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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

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Nursie·

> Which typical Air buyer needs 16gb ram

The developer for whom a macbook air brings a huge amount of power?

I mean, they aren't low-end when compared to the general laptop market, they're awesome!

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You responded to a comment about the "typical Air buyer". A developer is really not the typical Air buyer and more the target audience for a Pro line product even if that specific model is plenty fast.

For what it's worth, I bought my partner an 8gb Air a couple months ago. I had reservations about that amount of memory but she insisted on not spending more money. As far as she's told me she's experienced no performance issues whatsoever as a non-developer (she uses her laptop for video conferencing, email, and web browsing).

I use my 8GB one for development (mostly web and Cocoa, but also some 3d stuff w/Metal) and the only issues are with things like Microsoft Teams or some other memory hog, but even my co-workers with 32GB machines suffer with those, so I guess it's alright.

I switched to running MS teams in safari as the app was terribly resource intensive. Unfortunately it’s only safari that works with voice/video calls.

I might accept your advice and do the same. It's really mind boggling how slow it is for me lately after some upgrades :(

I think the high price actually means that is a typical user. The original casual user type this has been designed for likely use iPads or Chromebooks at this point.

> A developer is really not the typical Air buyer

They may be the target of the pro line, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the performance of the M1 attracted more developers to the Air line. I saw no reason to go to the 'Pro' when I got mine.

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