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To reiterate your point about RAM for anyone wondering: don’t get the 8gb version! I’ve run 3 Apple Silicon Macs in different configs since 2020. Real-world performance on a range of different workloads is substantially worse than the 16gb version. Don’t even think about having more than one user logged in!

I have used the 2020 M1 air with 8Gb since last summer without any issues as a documents/productivity suite and web application development tool. There are zero complaints here. I had a Core i9 with 16GB of ram MBP before it. This feels just as fast.

I have an really old macbook pro (mid 2014) with 8 gigs of ram. I am regularly running out of ram, I think it should be independent of processing power, right? Or is there some other way it feels snappier? Maybe the SSD got so fast it can better handle memory pressure...or you just don't need more than 8 gigs and it wasn't a limiting factor before

The SSDs in the apple silicon machines are likely much much faster than whatever you have in your macbook pro so when they do spill over into swap it would be much less noticeable. That being said, I'm pretty pro apple silicon (purchased an M2 Pro this morning) and I would never recommend anyone buy a new computer with less than 16GB of ram unless the usecase is strictly web browsing/streaming/ms word type stuff.

Yep, you'll definitely still notice swapping on the 8gb version.

And yet I remember my old 286 with what? 500mb of ram or something ...

500 megs sounds wayy off for a 286, by an order of magnitude or two. Windows XP required 256.

More like 1MB of RAM.

Our 286 (which was the first computer my family owned) also had a 40MB Hard Disk, which seemed like plenty at the time. It could run Windows 3.1 with that, although it wasn't exactly fast.

I never claimed to have good memory. Just a 286. It may have had a turbo button.

I've done many drugs and many years since then.

I think the 80286 could support a max of 16mb of ram. I doubt many computers built from them had anywhere near that much ram.

I scrounged enough chips and a carrier board to max my Compaq out at 3.6MB. That may have been a model specific limitation.

I believe that this computer had a 20MB hard drive, and that I eventually ran Stacker to compress the volume and squeeze out a bit more space. I know for sure that I never got anywhere close to 100MB.

On one of my computers in this era, I managed to get a paperwhite VGA and Windows 3.11 (for workgroups) running despite not meeting product specs. My 40-something brain is not quite reliable enough for me to state this with any certainty.

I had a Pentium 1, 100mhz with 16MB of ram. Was a beast playing MechWarrior 2 and Terminal Velocity!

As long as we're reminiscing about old specs... my first hard drive was 20 megs, external, and the size of a small pizza box.

The Apple silicon chips handle ram consumption differently. Maybe it’s the ssd speed but I hadn’t had an 8Gb ram computer since I bought a MacBook Pro in 2011 that supported 16gb and I have 64gb of ram in my windows desktop. I really don’t hit a wall with the M1 over ram. It’s an incredible machine but YMMV, especially if you use virtualization.

Don’t even think about having more than one user logged in!

I currently have an 8GB M1 running with four users logged in. Three users are iTunes media servers, and the fourth is a regular user.

No heavy computing tasks, obviously, but it's absolutely possible to have more than one user logged in.

I'd imagine it's relatively easy for the OS to just swap out the memory from the inactive user. Unless they're actually running a task in the background, but how often does that happen?

It really depends on how you are using it. If you are primarily a single-tasker, then the 8GB should be enough. A lot of people just use one app at a time. I imagine that most people on this forum would be more technical and more likely to be multi-taskers where the extra RAM would matter more.

I’d be so up for a 16 inch ‘air’. I so love my M1 Pro Max MacBook, but Christ it’s heavy.

It’s heavier, and I think thicker, than my 2012 MacBook Pro. Now I expected it to be heavier, but was expecting it to drop back maybe one iteration to MacBook 2014 kind of heft. But we’re a full decade back of beefiness.

I need a big screen though so it’s the only option. Unless they make a nice thin 16 inch air. I am pretty confifent it would sell extremely well.

I sympathise. I have a 16in M1 Max, coming from an LG Gram 17. I can't fault the power of it, but the heft isn't ideal for me.

I'd welcome a 15in or 16in Air. The rumour mill suggests a 15in Air is in the works. However, I'm now used to the 120Hz display of the Max, which I suspect wouldn't be an option for the non-pro models...

> But we’re a full decade back of beefiness.

Really it's where the beefiness always should have been for the performance class / power envelope they are (and have been) targeting.

But yeah, a large screen thin & light seems like an obvious hole in the lineup.

I checked because I was curious:

2012 15in [1]:

- Height: 0.95 inch (2.41 cm)

- Weight: 5.6 pounds (2.56 kg)

2023 16in M2 [2]:

- Height 0.66 inch (1.68 cm)

- Weight (M2 Pro): 4.7 pounds (2.15 kg)

- Weight (M2 Max): 4.8 pounds (2.16 kg)

[1]: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP694?locale=en_US

[2]: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/

Easy to forget how far everything has come.

I am as happy with my 13” M1 mbp 2020 as you with your. My only gripe is that the screen is too small and more importantly after two years I went from a stellar 21h battery life to 13h for lightweight work and it now also seems to drain on sleep. And it seems to lose charge quicker under load.

The battery capacity is still reported as 91%of spec which does not explain this behaviour.

I hope yours holds up better.

I lolled while reading this.

I get like 45 minutes battery time out of my 1,5 year old Dell XPS 17. Not even enough for a meeting.

If you're this bboy gravity just want to say I'm a huge fan! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkrej5EW3Gg

How I whish, haha

I wonder if you have installed software over that time period that is doing a lot in the background. I'd check activity monitor and see if there is anything suspicious.

I recently noticed a decline in battery on my M1. It is ridiculous to complain about 10h battery life but the decline was noticeable. I fixed it by:

1) Turn off siri suggestions & privacy and all the app watching it does. System Settings -> Siri & Spotlight -> Siri Suggestions & Privacy. It turned it off for every app.

2) Turn off siri all together. System Settings -> Siri & Spotlight -> Ask Siri Toggle

3) Turn off Spotlight for everything you do not need. System Settings -> Siri & Spotlight -> Search Results check boxes

4) Turn off login items. System Settings -> Login items. Remove what you do not need from the list.

5) Turn off run in background items. System Settings -> Login items -> Allow in background

6) Remove items from ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ that you do not need. I had an old docker vnet item that wasn't needed.

Other than #6, you can do the first 5 things on all of your Apple devices and it makes a big difference in battery life. I just did the same steps with my phone and ipad.

I hope this helps your battery life a little bit.

Thank you! I have turned off a lot of background helpers from apps I don't use anymore and removed some search result types. Docker was in the background helpers multiple times. Let's see how much this helps.

In activity monitor, I also saw that Steam and iStat Menus both hand an "impact" of 50 which made them the top 2, the next had an "impact" of 5.

This might be an old issue, but try turning of the hard drive space indicator in iStats Menu. It was a major drain for me a couple years ago. After a restart, energy use went way down.

Thank you. As part of the analysis I stopped istats completely as it was one of the main consumers of power.

But I think it must still be something else as it also consumes power in sleep. And I have disabled function to wake up and check mail.

I had some major battery and charging issues while sleeping with 2 older macs that were a challenge to isolate. It turned out that in one case, the charging brick itself had started having problems and couldn't keep up with how quickly docker was demanding power. Got that replaced under warranty.

The other was just a straight-up hardware issue with the computer. I'd close the lid close to a low battery and let it stay closed long enough for it to hibernate, and then when I'd open it back up it will have completely drained and I'd get a kernal panic. They replaced it after quite a lot of back and forth until I was able to prove it.

I have a M1 air and with basically the same comments. The con is that it's no longer the newest air out there, pro being that I had it since November 2020 and I really don't have a single complaint with the hardware.

I got an MBP for the extra USB ports, magsafe power adapter, and HDMI port alone.

On processing power, I have no doubt the Air would have sufficed.

I was willing to take the weight/size penalty for the ports!

The M2 Air has MagSafe. (=

Killing MagSafe has to be the singled DUMBEST product decision anyone ever made.

I'm so glad they finally brought it back.

It's like they sandbagged themselves knowing they were going to change the whole game in a few years.

I thought killing MagSafe was pretty dumb, too, but every time I tripped over the USB-C power cable on my 2018 MBP it came right out, no problem. Plus it's really nice to be able to move the power cable to whichever side the outlet is close to. When I upgrade, I think I'd choose to continue using USB-C power if possible.

I'll actually miss the Touch Bar. It's an interesting idea that seems useful, but isn't, except in one very useful case: it's really nice being able to slide the volume to exactly where I want it. With the keys back I'll have to memorize Shift+Option+VolumeUp (or whatever it is).

I've also tripped on a magsafe cord and watched my 2011 air fly off the table and bounce+flip on my wood floor, so it's not a panacea. I think the right-angle ones were more prone to yanking your machine off the table, especially if pulled perpendicular to the magnetic connection.

Thankfully, the computer was perfectly fine.

Without Apple removing MagSafe, we wouldn’t have had USB-C charging on MacBooks.

At least until the European Union forced them too…

I tripped on my usbc cord and broke the cable

> When I upgrade, I think I'd choose to continue using USB-C power if possible.

It is possible. You can ignore the magsafe and power via any of the USB-C ports on the MBPs that also have magsafe, definitely.

The MacBook Air at least still supports USB-C power, which is useful for USB-C monitors that also supply power. But I still think you need to plug it in on the right side to avoid overheating the laptop (the MBA at least doesn't have a fan, so I can't tell if this is still true or not).

My 2021 MBP 16" M1 Max doesn't get hot with the USB-C power connected to the left side. Unknown if that's still an issue with the Air.

It would be pretty hard to put a charge on the right side as it only have a headphone jack there every other port (2xUSB+Magsafe) is on the left.

On the other hand, my M1 Pro MacBook Pro don't have any problem charging on either side, not like my previous Intel.

Oh, I missed that! and then it has one usb port, or two? If it has two plus magsafe and i had noticed, i might have bought that!

It has two USB-Cs and magsafe on the left side, audio jack on the right side. I wish it had an HDMI too. I might buy a USB-C-HDMI cable at some point.

Thanks!

In retrospect, I think i would have bought the Air! I somehow thought the Air still had only two USB-Cs, one of which would be occupied by power if plugged in. Which was not enough. Two USB-Cs plus a separate magsafe would, barely, be enough for me.

the price difference is not huge once I put in 16GB of RAM and a 1TB HD. But the smaller size of the Air is nice! I suspect even the Air is enough CPU for me, although the new M2 MBP seems like a lot more CPU I think.

I’m glad to have it as an option, but I think I’ve used my magsafe cable for charging two times in the past two years. The incredible battery life + switching my desk setup to USB-C means I pretty much never need to charge outside of normal usage at my desk

Back then I liked the Magsafe, but the my new Macbook's Magsafe cable is still in the box. With 12+ hours of battery life I barely charge it when I use it and when I'm it is usually at my desk connected to my monitor via USB-C.

When I'm on the go I only want to bring one charger and cable for backup for every device, which is USB-C. (I don't own an iPhone)

I have never used the MagSafe connector for my 14" MBP. It either sits docked with my monitor which provides power over USB-C, or when I take it, I don't take the power brick. I've taken it camping over three days and never had to charge, so having a dedicated charging port doesn't really suit my use (also not a fan of them adding HDMI back to the machine)

Makes sense!

As a photographer and DJ even the MBP runs out of ports pretty quickly, so I had a standing collection of travel hubs for this already + a CalDigit thunderbolt hub for home.

> I'm 40+ and keeping extra pounds off my lower back matters for me.

I find that, while more difficult, removing excess poundage from my waistline has a lot more impact on that ... :(

I'm not overweight, but good advice in general!

I'm really looking to get a similar setup. I don't think they would do a refresh to the Studio this year, or if they do, it would probably come at the end of the year.

It's great. Hurt a little spending that much at once but it fixed so many small issues it just feels great.

Your laptop complaints are addressed by the MBP models, which aren't much heavier if that is your primary objection.

The 14" M2 Pro is 30% heavier than the M2 Air and 20% thicker. I don't really classify that as "not much".

I have a 14" M1 Pro from work and a personal M2 Air and it's always surprising how much heavier the M1 Pro feels from my Air.

Agreed - it's great that the battery life on the pro is so good now, but that extra weight is, to me, the difference between noticeable and not noticeable.

Percentages are misleading in such small absolute numbers. "30%" is 160 grams (0.3 pounds) in this context.

The 14” is 360g (0.8 lbs) heavier than the Air. The 13” (which is little more than a heavier air) is the one that’s 160g heavier than the air.

And percentages are not at all misleading, the 14” does feel a lot heavier.

Only if you are solely carrying a laptop, and not considering the bad.

Bag, a book, a few pens, a water bottle and cables/headphones/drives is a pretty minimal load that makes a 360g increase a small delta.

I went from an M1 Air to an M1 Pro 14” and agree with you. The Air weight is a bit magical. Very chuckable, makes you want to reach for it whenever you want to get something done quickly or perch it on the arm of the couch.

By contrast the M1 Pro 14” just tips over into unwieldy. So much so that I regret not just going the whole hog and getting the 16”, since at this weight I prefer to have it sitting on a proper table and could’ve used the extra screen real estate.

I had intended to sell the Air but ended up keeping both, mainly for this very reason. The Pro rarely leaves its dock.

Oh, please don't let anyone at Apple hear you complain about "thicker". I'm still not back to trusting them after years of downgrades pretending to be upgrades: "We've made the thinnest, best-looking Mac ever while removing less functionality than we've removed in most previous upgrades!"

My sentiments exactly. Go buy an iPad if you want thin light and all day battery life. I want what Apple is delivering today, real power with real portability, even if it weighs a bit more and happens to have some love handles.

$1.30 is not much more than $1.00

Is $1300 not much more than $1000?

How is the heat? I've heard from anecdotal reports that under heavy workloads, the M2 Air can get super hot, and so Pro is the way to go if you're using heavy workloads. But you're doing music/photo production, etc, so I wonder if you agree. I know that's not the same as video.

If you do sustained work, like render or transcode video, the Air only goes full tilt for 5-10 minutes then starts throttling until you stop doing the heavy work.

If that's something you do more than once in a while, definitely opt for the Pro. For any other workload that's less than maxing out CPUs, or just bursty, the Air has been excellent.

I still think the M1 Air was a better value overall. And I liked the curves to it more than the M2's boxy design.

Well I do light music production - mostly on the Studio.

For photography work it's been fine. But I haven't done multiple-minute exports since buying it so I can't really say.

I _can_ say that under my normal workloads (coding web apps, office applications open, chrome with say 20 tabs, often playing chess, live streaming / zoom) heat has never been an issue. It's also my DJ computer for gigs and no issues I've noticed there, although it's not on my lap.

Contrasted with the 2019 intel MBP it's again night and day. Heat was very noticeable, as were heat-related throttling issues. It would just grind to a halt under normal workday loads esp when screen casting zoom + having all my normal apps and IDEs running.

Speaking of form factor I am really surprised more people don't want an Air. My work laptop (purchased by my employer) was an Air in the Intel days, and I loved it even though it was dog slow. It didn't bother me because I basically only need a browser and ssh. And, I bike to work so weight reduction matters.

Nowadays after the Apple Silicon transition my employer no longer offered an Air. The reason was too few employees wanted it and it was too much trouble to maintain a separate SKU in the inventory for the few of us. Really quite a bummer.

Did your employer provide a speced up Air or just the base model. Last time I only chose the Pro because it had twice the ram and storage otherwise I would have went with the Air.

Yes they upgraded to RAM to 16GiB. The storage didn't need upgrading because almost everyone in engineering (maybe except designers) ssh'd to big power computers elsewhere.

Are you able to edit 4k video in FCP on the M2 Air with 16GB?

I'm looking to upgrade, and I want to go for the lowest config M mac that I can get away with for smooth 4k edits.

I used FCP on an M1 Air with _8gb_ to edit 4K videos for over a year. Assuming you have enough fast storage (or are happy to use a proxy workflow), it certainly can be done, although everyone’s workflow is different. Assuming no storage speed bottleneck, timeline scrubbing was smooth up to about 2x forward or backward, from memory - after that you hit decoder limits. Proxy workflow gets around that too, though. Render times on even the M1 were a big jump over Intel chips. If Apple has a 2-week return policy where you are, why not give a 16gb M2 Air a try and see if it meets your particular needs?

What’s a proxy workflow in this context?

Do the editing on proxy clips that have been rendered at a lower quality so the performance cost is significantly reduced.

Thanks, that's great to know. It sounds like it will be a huge step up from my 2014 MBP which grinds to a virtual halt on 4k. For that reason I've limited myself to 1080 for now, but when I upgrade I figure I should step up.

I plan on getting a re-furb, not sure if I can return one of those...

You can, but honestly, if you can afford 24GB, go for it. Remember that unlike in the Intel days, the GPU uses main memory for its RAM. (Well, I guess integrated Intel GPUs did some of that, too.) That can be painful when you've got a few clips in the timeline and some plug-in wants to have multiple copies of each frame for doing its processing. (Like it applies a blur, then mixes that with the original, or whatever.) I have a 16GB MacMini I sometimes edit video on, and it works, but there are times when things get choppy/slow. I also have a Studio with 64GB, and it's smooth as butter. (I mean it's possible to load it up so it slows down, but it takes a lot more to do so.)

I don't do this specifically, but if you can go without $2k for a few weeks you can take advantage of Apple's permissive return policy and just demo for IIRC 14 days.

It's amazing. Except it has only two USB ports and can only support a single external monitor.

How come in all these new announcement threads there is always someone talking about how their current setup is great. Good for you, really happy for you. It's not really relevant to the discussion right?

Its relevant because if current setup for people in various scenarios is working great more folks can compare their requirement relevant to them. They may decide to go for newer version which can be even better or buy older version if available and save some money in process.