Entry-Level M3 MacBook Air - SSD Boosts, RAM Disappointments

**The Cost of Upgrading from 16GB to 32GB RAM**

When considering an upgrade from 16GB to 32GB of RAM, many users are left wondering how much extra money they will need to shell out. However, it appears that this upgrade is not as expensive as one might think. In fact, buying the new MacBook Air with 32GB of RAM in the education store can provide a significant discount, making it feel like a free upgrade. This offer brings the price down to $99 off, which could be seen as a generous gesture from Apple.

**The Performance Expectations of 16GB vs 32GB RAM**

While 8GB of RAM may have been sufficient for many users in the past, recent experiences with the MacBook Air suggest that 16GB is on the low end. A non-power user like my wife was experiencing issues with her M1 MacBook Air due to a lack of RAM, which led me to believe that 16GB might be too little for heavy users. On the other hand, some apps such as Google Chrome and Slack can consume a significant amount of RAM, filling up the available space quickly.

**The Power User Paradox**

It is often assumed that power users will be more efficient with their computer usage and thus require less RAM. However, this assumption does not hold true in reality. A non-power user like my wife was using Google Chrome with multiple tabs open, each taking up a significant amount of memory. This behavior alone can fill up the available space, making 16GB seem inadequate for tasks such as video editing or Photoshop.

**The Case for Upgrading to 32GB RAM**

In light of these experiences, I believe that 32GB of RAM is a necessary upgrade for most users. The new MacBook Air with 32GB of RAM and dual SSD chips seems like the perfect computer for 95% of people who only do light editing, video editing, and other tasks that require moderate to heavy usage. While it may be seen as an unnecessary expense by some, I think it is a significant performance increase that justifies the investment.

**Credit to MaxTech**

I would like to extend my gratitude to maxtech for pointing out this issue in previous MacBook Air models. Their persistent efforts to highlight the limitations of 8GB RAM have likely contributed to Apple's decision to upgrade to 16GB as standard in the new MacBook Air. It is clear that their dedication has not gone unnoticed, and I appreciate their role in pushing Apple to make a change.

**The Cult Last Company**

I would also like to acknowledge Hugo for his generous donation to Cult Last, which will go towards supporting the company's endeavors. His contribution is greatly appreciated, and I'm sure it will be put to good use. While ownership of 0.1% of Cult Last comes with no rights, I'm happy to extend an invitation to Hugo to enjoy the company's facilities, including the pickleball courts, steam room, and Executive Suite bathrooms.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enlet's start with entry level M3 MacBook airs I think that these new laptops are Practically Perfect they are the best airs ever and there's only one thing one small thing maybe not small that's missing that would make these the best laptop of all time for most people but I'm getting ahead of myself Griffin I'll let you take it away yeah well previously with the M2 MacBook airs there were two small things that that kept them behind um another one was that on M2 Max with the base model of 256 gabes of storage Apple used a single storage chip instead of two storage chips so you know on the 5 12 gigabyte and higher it used two chips running in parallel so You' have really fast uh really fast read and WR speeds for storage but if you had the base model it would only read and WR half as fast you know and the M2 was actually a regression from the M1 MacBook Air before that which which also used two chips on the base model and tests showed a decline in performance between like 30 and 50% which is you know pretty significant yeah but they fixed that on the entry-level M3 MacBook Air um as YouTuber maxtech shows in his 13-in MacBook Air with M3 tear down video the new machine uses two 128 GB storage chips this ensures the SSD delivers better performance than the M2 model which B with B with bent with benchmarks indicating 33% faster right speeds and a whopping 82% faster read speeds so this is a this is a pretty significant upgrade you know I personally don't think that like the the read and write speeds was like you know the biggest problem with the old M2 MacBook airs because you know people ordering the base model MacBook Air probably aren't the sort of people who are doing a lot of reading and writing gigabytes at a time but it is nice that they fixed this uh not least because um you know there there's no longer any wiggle room for an outrage clickbait news cycle to complain about these new Macbook airs well there is one thing Griffin there is one thing and it's still a money grab if they would just ship these things with 16 gigs of RAM base it would literally be the perfect laptop and I think the only reason they don't is the same reason that they skimped with the SSD chips and only put one in is because it probably saves them like 25 cents per machine and and TC I heard was like negotiating I forget what the number was but when he negotiates when he personally negotiates component prices I heard they they were they they they were quibbling over like the the ninth decimal place you know like for some of these component parts well here's the thing how much does it cost to upgrade from from a to 16 is it $100 or $200 I forget but it's a lot of extra money now we got either way if you if you buy it in the education store you get $99 off so you could consider that a free upgrade sure you could do it that way I Davis saying 8 G 8 gab is enough I don't know man I bought my wife the M1 Bas M1 MacBook Air and that thing is constantly telling her that she needs to close applications because it's out of memory so I don't know if it's the apps that she's using I'm guessing it probably is but I have literally never seen that message on a MacBook Pro in my life and I've also never had it gabt of ram I think 16 in 2024 is the play I think that 8 gabes when you take into account you know how much RAM some apps use and how people like to have a lot of apps open and they don't restart very often I I think it's on the low end the fact that my wife is encountering it she is by far no power user I me you would the thing is about power like not being a power user is that you wouldn't think that a non-power user would would use a lot of applications but on the other hand non power users use Google Chrome with like 30 3800 tabs open and each one of those tabs is like 300 megabytes and so it fills up pretty fast and it's not just Google Chrome either because if you use the official slack App instead of making a safari web app then that's another instance of Google Chrome which is another 300 megabytes there it adds up there you go and actually she may be a Google Chrome user um but her computer that that M1 MacBook Air it's like the perfect size the perfect form Factor all it needed was the distinct SSD chips so that they could increase the right speeds and then the extra RAM and it would literally be the the perfect computer like and you could actually do real work on it like editing videos like Photoshop if they would just add extra Ram the performance would be exactly where it needs to be of course it's it's their entry-level computer so I get it there probably isn't a reason from a business purpose uh for a business cas for Apple to do that CU they want to keep the thing cheap and they don't want to take sales away from the MacBook Pro but like they're so close like the 15inch MacBook Air with 16 gabt of RAM and the the Dual SSD chips is kind of like the perfect computer for I think 95% of people and would even steal sales away from the MacBook Pro if you're just doing light editing video editing and stuff but um anyway this is this is a huge um a a huge performance increase for the new Macbook Air and I just want to give credit to maxtech for being all over this issue in previous MacBook airs and I have no doubt that they're airing this as an issue on their YouTube channel is probably something that significantly contributed to Apple making the change because they kept getting bad press and it made them look so stingy that they were doing this that I think eventually they're like okay like we're going to get called out on this again it's going to be something that people continually clown on us and dunk on us for like let's just go ahead and change this because it probably cost them very little money holy cow we got Hugo last in with the $50 Super Chat oh my goodness Hugo I think Hugo makes a donation like every single show he's single-handedly keeping us going here he says I'm making my first purchase into the cult last the cut last company the cult last company I'm guessing you spell cult cast wrong this should get me my point z0000 I'm not going to read all those zeros 1% Company ownership that that better come with board uh board voter rights uh bad news Hugo it doesn't but I grant you your share your point I don't know how many zeros are there it looks like there might be 15 uh .1 share of cult c i grant you that ownership sir thank you for your contribution it comes with absolutely no rights although once we have the cultcast command center fully built out you will be welcome to come use the pickle ball courts in the the steam room and perhaps the Executive Suite bathrooms uh but thank you for that huge donation LK will be very happy to see that go directly into his pocket um let's see here anything else on that story Griffin I don't think so we sufficiently fogged that uh with the ram thing I I think somebody graphed like how much Apple has increased the base Ram over time and it's been at 8 gbes for like close to 10 years nowlet's start with entry level M3 MacBook airs I think that these new laptops are Practically Perfect they are the best airs ever and there's only one thing one small thing maybe not small that's missing that would make these the best laptop of all time for most people but I'm getting ahead of myself Griffin I'll let you take it away yeah well previously with the M2 MacBook airs there were two small things that that kept them behind um another one was that on M2 Max with the base model of 256 gabes of storage Apple used a single storage chip instead of two storage chips so you know on the 5 12 gigabyte and higher it used two chips running in parallel so You' have really fast uh really fast read and WR speeds for storage but if you had the base model it would only read and WR half as fast you know and the M2 was actually a regression from the M1 MacBook Air before that which which also used two chips on the base model and tests showed a decline in performance between like 30 and 50% which is you know pretty significant yeah but they fixed that on the entry-level M3 MacBook Air um as YouTuber maxtech shows in his 13-in MacBook Air with M3 tear down video the new machine uses two 128 GB storage chips this ensures the SSD delivers better performance than the M2 model which B with B with bent with benchmarks indicating 33% faster right speeds and a whopping 82% faster read speeds so this is a this is a pretty significant upgrade you know I personally don't think that like the the read and write speeds was like you know the biggest problem with the old M2 MacBook airs because you know people ordering the base model MacBook Air probably aren't the sort of people who are doing a lot of reading and writing gigabytes at a time but it is nice that they fixed this uh not least because um you know there there's no longer any wiggle room for an outrage clickbait news cycle to complain about these new Macbook airs well there is one thing Griffin there is one thing and it's still a money grab if they would just ship these things with 16 gigs of RAM base it would literally be the perfect laptop and I think the only reason they don't is the same reason that they skimped with the SSD chips and only put one in is because it probably saves them like 25 cents per machine and and TC I heard was like negotiating I forget what the number was but when he negotiates when he personally negotiates component prices I heard they they were they they they were quibbling over like the the ninth decimal place you know like for some of these component parts well here's the thing how much does it cost to upgrade from from a to 16 is it $100 or $200 I forget but it's a lot of extra money now we got either way if you if you buy it in the education store you get $99 off so you could consider that a free upgrade sure you could do it that way I Davis saying 8 G 8 gab is enough I don't know man I bought my wife the M1 Bas M1 MacBook Air and that thing is constantly telling her that she needs to close applications because it's out of memory so I don't know if it's the apps that she's using I'm guessing it probably is but I have literally never seen that message on a MacBook Pro in my life and I've also never had it gabt of ram I think 16 in 2024 is the play I think that 8 gabes when you take into account you know how much RAM some apps use and how people like to have a lot of apps open and they don't restart very often I I think it's on the low end the fact that my wife is encountering it she is by far no power user I me you would the thing is about power like not being a power user is that you wouldn't think that a non-power user would would use a lot of applications but on the other hand non power users use Google Chrome with like 30 3800 tabs open and each one of those tabs is like 300 megabytes and so it fills up pretty fast and it's not just Google Chrome either because if you use the official slack App instead of making a safari web app then that's another instance of Google Chrome which is another 300 megabytes there it adds up there you go and actually she may be a Google Chrome user um but her computer that that M1 MacBook Air it's like the perfect size the perfect form Factor all it needed was the distinct SSD chips so that they could increase the right speeds and then the extra RAM and it would literally be the the perfect computer like and you could actually do real work on it like editing videos like Photoshop if they would just add extra Ram the performance would be exactly where it needs to be of course it's it's their entry-level computer so I get it there probably isn't a reason from a business purpose uh for a business cas for Apple to do that CU they want to keep the thing cheap and they don't want to take sales away from the MacBook Pro but like they're so close like the 15inch MacBook Air with 16 gabt of RAM and the the Dual SSD chips is kind of like the perfect computer for I think 95% of people and would even steal sales away from the MacBook Pro if you're just doing light editing video editing and stuff but um anyway this is this is a huge um a a huge performance increase for the new Macbook Air and I just want to give credit to maxtech for being all over this issue in previous MacBook airs and I have no doubt that they're airing this as an issue on their YouTube channel is probably something that significantly contributed to Apple making the change because they kept getting bad press and it made them look so stingy that they were doing this that I think eventually they're like okay like we're going to get called out on this again it's going to be something that people continually clown on us and dunk on us for like let's just go ahead and change this because it probably cost them very little money holy cow we got Hugo last in with the $50 Super Chat oh my goodness Hugo I think Hugo makes a donation like every single show he's single-handedly keeping us going here he says I'm making my first purchase into the cult last the cut last company the cult last company I'm guessing you spell cult cast wrong this should get me my point z0000 I'm not going to read all those zeros 1% Company ownership that that better come with board uh board voter rights uh bad news Hugo it doesn't but I grant you your share your point I don't know how many zeros are there it looks like there might be 15 uh .1 share of cult c i grant you that ownership sir thank you for your contribution it comes with absolutely no rights although once we have the cultcast command center fully built out you will be welcome to come use the pickle ball courts in the the steam room and perhaps the Executive Suite bathrooms uh but thank you for that huge donation LK will be very happy to see that go directly into his pocket um let's see here anything else on that story Griffin I don't think so we sufficiently fogged that uh with the ram thing I I think somebody graphed like how much Apple has increased the base Ram over time and it's been at 8 gbes for like close to 10 years now\n"