Before this, it was a $200 upsell to get a MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM. Now, that’s no longer the case, bringing Apple’s cheapest laptop more in line with its competitors. Apple made a similar move in 2016 when it made 8GB the minimum for the 13-inch MacBook Air and discontinued the 4GB 11-inch version months later.
The MacBook Air gets a surprise upgrade to 16GB of RAM
The most likely reason for all that extra RAM? It’s Apple Intelligence — AI models tend to need a lot of RAM to function well. While 8GB seems to be fine for the iPhone, 16GB is the new table stakes for machines running the much more open macOS.
Before this, it was a $200 upsell to get a MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM. Now, that’s no longer the case, bringing Apple’s cheapest laptop more in line with its competitors. Apple made a similar move in 2016 when it made 8GB the minimum for the 13-inch MacBook Air…
