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I use a MacBook Air with 8 GB of memory and it's fine. If I've got a browser and VSCode and Blender and PrusaSlicer and Claude and XCode all open it gets a little slow, but Mac is very good at memory management these days.

Someone using just a browser and Word would have absolutely no problem.

by justonceokay9 hours ago|

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I’ve used a computer with 4 gigs for the last 15 years and it still does emails, recipes, and YouTube. I.e. 100% of my computer needs.

by ciupicri8 hours ago|

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What's so special about this Mac memory management? It uses the SSD better and makes swapping faster? It predicts what I'm gonna use or stop using and it swaps in/out accordingly?

by post-it8 hours ago|

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I'm not sure. I think it does swap more aggressively. I think the disk is also just really fast and has a higher speed connection to memory.

Qualitatively I'm running way more things in the background than I could on Linux and Windows machines with double the RAM, with far fewer hiccups.

I haven't tried a modern Surface or other high-end Windows laptop so maybe their swapping is comparable, but given the shocked reactions of non-Mac users at 8 GB of memory, I don't think so.

by alexzenla2 hours ago|

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All of that is a yes, plus compressed memory is a big component of macOS.

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It's mostly for people who need to edit some documents, a few photos here and there and other things like that. 8GB of RAM is going to be enough for the average user.

by soapdog9 hours ago|

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it is quite forward thinking, but for Apple, they are thinking you will need to upgrade.

by moolcool9 hours ago|

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Assuming nothing really bad comes out of the reviews, this looks like the best computer for like 99% of users. I really can't imagine buying some plastic-fantastic Acer unit when this is on the market.

by 9999000009999 hours ago|

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This isn't for anyone to use for 6 to 8 years.

This is for people who want the cheapest MacBook possible, with the edu discount it's only 499$.

You drop it being silly, cool that's only 500$.

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The thing is you could use it for 6 to 8 years if all your doing is editing documents and other tasks like that. No one is buying this to play games on or code massive AI powered applications, it's literally the "Well I need a computer sometimes may as well get the one that matches my phone"

by NoLinkToMe9 hours ago|

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> This isn't for anyone to use for 6 to 8 years.

Why not? I would.

by hypfer9 hours ago|

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Uhm but you do realize that $500 is actually a lot of money for people that aren't living in SF and hop between startups every second tuesday, right?

There is no "only". It's $500.

by 9999000009999 hours ago|

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Keep in mind this is the same website where someone casually mentioned buying a $5,000 Lecia for their kid.

Would you rather junior drop a $500 laptop while they're not paying attention, which is what kids do, or drop a $2,000 laptop?

The second hand market on this is also going to be great. Maybe Junior upgrades to an M5 air when he starts college, he's going to sell his Neo for 300$ which is very accessible for most.

My first laptop was 350$, brought after working for 6.75$ an hour. It was objectively a piece of junk, but hey I got to do computer and it lasted about 3 years before randomly failing for one reason or another.

by Shalomboy5 hours ago|

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I could use a laugh today, do you have a link to the leica comment? It wasn't that one review of the Fuji X Half, was it?

by 9999000009994 hours ago|

https://arslan.io/2025/06/14/fujifilm-x-half-is-it-the-perfe...

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It was definitely the Fuji X Half review.

And I must make a correction, he doesn't explicitly mention trusting his kids with a 5k Leica. He's using a 10k M11 as a family camera and he lets his wife use it.

Still, I'd imagine a family with this type of money would have no issue giving the kids 500$ MacBook.

I should of brought up the thread where someone felt they needed to buy each daughters a Tesla...

by hypfer9 hours ago|

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Neither.

I would like the bubble that is this website's "community" to pop, crash down back to earth and see them struggle living like normal people again.

by ericmay9 hours ago|

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It can be a decent sized purchase if you were buying it outright, but $500 is just not a lot of money in America for the vast majority of citizens.

Though I agree with you completely regarding the "oops I dropped it".

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When compared to the rest of the line up it is only, the Air is now $999 for the base model, that's 1k, 500 is cheap in comparison and for the quality it beats out a lot of laptops in this price range.

by hypfer9 hours ago|

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That is a correct statement, but "whoopsie, dropped it, but no biggie, it's just $500" is not.

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I think 90% of people will be fine with just an iPad. Some will need a small bump for laptop OS but not necessarily the specs which is where the Neo comes in, then the Air is for medium workflows and Pro is for if you do anything long running and intensive. It's quite a good ladder actually small steps that just add what each tier needs.

by paxys9 hours ago|