Is 4GB enough for MacBook Air Mid-2013?

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Is 4GB enough for MacBook Air Mid-2013?

Hello everyone!

Nowadays I use an iPad 2 as my main computer. I am a college student, and I opted for the iPad since I had to travel a lot for the last 2 years. But now, I need a more full-powered computer for the tasks I need to do for my final years on college. I am also a happy owner of a Early-2008 MacBook, which lasted the last 5 years without any major problems.

What I do with my computer is basically this:

- basic video-editing on iMovie
- organize photos on iPhoto and basic photo editing
- run R Project for some statistical projects for college
- use Word, PowerPoint and Excel
- web browsing using Firefox(although I would change back to Safari on Mavericks - I've heard that it has some great power management features)
- IRC with Colloquy
- other tasks that are not intensive(i.e. Mail, Calendar, todo's with Things, etc)
- very casual gaming

My idea is to get a MacBook Air 11 inch Mid-2013 with 4GB of RAM. I would happily get the upgrade to 8GB, but I live in Brazil, and the pricing here is nuts. My question is: with this configuration, and using it for the tasks I normally use, am I capable of getting this computer going for at least 4 years?

Thanks in advance! 🙂

Posted on Dec 16, 2013 12:24 PM

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Answer 1

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Dec 16, 2013 12:26 PM in response to claudiobla

For your needs, 4 GB of RAM are enough... for now. The only problem you would have is with games, and games depend on the processor and GPU more than on the RAM.

As we do not know how future OS X versions will work with 4 GB and you cannot install more RAM on a MacBook Air after buying it, I highly recommend you to get it with 8 GB of RAM, so you can be sure you will be able to use all those apps without any issue

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Answer 2

Dec 16, 2013 1:35 PM in response to claudiobla

claudiobla

My idea is to get a MacBook Air 11 inch Mid-2013 with 4GB of RAM. I would happily get the upgrade to 8GB,

Interesting, how much more is 8gig than 4 in Brasil? 😊

most everyone here would suggest 8gig over 4 due to it costing extremely little more.

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Answer 3

claudiobla Author

Level 1

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Dec 16, 2013 2:00 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas

Actually, the RAM upgrade per se is not the problem, since it's 350,00 BRL(or US$150) on the Apple Online Store. I've seen the US prices, and it costs US$100, so it's not that much of a diference.

The real problem is that, to get the extra RAM, you must buy the Air on the Apple Online Store. So, an entry-level Air with the extra RAM would cost 4.459 BRL(or US$1.919,91 - compare that with the prices elsewhere, for a base model 😟). Plus, almost all of the retail stores here sell the standard model, with 4GB, for R$3.500(=US$1.506), so almost a thousand reais cheaper! As a college student, that a fortune! 😀
Anyways... it's a mistery why such a difference between the online store prices and the retail prices.

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Answer 4

Dec 16, 2013 2:24 PM in response to claudiobla

Well Mende is right, 4gig of ram is more than plenty for 95% (or more) of everything youre going to use and do.

Yes, 900$ isnt worth 4gig of ram, not even close whatsoever.

I could do everything all at once on my older Air I sold running 2gig of RAM, same APPS etc. Im using now, so that tells you something.

Running music vids in the background, 10 browser tabs or more, and downloding stuff and uploading to a FTP server on my older macbook Air with 2gig of ram. All at once

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