Last night, Apple announced its new M3 series of chipsets and new Macs for them to power. Apple gave us all a new iMac, MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16 with the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max chips.
Now that we have had some time to look over the details, one thing really stood out to us. And that’s the specs on the base-model MacBook Pro 14. For the first time, Apple is offering the base M3 chipset in the MacBook Pro 14 – effectively getting rid of the MacBook Pro 13 for good. This effectively lowers the starting price of the MacBook Pro 14 to $1,599 (that’s $400 less than previously). But that’s still not what caught our attention.
For $1,599, Apple is giving you just 8GB of RAM. That’s 8GB of RAM on a laptop that costs $1,600 plus tax in 2023. That is just ludicrous. As someone who has been using an M2 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and keeps getting a message about running low on RAM, you definitely need more than 8GB of RAM. Even if you are only using a browser and a few other apps. This means that everyone is going to be upgrading to more RAM right off the bat.
Upgrading RAM doesn’t make as much sense as it should
Now here’s where things get strange. Okay, you can upgrade to 16GB of RAM for $200 more. That brings the total to $1,799. But for just another $200 more, you can upgrade to the M3 Pro chipset, which comes with even more RAM – 18GB at the base. It makes more sense to get the entry-level MacBook Pro 14 with M3 Pro instead. Which is an interesting way to do things for Apple.
Don’t get me wrong, bringing this brilliant Mini LED display down to the base-level M3 processor is definitely a good move. But Apple should at least be starting everyone out with 12GB of RAM. Or they’re going to be in the same boat as me, looking to upgrade already because my MacBook Air doesn’t have enough RAM.
2023-10-31 15:05:56