Entry-Level Macs May Finally Have More RAM
For more than a decade, Apple has shipped most Macs with a standard 8GB of RAM. If you wanted more, you had to pay— a lot . Currently, additional RAM upgrades (usually in 8GB increments) cost $200 for most models. Sure, the MacBook Air starts at $999, but if you want 16GB of RAM, it’ll actually cost $1,199.
This standard may change this year. As Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports , Apple is updating four Mac models with the M4 chip, which is currently only available with the latest iPad Pros . Gurman says Bloomberg has seen developer test logs for Apple’s upcoming Macs, all of which are base models and have 16GB or 32GB of memory.
We don’t know what types of Mac computers these are. It’s possible that Apple is testing a combination of MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini. Bloomberg News, for its part, reports that Apple is first installing the M4 chip in the MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iMac. (Sorry, MacBook Air fans.) However, these tests seem to indicate that Apple has no intention of using the M4 chip with 8GB of RAM. If so, then 16GB could become Apple’s new standard. This may have something to do with Apple’s upcoming plans for Apple Intelligence – the company may estimate that future Macs will require at least 16GB of RAM to properly run its suite of generative AI features. But AI aside, getting rid of the standard 8GB of RAM would be great .
Why is 16 GB of RAM important?
According to Apple, 8GB of RAM is enough to run macOS on your Mac. This is a standard configuration option on every base model of iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro.
The company isn’t necessarily wrong : if you buy an entry-level Mac, you can do everything Apple says with it. You can surf the Internet, check email, FaceTime with friends, and browse your photo library. If you’re looking to move away from basic computer use on your Mac, especially if you like to do one thing at a time, 8GB may not limit you that much.
This starts to become a problem when you want to do more on your Mac. RAM is your Mac’s short-term memory , which helps run all the parallel processes between the different applications open at any given time. In general, the more RAM you have, the more applications and processes you can run without putting a strain on your system.
So, again, for basic Mac use, 8GB should be enough. But as soon as you want to run more programs at once or open resource-intensive apps, you’ll quickly hit the 8GB ceiling. Once you do this, your Mac will start using its SSD (your computer’s internal storage) to “borrow” additional memory. This will work for a while, but take it too far and your Mac will start to struggle. Put enough stress on your Mac’s memory and it will start to slow down. New apps will take a while to open, Safari will freeze your tabs, and your productivity and enjoyment of macOS will begin to decline.
There is always the option to upgrade the RAM when purchasing, but again, it is expensive. If you’re also looking to upgrade your storage, since many Macs only come with 256GB SSDs, that only adds to the price tag. And Macs aren’t upgradable—if you find 8GB of RAM isn’t enough after a year or two, you won’t be able to add more memory like you can on other machines. The price of thin and light laptops, unfortunately, is constant.
What’s so great about the MacBook Pro?
It’s one thing to offer 8GB on a MacBook Air or iMac. It’s another thing entirely to offer this on your “professional” machine. The base model Apple M3 MacBook Pro comes with, you guessed it, 8GB of RAM. Apple markets the Pro as the choice for professionals: people with demanding interests or careers that require powerful machines. For $1,599 you get a fairly powerful M3 chip with a roomy 512GB SSD and 8GB of RAM. The next off-the-shelf option is the same but comes with 1TB storage for $1,799. You can spend almost $2,000 on a MacBook Pro and still get the same amount of RAM as a $600 Mac mini .
The MacBook Pro M3 Pro is a different story: these models come standard with 18GB of RAM. But they also cost $1,999 for the 14-inch and $2,499 for the 16-inch. Not cheap.
There’s a lot of talk here about RAM requirements and business practices, but the bottom line is: Apple changing their RAM standards would be great . Of course, you may not need all 16GB of RAM right now. But whether you spend $999 or $1,799 on a MacBook, you should have enough memory to last you the life of the computer.