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Comment by have_faith | Hacker News Reader

Not to beat a dead horse but I'm also considering abandoning Apple as I'm due an upgrade now.

I'm still using a MBP from 2010 that I added an SSD and some extra ram too, it's still going strong although showing it's age it has served me very well over the years.

Gluing parts in that used to be user replaceable, models now are 16gb of ram only (can someone explain this one?), thinness for thinness sake, removing standard ports etc. I can live with non-apple hardware but I would much prefer to use MacOS. Considering dual-booting a hackingtosh/linux.

I get the impression they are trying to transition their laptops to life cycles closer to their phones and I won't be coming along for the ride.

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> "models now are 16gb of ram only (can someone explain this one?)"

"Apple told me MBP maxes out at 16GB RAM because LPDDR3 limit is 16GB/chip; Apple uses it because of performance/energy ratio."

https://twitter.com/DanFrakes/status/791754757404626944

So basically, it needed to be thin and light ... because, Apple ... which limits the size of the battery. And more RAM would consume more energy, requiring the device to potentially be thicker and heavier to accommodate a larger battery in order to meet their runtime expectations.

If it was all about battery savings, then why not use DDR4? DDR4 is more power efficient [1]

[1] http://www.memcon.com/pdfs/proceedings2013/track2/Designing_...

Cost. Margins. Their current price point is already an increase. Not sure what using DDR4 would do to that but presumably newer tech translates to higher costs.

Your link compares DDR4 against DDR3, but you should be comparing DDR4 against LPDDR3.

Why not LPDDR4 against LPDDR3? LPDDR4 is also more efficient and has better density.

Skylake does not support LPDDR4, nor does Kaby Lake (except with their ultra-low power chips).

I don't think we're going to see 32 GB RAM in the ultrabook category until LPDDR4 is supported by Intel in their mobile-class processors.

Edit: AnandTech suggests that LPDDR3 is 25-30% more power efficient than DDR4. (http://www.anandtech.com/show/6326/additional-details-on-mic...)

That might be so, but the macbook air is the ultrabook series and the mac book pro should be the work horse series.

I have a Dell Precision 5510 that supports up to 32GB of RAM and also has Skylake Mobile Xeon. Alas, it is plagued with tons of issues.

~~Older MBPs were thicker and could support 32GB. So Apple both cut away a little bit thickness for no reason, and then used that as an excuse to drop max RAM support? Something smells odd about that conclusion.~~

EDIT: No 32GB MBP ever existed. My bad.

They never could support 32GB of RAM AFAIK.

There was a MBP that supported 32 GB of RAM ?

No if there was I'd still be using it.

> models now are 16gb of ram only (can someone explain this one?)

Which other laptop were you going to buy that supports more than 16 GB? How much does it cost? What's it size, weight, color depth and battery life?

As far as I know, the new Surface Book also only supports 16 GB of RAM. Or the new Razer Blade. The Razer Blade Pro can have 32GB of RAM, but it is twice as heavy and twice the volume of the 15" MBP.

The standard two slot SO-DIMM laptops can support 32 GB now thanks to 8Gbit DDR4. There was also 8Gbit DDR3 that is less common and more expensive, but is supported by Broadwell for example.

Lenovo have a bunch of laptops which support 32GB and even 64GB RAM at under $2k like the T460. Then again, some of them don't have great SSDs or displays.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/landingpage/promotions/weekly-s...

Compare the new rMBP against a Thinkpad P50 that is much cheaper yet 4K, Xeon and upto 64GB.

It's a bit of a hulk being the weight of a 2012 MBP.

The field was even more scarce 4 years ago. At the time, 16gb in a laptop was extremely rare. Apple won a lot of business (including mine) by showing that it was possible. Some people (including me) thought they would have spent some of the following 4 years figuring out how to keep moving up. Unfortunately, it looks like they actually spent that time pushing an MBP into an MBA chassis and adding a touch sensor that other manufacturers were shipping 10 years ago.

Yea, it was 4Gbit DDR3 DRAM that made it possible in most laptops. We are now moving to 8Gbit DDR4.

> The field was even more scarce 4 years ago

Dell Precision and HP EliteBook W series had more than 16GB well before that; several in the company where I worked had 20 and 24GB. Neither was obscure or exotic, both were aimed at the same professional market and were 'standard issue' for the top-tier in many large companies.

Apr 2011 ... the EliteBook 8540w can accommodate up to 32GB of memory

April 25, 2011 ... The Precision mobile workstations can handle up to 32GB of 1333MHz RAM and 16GB 1600MHz RAM

> Dell Precision and HP EliteBook W

... were (and are) big-ass mobile workstations. MBPr were much lighter and thinner but still super-powerful - there was no competition in that weight/volume segment. Today, with Dell XPS, Razer, Surface and so on (even the Purism Librem is basically the same shape), we have plenty of alternatives in that segment, so there were two options really: move into the Air segment, or raise the bar for performance again. They chose the former, people complaining were expecting the latter.

If you (or anyone reading) are attached to macOS in any way, getting a maxed out 2015 Macbook Pro might be a decent option. Refurbished might be a cheaper option as well.

Sure, you're paying for "older" hardware, so I can understand being hesitant, but they still hold up fine and will last for a long time.

Note that I don't use virtual machines, games, or video editing software so the 16gb of RAM is more than enough.

> Note that I don't use virtual machines, games, or video editing software so the 16gb of RAM is more than enough.

I don't use games or video editing software, but I have 2 virtualbox machines running, one with Debian and one with Windows 10 for testing purposes, along with always on Docker containers. My 16GB of ram on my mid-2015 near maxed out 15" rMBP with a Dell 27" 4k display hooked up holds up very well.

  >models now are 16gb of ram only

Do you have a use for more than 16gb? Serious question.

Running multiple VMs

Shit... Just one will start to put strain on the system.

If I'm developing an iOS/Android frontend in osx with Xamarin Studio and an asp.net backend with Visual Studio, then 16gb just won't do.

Not sure about Xamarin studio, but for Xcode, AppCode, PHPStorm anr Virtualbox 16GB still does do.

Multi-threaded builds of C++ codebases that make gratuitous use of template meta programming.

You should offload the build to a compile cluster. Especially if there are multiple developers doing this it will be worth setting it up.

How does one do this for XCode builds? Especially with the sad state of the Mac Mini.

I'm often noticing a ton of swapping going on, causing serious system-wide lag, when I have a few dozen Chrome tabs and two VM's running in addition to a few other standard programs which use a lot of memory (Slack).

It's not hard to rub up against 16GB in a standard developer workflow.

Glad to know it's not just me that sees performance and memory issues with Slack...

> a few dozen Chrome tabs

There's your problem.

I agree. Chrome is a big bloat on Windows and OS X/macOS. I find Safari to be quite lean (memory and energy consumption) on OS X/macOS. I miss that Firefox is not keeping up since it's the most flexible browser for my use.

No not really, while Chrome certainly isn't perfect it's usually using less than 10% of my memory. I don't think the objections would go away if it supported 17GB, or even 18GB.

There are legitimate reasons to need that much RAM. What I don't see people doing though, is asking if they are using the correct tool (laptop) for the job (video editing, data processing, compiling, etc).

If your workflow is Mac-oriented, buying a trashcan Mac Pro right now is really expensive for pretty outdated hardware. MBPs are pretty much the only game in town.

There is also desktops and servers, both of which may be much better for rendering, running VMs, etc.

There is no serious Mac desktop except for the stunningly overpriced Mac Pro.

There is no serious Mac server, period.

If your in the apple ecosystem then you aren't worried about over priced products.

This is...objectively wrong? The "Apple Tax" hasn't, up until the current generation and maybe (depending on your metrics) the prior one, been a serious thing for a decade. They've consistently released price-competitive systems that come with what's probably the best multi-purpose desktop OS on the planet.

Don't do the middlebrow thing. It never works.

If you're doing video editing with FCPX and/or Motion, those dual GPUs in the MacPro help a lot!

Sure, but the hardware's anemic for the price. The MBP is pretty much at the reasonable spot on the price/performance curve.

(I use an MBP as the brain of a multi-camera video studio; I totally get why one would buy a Pro. But I'd pull 100% off of Macs before buying one.)

Yes, here is my system right now.

http://imgur.com/a/Zj2wK

Workload expands to use all available resources. 640kb etc etc etc...

> I get the impression they are trying to transition their laptops to life cycles closer to their phones and I won't be coming along for the ride.

Does that lifecycle mean a refresh every year for the MBP (or gasp, other Macs)??? That would have millions of people screaming with joy if that ever happened. Based on the last few years, it's quite clear that Apple does not believe in spec refreshes or in selling more of the Mac lineup. Apple seems to want to focus only on portables a little bit, followed by all-in-ones (iMac).

Sadly, it seems like Macs have become hobby items for Apple. Something to work on with spare time. I'm very frustrated that the Mac mini has not been updated for more than two years and that it doesn't have user replaceable RAM and HDD.

What are you considering as your next purchase?

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