You’re 16, It’s Not Ideal, But You’ll Do Just Fine ⭐

When Microsoft and then Apple established 16 GB of RAM as the baseline for modern PCs and Macs, I celebrated: This was the common-sense minimum I’d been advocating for years and a dramatic improvement over the ridiculous 4 GB minimum that Microsoft had required in Windows for even longer.

But now everything has changed. Thanks to an ongoing AI-triggered component crisis, illegal U.S. tariffs, and a never-explained war with Iran, the prices that hardware makers pay for RAM, storage, and other components critical to PCs, phones, and other personal computing devices haven’t just risen dramatically, they’ve exploded. And now they’re passing the costs onto consumers. As they must.

As a result, PCs, phones, and other devices are expected to sell in far fewer numbers this year than before. And analysts see no end to the crisis, which will extend through 2027, if not longer. It’s a tough gut punch for an industry still trying to crawl out of a post-pandemic trough that, admittedly, is a problem it also partially created by over-hiring and over-spending during the year or more than most of the world stayed home. The problems facing XBOX and its competitors and partners in the videogame market are, perhaps, the most obvious example.

But as it often the case, there is a silver lining to this crisis, a flower growing in the shit that is our world today. And for those of us who care about this industry and the often unrealized promises of technology, especially those who write or at least understand software code, the upside here is surprisingly and breathtakingly positive. It’s also a nice respite from the constant drumbeat of marketing and forced new features that Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others have been forcing on us for years. Though they will of course market this triumph as if it had been their idea all along.

Thanks to forces beyond their control, an issue Big Tech isn’t all that familiar with, these companies have been forced, finally, to do the right thing. The correct thing, if you will. They are slamming the brakes on ridiculous new features–think back to 2024’s Apple Intelligence and every Copilot atrocity in Windows 11–and making radical changes to how their personal computing platforms work. They are reducing resource usage across the board, improving efficiency and code quality, and basically taking a fine-toothed comb to everything. And they are doing that so that their respective platforms–Windows, macOS, iOS, whatever–work better. Not by doing more with less. But by doing the same thing they were already doing with less.

That, folks, is what innovation looks like.

I’m not joking. Yes, it was forced on them. But something magical happens when you as a platform, app, or whatever software maker are limited by the available resources. When you are forced to make the thing work despite having less to work with. Less RAM. Less storage. Less powerful processors. Less of everything. As we know from Jurassic Park, life finds a way. You can’t find resilience when you have infinite resources, you only find it when you do not.

There are so many examples of this in our industry’s history. Which I have been researching for the umpteenth time because of a coming focus month during which I will, among other things, pick up the history thread in my Tech Nostalgia series. But let me focus on two because they’re fresh in my mind.

Thanks largely to the mostly redundant book Steve Jobs in Exile, we are reminded that the biggest issue that NeXT faced wasn’t the competition, it was the free spending nature of its quality-obsessed founder and CEO. This is a person who flushed millions of dollars down the drain on a factory, opulent offices and furnishings, and whatever else, all while focusing on building the most expensive personal computers imaginable that were aimed at education, a market with no money to spend. His failures with NeXT are legendary and a crucial reason why Jobs returned to Apple a changed man, humbled by defeat, setting the stage for an historic turnaround there.

Tied to an article I’m currently writing, the home computer market got started by the so-called 1977 Trinity, so named by Byte Magazine, the Apple II, Commodore PET, and Tandy TRS-80, fully-formed computers, not kits, that real people could buy. These computers were relatively expensive, but they established baselines for components and capabilities that would impact subsequent releases like the Atari 400/800 and Texas Instruments TI-99/4A that arrived in 1979. Until they didn’t: In 1980, Commodore released its VIC-20 home computer at a starting price of $299, less than one-third the cost of other home computers.

There was a catch, of course: To reach that price point, Commodore had to step back from the baselines used by others. Instead of the 40-column screens that were common elsewhere, the VIC-20 had a weird 22-column screen that was less than ideal for productivity work. Instead of 16 KB or more of RAM, it shipped with 5 KB, of which only 3.5 KB was usable by software. And though videogame systems of the day and the TI-99/4A supported sprites (or the equivalent) for games, the VIC-20 made do without.

What the VIC-20 did have was color and sound. And a story for marketing: It was the same price as an Atari 2600 but it was also a real computer that could play games. It worked: The VIC-20 was the first microcomputer to sell over one million units. But it worked in part because software makers, in particular game makers, found ways to work within the machine’s limitations. Commodore Japan created a nearly perfect clone of Pac-Man, the hit arcade game of the day, for the VIC-20, for example, a feat many would have assumed to be impossible.

If you’re familiar with software development, you know that new platforms, whether they’re some new version of Windows or a new videogame console, often start out slow. The first apps and games for the new platform aren’t always that impressive or notable. But as developers learn the ins and outs of the system, the quality goes up. For consoles, in particular, it often takes a few years before the truly impressive titles arrive. The games that make this next-generation console actually seem to be next generation.

Consoles are a good comparison to the component crisis of today because they tend to remain unchanged over long periods of time. Yes, there are midstream improvements, like the Playstation Pro models, but these platforms are set in stone for the most part and are not upgraded every year or whatever. This gives game developers a steady target, so the improvements we see as gamers come from them gaining familiarity with the system and finding ways to overcome things that might originally be seen as limitations. This has always been true.

In personal computing today, we have nothing but established platforms that have been building features on top of existing foundations for many years, with their makers relying on a steady drumbeat of ever more capable and powerful hardware. The PC you buy today will be dramatically better than the one you bought five or six years ago, and the same is true with phones and other devices. Likewise, the platforms we run today will run better on new hardware than they will on older devices.

But not anymore. Yes, this may be a temporary blip, a moment in time that will pass as component prices inevitably stop rising and maybe even come down to some lower level again. But it is what is is, as my dad would say, and Apple, Microsoft, and others are responding by finally doing the right thing.

They’ve done it before. Apple is always celebrated no matter what they do, and fans will point to the 2009 release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which Apple marketed as having “zero new features” because that release focused on performance, stability, and efficiency, much like the work it’s doing this year with its ’27 platform updates. But Microsoft has done the same thing. Windows 7 was really just a Service Pack update for Windows Vista, a release that had the same focuses as Snow Leopard, and even lowered the system requirements. (That both happened in the same year is interesting, but let’s not get distracted.)

This year, Microsoft is focusing on correcting the “pain points” that customers have expressed with Windows 11, and a key part of that is the same performance, stability, and efficiency focus of yesteryear, but applied to this more modern platform. I have never once tapped the Windows key on my PC’s keyboard and thought that the Start menu appeared slowly, but by God they are going to resolve that problem. And many others.

Late last year, Apple introduced the MacBook Neo, a horrifically limited Mac laptop with an attractively low price. It is fair to compare this Mac to the VIC-20, since it delivers the same value while addressing the market in similar ways. I have argued, and will continue to argue, that not allowing anyone to upgrade past 8 GB of RAM in an era where 16 GB is the acceptable baseline for Macs and PCs is problematic. But the efficiency gains in macOS 27 will disproportionately benefit MacBook Neo users, I bet. This isn’t future proofing per se, as the Neo is anything but future proof. But it does make the machine more usable, I bet. (Just as we all understand that Apple will address the RAM upgrade problem and other issues in subsequent versions.)

It’s not just the Mac. Apple notably held the needle on backward compatibility with the iPhone and will carry those still on iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 27. No, those users won’t get some advanced functionality like Siri AI that requires onboard NPUs and RAM that older iPhones lack. But a way forward is a way forward. Anything that can help existing customers continuing using a device they paid for years ago is a good thing. Even if this situation was forced on Apple, Microsoft, and the others.

Even with the changes coming this year, I still feel that 16 GB of RAM is the correct minimum for most people, the best experience, on Macs and PCs. But making 8 GB workable, at least, will benefit everyone who needs to buy a new device, no matter what they choose.

It is perhaps ironic that one of the key benefits of integrated SoCs like the Apple Silicon M-series processors in Macs and the Snapdragon X-series processors in PCs prevents hardware makers from offering RAM upgrades down the road. It is definitely unfortunate. But this, too, has a way of making decisions easier. You get what you can afford today, and if you can’t afford it, you just keep using what already own. That’s good in its own silver lining way when you think about it.

For example, when Microsoft announced the Snapdragon X2-based Surface Laptop 8 yesterday, I headed over to Surface.com to see how things would shake down. Years of experience with these computers told me two things would be true: The fun new colors that Microsoft is promoting–the Jade you can only get with the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 8 and the Dune you can only get with the 13-inch Surface Pro 12–would not be available with any configuration I would want. And the prices would be exorbitant, even more so because of the current crisis.

Surface did not let me down, so to speak.

Two years ago, I bought a Snapdragon X Elite-powered 15-inch Surface Laptop 7 with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage for $2099. This remains one of my favorite computers, but the two disappointments upfront where that I had to get it in black and the price.

Today, the same configuration for a Snapdragon X2 Elite-powered 15-inch Surface Laptop 8 would set me back $2849, a $750 premium over the model it replaces. I could get it in Platinum or Black, which is interesting, as Platinum was my preference two years ago but not an option. But there are still two disappointments: The price, which is now even more egregious, and the lack of a solid trade-in. Microsoft is advertising trade-in cash back of up to $900, so I figured my second-highest configuration Surface Laptop would be worth at least $700. But when I checked, I discovered that Microsoft would give me just $318.47. And that’s when I include the charger it came with.

These eye-watering numbers have a way of clarifying the mind. Everyone’s needs and expectations are different, but the facts as I see them are as follows.

My existing Surface Laptop is wonderful and doesn’t need to be replaced.

My experiences with several Snapdragon X2-based laptops decisively demonstrate that the real world day-to-day performance is unchanged and, less decisively, that the battery life is a little less than with the many X1-based laptops I’ve used. (That one is still up in the air, but that’s how it’s trending.)

If I did not already own a Surface Laptop 7 and wanted to buy the new version, I would buy less laptop, meaning a 24 GB/512 GB configuration that retails for $2249.99, a $500 savings over the 32 GB/1 TB configuration I really want. (And a $200 premium over the two-year-old laptop I do, in fact, own.) That would be acceptable, it’s the same configuration as my (also two-year-old) MacBook Air M3. But many would choose a 16 GB/512 GB configuration that costs “just” $1799.99. And, look, I review over 20 laptops every year and that is a lot of money for that configuration. These things are too expensive, full stop. Not Microsoft’s fault per se. But true.

The Snapdragon X2 Plus chips are less powerful than the X2 Elite versions, but my experiences over both Snapdragon X generations tell me, decisively, that this is not relevant in the slightest. And that anyone looking for a less expensive but high-quality experience should consider that downgrade. However, choosing a Snapdragon X2 Plus for Surface Laptops nets just a single configuration, 16 GB/512 GB, at a cost of $1699.99. And that is just $100 less than the same configuration with a Snapdragon X2 Elite. My brain says it doesn’t matter, but my heart wouldn’t let me not spend that $100. Others may just want to save money, so there’s that.

There are reasons, not excuses, for the high prices, and Microsoft’s long-standing position as a boutique PC maker that sells in such low volume that it can’t get preferential pricing doesn’t help. And you don’t have to look very hard to find out the truth of this for yourself: The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x Gen 11 I just reviewed is a Snapdragon X2-based 15.3-inch laptop with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage, and it retails for $849. $849. That’s literally half the price of the Surface Laptop with the same configuration. And it’s everything you need to know about the differences between an experienced PC makers that sells at high volume and Surface. Sad, but true.

This is collectively the situation, the reality we face. We can stick with what we have. We can buy something new that is perhaps less well configured than we’d like, and platform makers like Apple and Microsoft are doing the work to improve that experience. It’s not perfect, but it’s also not the end of the world.

So, thanks AI. Thanks a lot. Now,  please go away so the world can go back to normal. I can only rationalize so much.