The Absolute Minimum for today. I’ll be blunt: if you’re buying a machine with less than 16GB RAM today, you’re basically buying a paperweight for next year. Software is getting thirstier, and I’m sick of seeing people’s systems grind to a halt because they tried to save fifty quid on memory. I’ve rounded up the machines that actually give you the breathing room to have Slack, Zoom, and fifty Chrome tabs open at once without the whole thing falling over.