Last week, Apple announced the new Mac mini, MacBook Pro and 24-inch iMac. All three of these have something in common: they contain 16 GB of RAM as standard. Finally! And the good news: the MacBook Air has received the same adjustment.
Until now, the memory was always 8 GB for the standard models, but Apple has now finally moved away from that. Although the Cupertino company continued to maintain that 8 GB was more than sufficient, this was not always the case in practice. Fortunately, 16 GB is now the new standard.
Standard 16 GB memory
All Mac computers currently for sale in the Online Apple Store have at least 16 GB of RAM. Of course you can expand some models even further. You can even expand the new MacBook Pro with M4 Max chip to 128 GB of memory. At least, if you have the money, because this upgrade costs € 1150 extra.
No extra costs
You would expect that this adjustment would cause Apple to make the Macs more expensive, but that is not the case. In fact, the new iMac and MacBook Pro have become €100 cheaper and the Mac mini and MacBook Air have maintained their price, despite twice as much memory.
Buy MacBook Air with 16 GB RAM
The MacBook Air still has an M3 chip, but you now get 16 GB of memory as standard. Apple, unlike the other Macs, does not characterize the MacBook Air as new. That makes sense, a new MacBook Air with M4 chip is expected in the spring of 2025.
Can’t wait? Then you can purchase a MacBook Air with M3 chip and 16 GB memory in the (Online) Apple Store for the same price as the previous entry-level model with 8 GB. Later this week you can also purchase these models for the entry-level price from, among others MediaMarkt, Coolblue, Amazon or Bol.com.
