I would do 16gb just for longevity sake. Unless you plan to upgrade in a couple years.

Yes, if you can afford it go for it, another benefit some people forget is that it increases your machine lifespan, as having only 8GB of RAM will cause lots of SSD writes due to swap usage, that degrades the SSD faster, and replacing it is very expensive because it’s soldered on.

I would get 16gb if you can. I have a 2020 M1 8/256 and that’s the only thing I wish I did different. My phone has more RAM. Come on apple!

Bite the bullet and get the 16gb. You can’t upgrade after you buy your Mac. But for storage, you still can attach SSD over USB.

I have a full print and design business and the base m2 work incredible for backup designers, using photoshop, illustrator and corel at the same time… Time to stop with the ram questions… Base model will work perfect for years

Gaming lol? Ok buddy, idk what a MacBook is good for other than my current mousepad. But to each their own I guess

Yes, you do, and should pay the extra cash for longevity’s sake. With how much memory apps use nowadays, 8GB shouldn’t even be offered any longer.

8GB is a good for those basic clerical roles that use email/web apps/notepad/etc.

Wait for m3 with 12gb of ram of you still confused

I just bought the latest air 15 inches, when I installed everything and started working on it I check how much ram I was using and it reached 10g…

Had the 8gb of RAM. Never had any issues.

Depends what you’re doing with it…

Photo editing may need a bit more. I’m doing some light development with mine on some side projects and haven’t hit anything that needed more than 8GB yet.

If photo editing is your line of work and not just a hobby, go for the 16GB and I’d also bump up the storage to 512GB.

I have a M1 mac air with 16 gb and it was worth it. I’ve never once had an issue with things being slow except for SOME video games on high graphics (I now have a proper gaming pc, so not using it to game anymore)

Ofc I never had 8gb ram so I can’t tell you if its significantly better, but iirc its only like 200 or so extra? and I enjoy it lol

Also a student here. I have the base model M2 Air, and it holds up well. I constantly have Notion, Word, an IDE, Safari, and Apple Music up during my work sessions and experience no slow-downs whatsoever.

Although, if you can cough up the extra money to get additional RAM then go for it, it just furthers the future-proofing of your machine.

I have a 13” M2 Air with 8GB of RAM. My Mac Mini and my Linux box both have 16GB RAM. The M2 Air is totally fine and I have not encountered a situation where it was hanging or lacking memory. If your gaming or video editing needs are (or may become!) heavy go for 16GB. If not, it’s totally fine with 8.

I would go for the 16 over 8, but also understand that MacOS doesn’t manage RAM the same way Windows does. You could give yourself unneeded anxiety if you’re one of those Activity Monitor hawks without understanding the difference between the two.