this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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I suspect it'll come with 8GB RAM to ensure the price can't justify it's usefulness...
E: looking up the leaks confirms it's supposed to be 8GB RAM. Imagine selling a PC with 8GB RAM for $700+ in 2026. So insane. I can get a better PC than that for $400.
I have an M1 mini with 8Gb of RAM that I use as my Home Assistant server. I've given 4Gb to HAOS running in UTM, and let Ollama use the rest to run a modest LLM for speech to text. It's flawless.
I'm not suggesting that 8Gb is the gold standard or anything, but for some applications it's still perfectly usable.
I have an M2 Air with 16Gb, and for what I need it to do, I couldn't have any less, but the target market for a bargain basement entry level MacBook almost certainly won't ever notice. It'll literally just be a portal to access iCloud and whatever browser they use to get on their socials. And if they do find they need more, then Apple will happily sell them a new laptop.
Don't get me wrong, I think Apple's approach to RAM pricing has been criminal for years, and as a company they're really figuring out how to plumb the depths of scumminess, but on this I don't really see the issue.
With that said, the cost of an extra 8Gb to them is literally pennies, so withholding it is shitty. But it won't really make that much difference to the average performance of the computer.
There's no such thing as a "flawless" LLM
The performance with regards to Home Assistant is spot on.