Seems like the lowest price ever for this MacBook. Even cheaper than the MacBook Air M2 retailing at $1709.
MacBook Pro 13” M2 (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) $1663 (Was $1999) + Delivery ($0 to Metro Areas/ C&C/ in-Store) @ Officeworks
1510
AvidDealHunter on 10/03/2023 - 22:56 officeworks.com.au (4295 clicks)
Last edited 12/03/2023 - 00:34 by 1 other user
Last edited 12/03/2023 - 00:34 by 1 other user
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There is no magic that you can store more that 8GB in 8GB RAM.
End of the day it is still 8GB RAM.
Sure it has a fancy way of swapping betweem RAM and the 256GB or 512GB storage really quickly but 8GB RAM is still just that.
@AustriaBargain: ChatGPT can't make up it's mind:
PROMPT: ChatGPT what is better? A M2 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM, or a windows laptop with 16GB of RAM?
It's difficult to say which is better without knowing more about your specific needs and use case. Both the M2 MacBook Pro and Windows laptop with 16GB of RAM have their advantages and disadvantages.
The M2 MacBook Pro has the advantage of being a high-quality and powerful machine with excellent performance, and is well suited for tasks such as video and photo editing, software development, and other resource-intensive applications. However, 8GB of RAM may not be sufficient for some of these tasks and may result in slower performance when multitasking or running memory-intensive applications.
On the other hand, the Windows laptop with 16GB of RAM may be better for users who need more memory for multitasking or running memory-intensive applications. It may also be more cost-effective than the M2 MacBook Pro.
Ultimately, the choice between the two depends on your specific needs and budget. If you prioritize performance and are willing to pay a premium for a high-quality machine, the M2 MacBook Pro may be the better choice. If you need more memory and are looking for a more cost-effective option, the Windows laptop with 16GB of RAM may be the better choice.
@Aureus: I run the popular adobe apps on an 8GB ARM MBP and a 32GB Ryzen gaming PC and honestly the 8GB feels just as good, in a way where I know an 8GB gaming PC would not be suitable at all, but on my Mac I can have all the adobe apps open at the same time no problem.
@AustriaBargain: That's because 8GB is enough, until it isn't.
If you are using Photoshop and you are working on a very big file that is taking up all of your RAM, then you will have crap performance. No Apple magic can work around this. Swap to SSD is still much slower then RAM. It isn't as terrible as back in the day, now SSDs are standard.
If you are using Photoshop and using 6GB or RAM and running stuff in the background MacOS is smart enough to keep photoshop in RAM and swap the inactive apps.
@AustriaBargain: ChatGPT is not an oracle, it's confidently wrong about a lot of things.
Yes, Apple did some great stuff with its systems design, fast storage for quick swap/virtual memory or whatever, but no it doesn't magically make it OK to have 8GB on a 'pro' machine, and yes you'll feel it when you hit the limits.
I have 16GB Air, and it's fantastic, but when I'm really hammering it with processes taking up more than that, it starts to suffer.
@[Deactivated]: You may be talking about from before all the adobe apps went native Apple silicon, but even under rosetta I thought 8GB was enough. If anything the storage needed upgrading first because after effects likes to cache every single thing you ever done in every file, and Photoshop loves scratchdisk.
@AustriaBargain: If 8gb is enough, why does Apple sell 16gb and 32gb version of macbooks as well?
Because - it's not enough.@Tleaves: If your house is big enough, why do they sell mansions? 8GB is more than enough for the average person and I get my on it just fine, though my next one will have more ram. 8GB of Apple silicon RAM != 8GB of your PC RAM.
@JerraJones: They should. It's basically exactly the same as the Air, but has the mighty TouchBar. In PyCharm it gives you the run and debug button right there in the TouchBar! And it has a fan and one more core and a bit more battery.
@AustriaBargain: ChatGPT is a parrot - enough people had that talking point so it's ChatGPT's opinion. It makes some decent points and likely does work well for your use case with optimised apps.
However making a blanket statement is misleading. Your initial comment is missing the nuance of the bot's reply which makes it just plain misleading.
@Menzoberranzan: You can complain about the distortion field all you want, but you can't argue with its results.
@Menzoberranzan: Apple has a market cap of 3.5 billion, 9 in 10 American teenagers use an iPhone, Jobs was the single largest shareholder of Disney after he sold Pixar and after he died his widow became the largest Disney shareholder. Those are pretty good results.
@Menzoberranzan: So you measure the success of Steve Jobs by the speed of the RAM in the Apple silicon Macs and the efficiency of the apps that run through that RAM?
@AustriaBargain: No. I measure the success of Steve Job's reality distortion field by how you can believe nonsensical things like "8gb of Apple unified ram is worth more than 8GB ram that's in your PC"
@Menzoberranzan: What has your personal experience been with RAM when running native apps on an M1 or M2 Mac, what things have you noticed?
@AustriaBargain: So now you're trying to prove your point through anecdotal evidence and piggybacking off the CPU chip? Come on mate. We all know the real heavy hitter is the actual M1/M2 CPU chip, not the RAM. RAM is RAM.
@AustriaBargain: The whole 8GB = 16GB really is just specific cases where you are working with smaller amounts of data and programs are optimised for the platform.
Outside of that, for tasks that don't take up a significant portion of ram, you might be OK - they'll be swapped transparently. If a program does require more physical memory than is available and this results in swapping, you will feel pain and realise that RAM is RAM. At that point, you would likely be better off with a machine with more physical memory regardless of OS. If you are doing this on a regular basis, that is likely one real case where you would burn through an SSDs life.
You do know the RAM is on the chip,
on what "chip"
You think being soldered to the logic board means the memory is 'on the chip'?the only memory you'd consider 'on the chip' is the L1 and L2 cache, and they sure aren't 8GB :)
@xoom And so begins the PC vs Mac debate 🤦🏻♂️
Side note: You might want to read up on UMA before you try to compare apples with… PCs. End of the day it's not the same.
You might want to read up on UMA before you try to compare apples
You might want to learn how many zeros and ones fit in 8GB. You might be amazed that it fits the same amount wether its a PC or a Mac.
I think you will find I'm m not comparing PC or Mac but rather edumacating the masses of the underlying tech behind storing zeros and ones.
@ALBastru: RAM doubling through software used to be a real thing, on certain kinds of ram in the 20th century.
A fancy way of swapping would be perfect though if the storage was as fast as the RAM, because all RAM is is really fast storage. Cache, RAM and storage are just different storage methods that work on different speeds. If we could get 5,000MB/s SSDs then RAM would become pretty much meaningless except in certain circumstances.
The key point is that most users don't actually know how much RAM they need. They think they need more but reality is if the swapping between storage is fast enough they'll never notice. And MacOS has nicer ways of sharing basic infrastructure than Windows has with it's bajillion dlls.
So yes, 8GB of RAM is 8GB of RAM, if you need super fast access to it then it's irreplaceable. But if you're not sure you need it, like if you're open 500 browser tabs or not editing a massive video, then from an experience point of view 8GB might be more than enough.
@freefall101: The M2 MacBooks with 256GB of storage have much slower SSDs now (due to them using a single channel instead of 2 channels like on the M1 series), so you get hit with the double whammy: run out of RAM and you fall back to a slower SSD swap disk. For the price, I find that hard to stomach.
@deadpoet: If I had to choose between more RAM or more storage I would go for RAM every time with an M1/M2 Mac. At least with the storage you can expand/upgrade with a Thunderbolt 3/4 enclosure with a standard gen 3 NVMe drive inside. But because RAM is soldered onto the board, you are well and truly screwed in regards to a D.I.Y upgrade path!
If we could get 5,000MB/s SSDs then RAM would become pretty much meaningless except in
certaincircumstances.Let me correct this for you: except in almost all circumstances
Not only operating systems and software are designed to work directly with CPU cache and memory to store program code and variables in (rather than on disk storage) and swap out pieces of memory temporarily when it is full, but memory is magnitudes faster than storage. Furthermore, unlike storage, memory does not wear with R/W cycles. But yeah, otherwise you are totally correct.
@glade90: If only the company building this hardware was also the company that built the OS.
Other software besides the OS doesn’t get to decide whether it’s being written to cache or ram either, allowing applications to decide where they write to RAM is a quick way to destabilise a system.
@freefall101: Your understanding of computer hardware architecture and software compilers seems to be so limited that it prevents us to continue this discussion.
See also the
registerkeyword in C.
Look at all these silly comments from morons who think Apple isn’t the number one company
I'm a software engineer.
8GB RAM is not enough for my use case.
- 4GB RAM min is assigned to local Docker.
- 2GB RAM min is assigned to local ElasticSearch.
That leaves you just 2GB RAM for devving locally.
My 8GB Mac kept swapping, making my dev experience very laggy.
I then switched to 16GB RAM Mac and I no longer experience swapping.
A happy dev is a productive dev.
Just download more ram
Why?
Apple marketing.
8gb is not enough on an M1 or M2 because…Apple marketing.
Thanks, great answer /s
This is a meme.
M1 MacBook air with 8gb. Had approximately 20 chrome tabs and 3 word documents open. Chrome was using 9gb on its own. Laptop was humming along nicely. Slightest delay when switching to Word or some other tabs which I assume is loading from ssd. No meltdown like Windows would have. Is it slower than a 16gb ram MacBook? Slightly so but very usable by in this situation. Probably different when video or photo editing but have no experience there.
Similar experience for me with a 8GB MBA M1. I also have tasks that do require 8GB plus ram which I wouldn't a attempt to run on my MBA.
Also, with a Surface 4GB/3rd gen i5, I tried to create a situation with memory pressure using Chrome that resulted in a significant slow down. I couldn't. I was also browsing on a netbook style device with a z8350/4GB and playing some retro games - once again, no or minimal slowdowns with chrome + games.
My feeling is that outside of use cases that actually require more ram, most modern machines are going to handle things reasonable well.
Humming along nicely in this case = accelerating the wear of your soldered on storage, shortening it's lifespan.
Non issue unless you're running tasks on a regular basis that push the limits of the machine's memory.
The fact you maxed it out with ONLY that open, says all we need to know. It might be super mind blowing efficient vs Windows PC with 8GB but it's still 8GB, it's literally 2023, it's SO, so time for 16GB machines.
8GB is for $400 laptops at Harvey Norman for grandma.
As a Mac Mini M1 owner I mostly agree. I am really enjoying my M1, but…. what happens in a couple of years time when programs/apps/browsers get more complex and RAM-hungry? You can't simply install more RAM like a PC. I'd like to think I could get more than a couple more years out of my M1 before I put it out to pasture. If only Apple took a leaf out of Framework's book. A Mac you could upgrade yourself! I remember those days!!
8GB ram is not a problem.
The real issue with the mac is 256Gb.
The bandwidth of the 256gb ssd is half of 512Gb.I have the 8gb air 1 with 512gb HDD
yes physics says 8 is not 16, can't store the same volume, but I noticed
1) a lot less baseload (more of the 8 is free)
2) the system is very efficient in swapping
you are right, i have edited out the bit where i said it was a bad thing ….. check the revisions and you will see my edit
Since when did jb start selling refurb apple products?
Not bad for a Macbook Pro, but 256GB of storage in 2023 is starting to become the next 128GB, considering the storage cannot be upgraded, try to get at least 512GB at the bare minimum; whilst working in the IT industry, i have seen alot of customers buy the 256GB version thinking it was enough, it just leads to headaches having to deal with storing your files externally
I run parallels on my MBP and I've tried running it on 256GB MacBooks. You'll run out of space pretty quickly.
I actually wish 128GB was still an option, would save me money as I have no need for a larger overpriced storage option.
They want you purchasing cloud each month
Agree! Any deals on 512gb ssd model(s)?
Edit: 512gb model $2067.
Also this is the Touch Bar model… doesn’t have the physical dedicated function keys.
Unless you're going to by maxing out the CPU for long periods of time, the M2 Air is a much better choice than the M2 Pro 13". Bigger screen, better webcam, lighter weight, MagSafe charger, regular function keys instead of the stupid Touch Bar.
Useful data thanks
Can't believe I have to scroll this far to see mention of the (stupid) Touch Bar.
Thank God they got rid of that cancer.
But, but, Johnny Ive!
Agree. I would not buy this model MBP.
The MBA is a better, cheaper option for most people.
And if you really tax the machine that it needs more than passive cooling, then step up to the better designed 14 inch MBP.
Yup. The sweet spots seem to be 8GB/256GB Macbook Air and the 16GB/512GB 13" Macbook Pro.
The 13" MacBook Pro seems to be in a no-man's land, and this deal seems hardly a bargain compared to the Air.
M1 MacBook Air with 8% edu store cashback seems to be better deal.
You'll need to also invest in a time machine though.
MacBook comes with Time Machine.
Is 8Gb RAM enough for Time Machine?
An M2 MBA would be a better deal.
M2 8GB ram version use the low speed ssd. The 16GB ram version use better ssd. The M1 8GB is better than M2 8GB because it uses the high speed ssd.
M2 8GB ram version use the low speed ssd. The 16GB ram version use better ssd.
Masterful stroke from tim apple to make you buy the 16GB version.
Its the step up selling format. Like incremental FOMO. Wickedly genius.
What's more, by the time you upgrade to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD, the 14" Macbook Pro, with its dramatically better screen, starts to look very attractive.
Tim Apple is indeed a genius, damn him.
I guess but you’d have to ignore that most mac purchasers won’t even know this in the first place and wouldn’t be effected by it.
No mate. i have a group of friends. They have M1 8GB, M2 8GB, M2 16GB. We tested them all and know that the M1 8GB is faster than M2 8GB due to SSD. If you want M2, buy the 16GB, or keep your old M1.
SSD speed is the least thing you need to worry about. If you need super fast SSD to transfer large files over and over on daily basis then you won't be buying this machine. You would definitely go for the Pro. Other than that, you won't notice any difference in day to day work. The theoretical max write/read speed increase in larger capacity model would translate to like 5~10% percent of gain maximum in specific use cases.
The M1 8GB is better than M2 8GB because it uses the high speed ssd.
It's unfortunate that these days people have immediate and wide audience for their misinformation, without any need whatsoever to provide data apart from their opinion.
The correct information based on data is: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/wskqgz/please_stop_bli…
I didn't hear the rumor. I tested it. i have a group of friends. They have M1 8GB, M2 8GB, M2 16GB. We tested them all and know that the M1 8GB is faster than M2 8GB due to SSD. If you want M2, buy the 16GB, or keep your old M1.
I'm sure I read that while this is true, and is clear when running benchmarks, the real world, day-to-day performance difference is almost unnoticeable.
To Everyone: i have a group of friends. They have M1 8GB, M2 8GB, M2 16GB. We tested them all and know that the M1 8GB is faster than M2 8GB due to SSD. If you want M2, buy the 16GB, or keep your old M1. Thats why they always sale the M2 8GB ram, let think about it.
cool story
Did your group of friends clap afterwards
Not worth for the old chassis tbh
Sigh ram, sigh storage.
Sigh your comment
After using M1 Mac Mini for 3 years, totally regret of choosing the 8GB based model
Always have "out of ram" issue especially Chrome itself already used 3-4GB easilySo would strongly recommended to get at least 16GB ram
In terms of storage, 256GB MBP has been reported to be using single channel SSD instead of dual channels
this caused SSD speed to be slowed down up to 50% compare to MBP M1 256GB
thus recommended to get at least 512GB if deciding to get M2 MBPYour first mistake is using Chrome
There are many extensions only available in Chrome unfortunately
Especially those for development purpose (eg. IE Tab, JSON formatter, Modify Header Value, Network Sniffer, React Developer Tools, User-Agent Switcher etc.)And also those OZB favourite extensions like Shopback and Cashrewards
Check out Orion browser, its able to use chrome and Firefox extensions natively on the safari webkit and supposedly has no telemetry
try using brave instead. chrome is famous for being chronically shit on Macs
Chrome runs 100x better than any other browser on my laptop(PC)
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8gb ram, not ideal