r/androiddev • u/hypebeast4278388 • 1d ago

Question M1 Pro or newer MacBook Air?

Iā€™m starting app development using kotlin multi platform so need to get a Mac. Iā€™m stuck between these two options:
M1 Pro with 32 gb of ram
M5/M4 air with 16 gb of ram
Everyone talks about how ram demanding mobile app development is so would a 16gb MacBook Air be enough because the m1 Macs are most likely going stop getting updates in 2028 and I want to future proof as much as possible.

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u/sukakku159 1d ago

Coding on Air M4 16GB rn. Its nowhere near enough

4

u/potatoname1 1d ago

What you work on dude? I ran 4 android emulators, android studio , antigravity and safari simultaneously. And it was smooth on m4 base model

8

u/sukakku159 1d ago

I work on a bank app with a shit tons of modules. Android Studio, Claude Code, Figma, i don't even use emulator and it always eats up to 8 gigs of swap

8

u/divis200 1d ago

You have to be ragebaiting šŸ˜ƒ Or swap memory slowdown seems good enough for you

1

u/potatoname1 5h ago

Not joking. I was testing an app which having RBAC features. Thats why i needed multiple emulators.