It might just be since its running more modern firmware causing this, intel Macs aren't ideal in such cases
lossofimagination11
joined 2 years ago
Another student here. I have the base model M1 Air and I have had 0 issues with the 8gb. I use Teams, Word, Safari, Discord, PyCharm (for my python projects), and even the UTM virtual machine for my linux stuff. I will usually have a good few virtual desktops open aswell so I can navigate to things quickly.
Of course it always useful to have 16gb nowadays, but I would only recommend it if you have the extra money - good for future proofing your machine.
Considering you have been having this problem since before you updated to Sonoma (I presume), its unlikely