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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2014-05-02, 06:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
I don't consider 3.26GB of 4GB of physical memory use and 5.5GB of Virtual memory to be "no memory pressure at all" despite what Apple's little memory pressure graph may say.
Well, more memory wouldn’t make the computer run faster in this case, which is the bottom line here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
I never once mentioned Adobe apps or intense design apps either. However, I think it is beneath Apple to ship a machine that is not capable of running those apps sufficiently, especially one with no upgrade path.
But why? Some MacBook Air buyers will never use those apps (the vast majority, probably). It would be wasteful and pointless to spec every machine for the worst-case scenario. You may as well complain a Mac Pro hasn’t got enough memory for continental-scale weather forecasting.

Besides, 4 GB can honestly run things like Aperture. Not ideally, but it works fine if you take care to shut down memory-hungry things before starting work.

That’s the thing: 4 GB is actually quite a bit of memory. It’s not comparable to past situations, where Macs shipped with 128 MB and could barely load the OS in that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
I'm also speaking from experience of having to use a machine with only 4GB of RAM for far too long. It is not a pleasant experience. Try scrolling through a large iPhoto library. Or a large Word document. Or scrolling through a large PDF in Acrobat Reader.
These things aren’t necessarily memory limited. For example, I haven’t seen Adobe Reader scroll smoothly in years on any Mac. The app is just layer upon layer of inefficiencies.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
Show me some data on battery life of a 4GB vs 8GB Macbook Air. I bet you there is no difference. Show me a 4GB vs 16GB MacBook Pro I bet you there is no difference.
When I upgraded my old MacBook Pro from 2 GB to 8 GB of RAM I noticed a distinct increase in idle power consumption. Not drastic, but enough to be sure it was real. Since the MacBook Air has extremely low power draw at idle, the effect may be larger for it.

I don’t know which memory modules Apple uses so I can’t look up the figures. But for a given manufacturing process, doubling memory capacity simply doubles many types of current draw (though admittedly not some important ones, which show less of an increase). And notebook memory chips use enough power to make the sticks warm to the touch, i.e. a significant amount. In the very rough range of a watt, judging from some Micron datasheets I glanced at. So we’re talking about real effects on battery consumption – maybe close to an hour over the 12 hours claimed life of the 13-inch MacBook Air.

Memory power consumption is an important reason Apple has worked so hard to keep down the memory requirements of iOS.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PB PM View Post
The difference in price between notebook 4GB and 8GB dimms is maybe $20-30, and that is the price difference between individual dims, rather than the quantity Apple would be ordering. There is simply no excuse for keeping these machines at 4GB.
$20–30 is a fortune to a bean-counter and a very good excuse. If the marginal cost to make an Air is $300 then $30 would be a 10 per cent increase!

By the way, it isn’t just Apple that has stagnated on memory capacities. The whole PC industry has done so. 4 GB was common on new Windows-based notebooks in 2009, and remains so today five years later. Increases are no longer as vital as they were, and price pressure is higher.

And some trends have actually reduced memory requirements: increased use of cloud-based services in a browser rather than a standalone app, increased recognition of the value of (and adoption of) simple and lightweight desktop apps, increased use of an iPhone for everyday photos instead of a dedicated camera and iPhoto, etc.

… engrossed in such factional acts as dreaming different dreams.
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