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Regarding 8GB on a Mac = 16GB on a Windows PC, that isn’t 100% accurate, but it also isn’t far off. I’d say, in my experience, that 8GB on a Mac is at least 12GB on a Windows PC. Mac software seems to use a lot less memory, for a start. The Mac version of Teams uses a fraction of the memory that Teams on Windows uses.
I had a Lenovo ThinkPad with 8GB RAM, it used to grind to a halt, when I started a Teams conference. With 4-5 people in the conference, everything just stopped, Teams would judder and the processor and memory were topped out. I’d have to close all other applications on the PC to get Teams working smoothly. I topped it up with 12GB RAM and then 16GB. The difference was amazing, Teams would grab all 8GB again, but stop at that point and other applications could remain open without too much swapping.
When the ThinkPad broke, it was just before Intel was due to announce the new Core Ultra chips, so I held off getting a new laptop for work, instead, I dug out the MacBook Air M1 8GB that we had for our old MDM solution, but had been gathering dust for 18 months in a cupboard. I thought the 8GB would be a bit tight, but for a few months, it would be fine. I now don’t want to swap it, so will probably keep using it until it breaks and then get a new laptop.
With the 8GB, I have:
- Windows 11 on ARM
- TeamViewer Manager (Windows)
- TeamViewer 15 (Windows)
- Outlook
- Firefox
- Safari
- Microsoft RDP Client
- Word
- Excel
- Teams
- Finder
- Adobe Reader
- SwyxIt telephone client
open all day, every day and I don’t run into problems with the system slowing down, even with a 5-way conference. That is a similar load to what I had on the ThinkPad, which ran out of steam with 8GB, before I did a video call in Teams and was just about on the edge of slowing down with 12GB. 16GB on the TP had no problems, but the difference between 12GB and 16GB was negligable, so I’d say 8GB Mac = at least 12GB Windows.
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I was interested by Alex’s view that spatial music only works properly when Apple do it. I’ve listened to binaural music for years. At the moment there is a decent Atmos library on many streaming services (Apple Music on Android being one), much of it is lossless too. What am I missing by not having an iPhone and Apple headphones?
I don’t think this is a USP that will influence the majority anyway if people are picking between Spotify and Apple Music. They are listening on the bus, train, streaming in the car or to smart speakers. Lossless and spatial is overkill and uses more of your data if you are mobile.
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I have a similar experience here. We have a 16GB Windows laptop and an 8GB M1 MBA and they are similar performance I think.
Is it a bit like RAM on iPhones and Androids? Some of my Androids had more RAM than my PCs. But then devs know they have this luxury, so are less efficient with their code?
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macOS seems to be very efficient with memory, at least on ARM, I haven’t had an Intel Mac since around 2012. And Windows programming is getting sloppier and sloppier all the time, especially with them using the Electron runtime instead of writing actual applications.
But even those Electron apps are much more compact on macOS, using about a 10th the memory they do on Windows, in my experience.
But even things like VisualStudio Code take up so much memory. Notepad++, a great programmers editor, using just a few MB of RAM, VSC uses over 200 times as much memory in its default configuration, which is functionally equivalent…
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Apple do put the RAM on the chip when Windows PCs don’t so 8GB RAM on a Mac is going to appear faster than on a Windows laptop
Also, why do you say your AV stuff shouldn’t go through a dock? I put my USB headset through a dock and, honestly, I’m not noticing a difference between that and plussing it in directly to my Mac
I never said AV shouldn’t go through the dock, as far as I’m aware. My Rhode microphone goes through the dock, as does the Logi webcam. The Jabra wireless headset ran over the dock as well with a dongle, although I now use Bluetooth.
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