8GB RAM on M3 MacBook Pro ‘Analogous to 16GB’ on PCs, Claims Apple::Following the unveiling of new MacBook Pro models last week, Apple surprised some with the introduction of a base 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 chip,…

  • @[email protected]
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    2911 months ago

    So are they going to make the software smaller? What about iOS? Physically how does 8GB = 16GB? Can’t wait to see Photoshop open a RAW and run out of memory. I will say the M2 CPU was pretty slick and if I got one cheap I’d throw Linux on there.

    • @[email protected]
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      1911 months ago

      This ^

      Architecture changes can happen as much as they want, but there’s certain tasks that require a fixed amount of memory, and between that and poor developer optimization I doubt these improvements will be seen by the end user.

      The CPUs really are great. It’s hard to want any other laptop when the performance/battery life are so great on the M series

      • @[email protected]
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        1011 months ago

        I find it pretty easy to want other laptops because I don’t use Apple stuff because I dislike their UX. I know I’m weird but if I never have to get close to OSX or iOS I’m pretty happy.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          Thanks for saying this, it’s such an unpopular opinion.

          I got a Mac Mini last year and it was dreadful. I used nothing but the Mac for 2 months and still couldn’t get used to it. Half the things required the use of birth mouse and keyboard, neither is sufficient on its own for the most basic of things. Finally sold it off and went back to my PC with dual boot of windows and Ubuntu.

          • @[email protected]
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            011 months ago

            To be fair, the Mac mini is the worst way to experience macOS. macOS works much better with a trackpad and Apple keyboard, which eliminates a lot of your problems I think.

            I also have a Mac mini and it barely gets used because it’s a shitty experience to use with a typical windows based mouse and keyboard.

              • @[email protected]
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                010 months ago

                Honestly just because I didn’t have one and didn’t want to spend another ~$250 for the combo. I had spare windows keyboards already, so didn’t feel the need to replace them.

                If I was to seriously use it again, I’d probably get one, but it’s more likely I’ll sell it to fund a new MacBook Pro

                • @[email protected]
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                  16 months ago

                  But how is that a criticism of the Mac mini? All it does is give you purchasing flexibility (eg if you already own Apple kbd/mouse). It is like you are implicitly arguing that they should raise the price and include those components. But that would be bad for some consumers that already have those items and would help nobody because you can already buy those separately.

            • @[email protected]
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              110 months ago

              I would definitely agree to that. Even as I used it, I could see certain elements designed in a way that would suit a trackpad better.

              The worst part was the scrolling experience. It was either too slow or too fast. Could never scroll at a comfortable speed. Never feel this way when I sometimes use my colleagues’ macbooks (my company provides Macs, but I need certain applications which necessitate a Windows machine for me).

              • @[email protected]
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                110 months ago

                Yep, scroll speed is always wrong on a regular mouse from my experience.

                Can’t blame you for not liking it, they really do somewhat punish you for using accessories outside their ecosystem.

                It’s good at what it does, it certainly isn’t perfect. I have a mix of all 3 major OS’s running at most times and don’t really hold any loyalty to any one of them besides what’s easiest to do a current task with.

      • @[email protected]
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        -11
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        11 months ago

        there’s certain tasks that require a fixed amount of memory

        Sure… and for editing a 12 megapixel photo that number is 384MB (raw or jpeg is irrelevant by the way - it’s the megapixels that matter).

        As you add layers, you need more memory… but to run into issues at 8GB you’d need a lot of layers. And nobody is saying 8GB is enough for everyone, Apple does sell laptops with 128GB of RAM. They wouldn’t do that if nobody needed it.

        And photoshop, which has it’s origins in the late 1980’s, is actually pretty lean. Back in those days it was common to only have one megabyte of RAM and Adobe has kept a lot of the memory management gymnastics they needed to fit within that limit. If you run out of memory it will make smart decisions about what to keep in RAM vs move to swap.

          • @[email protected]
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            711 months ago

            Yeah, not sure if they’ve used PS in the last few years, but lean is not a word I’d use to describe it

        • @[email protected]
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          711 months ago

          You’re entirely leaving out the ~2-4GB of system overhead, 1-2gb just to have PS open and then having headroom left on top.

          Oh and by the way, Lightroom eats ~45gb of RAM when importing. Also file sizes are much bigger for any decent camera now. I shoot 45MP and files are huge now