This is an opinion piece. It’s one view, argued on purpose, and you’re welcome to disagree.
I’ll say it plainly. In 2026, a Windows laptop with 8GB of soldered memory is a product designed to disappoint its owner, and manufacturers know it.
That sounds harsh, so let me make the case.
Eight gigabytes was generous once
In 2015, 8GB was the comfortable choice. Windows used a fraction of it, websites were lighter, and “having a lot open” meant a dozen tabs and a music player.
None of that is true now. A freshly started Windows 11 laptop can use 4GB or more before you open anything. A single browser tab running a web app such as a document editor, a design tool or a video call can take several hundred megabytes. Chat apps are whole web browsers in disguise. Add a security scan in the background and an 8GB laptop is full by mid-morning.
When memory runs out, the laptop doesn’t crash. It does something worse. It starts shuffling data to the storage drive and back, and everything gets sticky. Tabs reload when you return to them. Typing lags. The owner concludes the laptop is “getting old” after eighteen months, when in fact it was short of memory from the day it was built.
The industry has already admitted it
Here’s what convinces me this isn’t just my impatience talking. The companies that set the standards have quietly moved on.
When Microsoft defined its Copilot+ PC category in 2024, it set 16GB as the minimum memory. Not the recommended amount. The minimum. Later that year Apple, a company famous for charging dearly for memory, raised the starting configuration of its Mac laptops from 8GB to 16GB.
So the people who make the operating systems have told us what they think the floor is. Yet store shelves are still full of 8GB Windows machines, usually wearing a good processor badge on the front to distract from it.
Soldering turns a shortcut into a trap
I’d have far less of a problem if the memory could be changed. An 8GB laptop with a spare slot is a perfectly fair product. You buy it cheaply, and when it starts to struggle you add a second stick and carry on for years.
But a growing share of thin laptops have their memory soldered to the board. There’s no slot and no second chance. The 8GB you bought is the 8GB you’ll have when the laptop is five years old and the software has doubled in appetite again. That’s the part I object to. It turns a modest saving at the factory into a hard limit on the life of the whole machine.
It also makes for waste. A laptop with a fine screen, a fine processor and a fine battery ends up in a drawer because of the one part that couldn’t be changed.
“But it’s cheaper”
This is the fair objection, and it’s stronger this year than it has been for a while. Memory prices have climbed sharply as AI data centers buy up supply, something we covered in Why Are RAM Prices So High? When parts cost more, makers trim wherever buyers won’t notice, and memory is the easiest place to trim.
I understand the pressure. I still think it’s the wrong place to cut. Offer a slightly slower processor. Use a plastic lid. Ship a smaller SSD, since storage can be added with a cheap external drive. Those compromises are visible and honest. Starving a laptop of memory is invisible on the shelf and miserable at home.
Where 8GB is still fine
I’m not arguing that nobody should own an 8GB device. A Chromebook runs happily on 8GB because ChromeOS is so much lighter. A tablet doesn’t need more. And if a relative only checks email and watches videos, 8GB of Windows will serve them for now, though “for now” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
My objection is narrow. It’s to the mainstream Windows laptop, sold as a general-purpose computer for school or work, with 8GB that can never be increased.
What I’d ask you to do
Until makers stop, the only pressure comes from buyers. So:
- Treat 16GB as the baseline for any Windows laptop you plan to keep longer than two years.
- If the budget only reaches 8GB, insist on a slot. Search the exact model number with “RAM upgrade” before you buy. If the answer is “soldered”, keep looking.
- Consider last year’s model or a refurbished business laptop with 16GB over a brand-new one with 8GB. You’ll have the better machine. Our piece on refurbished laptops explains how to buy one safely.
- Read past the processor badge. A top-tier chip paired with 8GB is a sports engine with a tiny fuel tank.
Manufacturers build what sells. The day 8GB models stop selling is the day they stop being made. I think that day is overdue.
For a calmer, less opinionated explanation of how much memory different people need, see our RAM guide.
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