Even hardcore Apple fans will admit that Apple is stingy when it comes to storage and RAM configurations in its entry-level MacBooks. The release of Apple's new M3 MacBook Air last month reignited criticism that has dogged the iPhone maker for years. But Apple remains in favor of selling Macs with 8GB of RAM in 2024, as it did in a recent interview with an Apple executive.

The base-level 13- and 15-inch MacBook Airs come with 8GB of unified memory, as do the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros; upgrading to 16GB of memory will cost an additional $200. For reference, some of the top contenders on our best laptops list, like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, come with 16GB of RAM.

In an interview with IT Home found by 9to5Mac this week, Evan Buyze, Apple's senior product marketing manager, said that the 8GB of RAM in an entry-level Mac is "not enough for the average user to pace his or her machine at He claimed that 8GB of RAM in an entry-level Mac is "adequate" enough to handle whatever pace the average user puts their machine through. He cited web browsing, media playback, light photo and video editing, and casual gaming as examples of what an entry-level MacBook can handle without investing in additional RAM.

That is true to some extent. However, given that Apple markets its machines to creative professionals, the argument that 8GB is sufficient to handle the most basic use cases is not very convincing. Especially when it comes to the MacBook Pro, it is intended for users who intend to perform more intensive tasks.

Kate Bergeron, Apple's vice president of hardware engineering, added that 8GB of RAM is actually more powerful than the raw specs, thanks to Apple's chips. This is not the first time Apple has praised the unified memory architecture in the M3 and other silicon chips for being optimized to perform on par with PC systems with more RAM; in November, Apple's worldwide product Vice President of Marketing, Bob Borchers, stated that the MacBook's 8GB of unified memory "probably rivals 16GB on other systems."

One can only hope that Apple will eventually increase the MacBook's basic configuration as more and more AI-powered features and memory-intensive programs are in demand. At least for now, customers are stuck with the 8GB RAM variant.