years. Why can’t iPad do it?
woelkchen@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
So form factor, not hardware internals should be the deciding factor in cost?
Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
To a degree, yeah.
The laptop form factor is engineered with lid and palmrest assemblies, if you’re going to compare the two then you’ll want to add a nice keyboard to that iPad. Apple’s is $270.
XLE@piefed.social 11 hours ago
In addition to being more locked down, you’d also have to figure out/purchase peripherals like the keyboard and mouse yourself, right?
ag10n@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
It’s an iPhone 16 with a MacBook shell
irate944@piefed.social 8 hours ago
Better specs in theory, but I would sooner cut my wrists than to try to work on an iOS device
MurrayL@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Except for them to be directly comparable you’d also have to get a keyboard cover for the iPad, making it more expensive than the MacBook, and it’d still have one fewer USB port and no audio jack.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
One has a keyboard (cheap components), the other has a touchscreen. The cost cancel each other out.