8GB of RAM is back on laptops — companies are lowering memory offerings to make affordable notebooks during component crisis

For a brief time from 2024 through 2025, it really seemed that 16GB of RAM was the new standard on mid-range and premium laptops. Microsoft made 16GB of memory a standard to be labeled a Copilot+ PC, and Apple made 16GB the minimum on all of its systems.

Then came the MacBook Neo. It was made of aluminum, looked and felt premium, and used a version of the A18 Pro system on a chip from the iPhone 16 Pro, which features 8GB of RAM.

While there was some blowback from the enthusiast community, most reviewers found that for the most basic workloads, 8GB is workable on macOS (though you'll likely run into swap and memory pressure if you overload it). For everyone else, 16GB is the standard on the MacBook Air and Pro.

But at Computex, we saw that the Windows PC industry is also moving to 8GB. The $699 Dell XPS 13 , one of the standout products of the show, will start at 8GB of memory along with an Intel Core Series 3 ("Wildcat Lake") processor . Acer, too, has a $699 Wildcat Lake-based system, the Swift Air 14, which will have an Intel Core 5 chip, 512GB of storage, and, yes, 8GB of RAM.

Ahead of the show, Chuwi announced its UniBook, with a weaker Core Series 3 304 CPU, 256GB of storage, and, you guessed it, 8GB of RAM. That's set to be the cheapest one so far, with Chuwi promising a launch "around $449."

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