Base model has 16GB RAM (finally?!). Can run three displays (finally?!).
Personally I feel like it’s the game changer the base M4 Mac Mini was.
Cheaper again at AOC here.
MacBook Air 13.6" M4 (10c CPU, 8c GPU, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM) $1549 Shipped + $299 AirPods/Pro Credit @ Apple EDU Store
2630
Bigfellaborham on 06/03/2025 - 10:09 apple.com (9507 clicks)
Last edited 15/03/2025 - 13:24 by 3 other users
Last edited 15/03/2025 - 13:24 by 3 other users
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Don't forget you can pay $100 for AirPod Pro 2's at this price + 1.30% cashback on Cashrewards.
Could you please elaborate what you mean?
Shows offer on 2nd page of checkout
Free Airpod pro with NC
$300 off Airpod pro 2
airpod 4 with ANC free
Hooray now OzB techies can stop crying about the ram config for the base model.
Nah they will pickup something else.
You make the common error of seeing all people who disagree with you on one point as a single entity. It is a gross over-simplification.
Some people are never happy, but for many others, 16GB makes the base model great. Especially in the case of the Mac Mini, there is now no major complaint.I mean, yeah, still no touchscreen. But that an't a dealbreaker for most.
No nipple mouse either
Fan == dust
Gonna be a pretty niche situation where you are dealing with 30+ degrees often enough for this to be any real concern, any harsh environments such as this you would be looking at a rugged computer anyway.
Why are people so hell bent on shoehorning products into niches they were never intended for..
Are you coding in the outback?
Bruh get an aircon.
in the case of constantly sitting at 30 plus degrees our brains should fail before the MacBook machine 😅
I don’t think throttling is a real issue for MB Air users unless you do Pro then you will buy a MB Pro then
Nah mate, I’ve got a MacBook Pro and either the fan is pretty much silent or it barely spins. I do CAD work on it and it seems to not come on.
These M units are really power efficient to the point that they barely need forced cooling. Unless you’re doing serious processor intensive computing.
14inch M4 pro has 2 fans
Completely overblown. I use an M1 Air for work, the vast majority of the time it is cool to the touch. 95% of users would be fine with an Air.
fan = no deal
im willing to sacrifice screen quality, battery life, and lower quality speakers and go for air instead of pro only coz it does not have a fan!
@Roe Jogan: No this is crazy.
Different people are having different use cases and needs!
Why aren’t you like Mantichoral, who clearly knows what everyone else needs?
what next, dogs and cats living together?
@entropysbane: just as you have a different use case i have a different use case and i wans saying what i suitable for me i wasn't saying you should get the air
@Roe Jogan: I was joking and not having a go at you, but Manticoral. Because everyone has different user needs.
And I just bought the MBA 15 in sky blue with the free AirPods.Ps I also live in a subtropical environment!!
lol. Get some air con into you.
seriously 256gb in 2025, and spend 300 extra for 256gb extra, can they just do 512gb as base. smh
You do know they increased the base ram months a go, right?
That was in response to my multiple comments on ozbargain that 8GB is not acceptable in 2025.
Yeah of course, but I figured we could have the same discussion just like the 8gb argument got rehashed every single time a MBA was posted lmfao.
16GB in 2025? oh hell no
16gb is more than enough for most people that will use these to browse the net.
@bio: And it still holds true, a base macbook air is perfect for basic web browsing, emails and the odd netflix video. It fit a specific market very well. ARM architecture is extremely efficient in its usage of ram.
ARM architecture is extremely efficient in its usage of ram.
Do you really understand how computers work or copy/pasting things you memorised? I fail to see how a "CPU architecture" can be "efficient in its usage (?) of RAM" when Chrome
memallocs another 1GB for each tab you open, or when you load an LLM model with 70B parameters that requires 32GB of RAM for itself, regardless of the "CPU architecture" used.@bio: From what? you haven't educated me any further, I know about everything you have said.
I am really not sure what point you are trying to make here, the answer to your problem is simply use a browser that has been developed to run properly on apple silicon. You are throwing out all these complexities to the discussion where the answer will always boil down to - well that computer is not suitable for your use case. Why in gods name would you ever be using an 8gb MBA to do LLM stuff? Tools for jobs mate comon.
@bio: RISC architectures like ARM are actually less memory efficient than CISC architectures like Intel because it can take more instructions, in more memory, to get the same thing done.
@rayd2: That's not the point. The point is CPU architecture has nothing to do with memory usage, so Macs being more memory efficient is a fairy tale. In fact, they are even slightly less efficient because of the RISC instruction set as @mantichoral mentioned. The original poster of the claim @doobey1231 is playing the fool here.
Safari uses less memory on x86 too, so that's irrelevant. Every application uses almost exactly the same amount of memory on every system, so "you're fine with 8GB on a Mac but not on x86" is nonsense.
@bio: not saying 16GB is enough but why you want to use a ultralight laptop to run LLM in the first place? Mate, the right tool for the right task
ARM architecture is extremely efficient in its usage of ram.
Wot ?
RISC based architecture is a lot of things, but but that.
@bio: Then learn how to use the memory space efficiently.
Close unnecessary apps and web tabs is the first step to start.
If you need to use a memory hungry app, then the macbook air is not for you.
🤦♂️
Now they can just complain about the 256gb hard drive
256gb isn't bad, it's the $300 upgrade to 512GB and $570 to 1TB.
Yeah those hard drive updates are ridiculous. I do love my macbook though, and its still going strong 7 years later (as a backup travel device). Just wish i hadve upgraded to the 500GB model when i first bought it.
We got one!🎣
If you get the next model up you also get the 10core gpu as well as extra 256gb
Yeah need to be 512gb as standard these days
We have 512gb at work and it's wasted at least a couple of hours of my life. 1tb minimum if for anything tech related please. But agree, base model 512gb with 16gb ram is doable for most. The cost to upgrade is triple what it should be.
Needs 1tb as a base. Programs are getting larger and larger.
People are editing videos and larger files.
Nobody would have a problem with 8 GB for the base if the upgrade to 16 GB was reasonable. Same applies to storage and everything else. The base model is typically the only value proposition because of this so, so base model specs are important.
The other issue is that apple decided to solder the ram and make user upgrades almost impossible and lauding themselves that it's good for the environment.
The memory is not soldered, it's physically a part of the CPU. The design decision doesn't have anything to do with the environment. It is designed that way to make it "unified", i.e. both CPU and the GPU has fast access to the same DRAM.
Soldering SSD, on the other hand, is pure greed.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/06/28/why-apple-uses-in…
@shegeloaf: The memory is a design choice, AMD is going a similar thing with some of its chips, this gives the GPU access to all of the memory to do AI on the super cheap amongst other things and offers a serious performance boost vs a plug in GPU apaprently. The new Framework ultra mini desktop is using this architecture for example
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/framework-known-for-…
The Framework Desktop is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Max processor, a Radeon 8060S integrated GPU, and between 32GB and 128GB of soldered-in RAM. We just reviewed a more thermally constrained version of these chips in the Asus ROG Flow Z13 tablet—despite technically being an "integrated" GPU built into the same silicon as the CPU, the number of compute units (up to 40, based on AMD's RDNA 3.5 architecture) plus the high-speed bank of soldered-in RAM gives it performance similar to a midrange dedicated laptop GPU.
"To enable the massive 256GB/s memory bandwidth that Ryzen AI Max delivers, the LPDDR5x is soldered," writes Framework CEO Nirav Patel in a post about today's announcements. "We spent months working with AMD to explore ways around this but ultimately determined that it wasn’t technically feasible to land modular memory at high throughput with the 256-bit memory bus. Because the memory is non-upgradeable, we’re being deliberate in making memory pricing more reasonable than you might find with other brands."
@bio: Thanks for the correction.
I think I saw that the SSDs have custom controllers so the replaceable SSDs are not so easy to replace or upgrade.
Firstly, its not soldered on its inclusive of the CPU, this is what makes apple silicon so fast, because everything is physically unified on the one chip. Secondly, the vast majority of manufacturers are also using soldiered ram on their computers these days, this is not an apple exclusive thing its an industry problem.
@doobey1231: You could argue that Apple started this trend, and the industry started copying Apple because it was so successful.
@FujinShu: I mean you would have to dig for actual evidence but I am almost 100% certain that an OEM manufacturer like IBM would've been the first, given the companies ability to create fully integrated computers entirely in house, they had B2B ram module suppliers along with everything else.
For unified memory I do believe apple was the first to implement it on a PC, but honestly the measured benefits from having ram sitting smack bang next to the CPU vastly outweighs being able to swap them out in applications like the MBA.
@doobey1231: When it comes to laptop memory, either solder it on-package or add CAMM2 sockets.
No point in soldering raw memory chips.
Yes apple upgrades have always been expensive af, but in my experience over the years is that the argument has never been about the cost to upgrade, it has always been the same old argument "its (current year) and apple is still selling their base model with 8gb of ram)". If the complaint was about cost to upgrade then it would be a fair point but it really wasn't, that was just the tack on argument when most people that knew were saying that people buying base model macs genuinely do not need the ram upgrade.
Nobody would have a problem
Have you forgotten where you are?
Not 32gb ram. 😂
Can be configured to 32GB
Should be default 😅
non upgradable 256gb ssd is landfill
But 16gb is barely enough etc etc
Shill harder will you
Only if you try harder to come up with something interesting to say
Will them check your student id?
yep they do, and you need to be wearing your school uniform
And write 100 lines on a chalk board "I am a student".
Followed by a quick game of Heads Down Thumbs up with the staff.
Sounds fun
I'll get Angus Young to buy it for me
Make sure Angus is wearing his schoolboy cap.
Otherwise his baldness gives the game away.
And please get a note from your principal.
I was buying iPad for a student but checked out as a guest and asked for no proof.
you just need to identify as one
Maybe if you collect from an Apple Store but not an LPO. Anyway, can confirm did not require any proof to get student rate and free pen.
In your experience can you get JB to price match this?
Not usually, but you can ask.
Why bother? You'll get better pre- and post- service from Apple, and free home delivery.
you'll still get the post service from apple
You won't get no questions asked retrurn.
@PainToad: This is one of the most compelling reasons to buy from Apple. My son returned a $3,500 MacBook Pro in January he had been using for a month, and they happily accepted the return.
@Boodek: The old extended returns over Christmas trick. Pro Display XDR with nano-texture glass and pro stand is the real win.
@PainToad: Correct.
I bought an iPad Pro and got one with scratches. I took pictures for evidence however Apple did not even ask.
(profanity) jb honestly, plus u can get edu pricing (which jb and officeworks don't pricematch) as well as free airpods of 299$ value so …. do the math
Will women find me attractive if I buy this and hit the Starbucks WiFi?
Don't know attractive, they may cuz you for showing off ;-))
Funny apple