Will the M3 model be able to handle HD Netflix and YouTube streaming without any issues?

[saintforlife]

Will the M3 model be able to handle HD Netflix and YouTube streaming without any issues? What about content heavy webpages such as The Verge? Will scrolling be smooth on such heavy duty webpages?

In what applications or scenarios will the M3 with 4GB RAM struggle compared to the i5 with 8GB RAM? Can you guys provide some insights?

 

[snakebitten]

I'm pretty sure the M3 is more powerful than some other processors that can stream HD Netflix just fine. I saw a benchmark somewhere around here showing the M3 being far closer to the prowess of an I5 than most folks assume. IN fact, for the most part, the jump from an I5 to an I7 is a far bigger leap than the M3 to the I5. That little M3 is the little engine that could!

 

[realwarder]

M3 handles 4K video on the graphics front so should be fine with Netflix and Youtube.

Websites should be fine.

4GB would struggle in say video editing, but then again so would the M3 for lots of effects. 4GB might also slow a little bit with many complex web pages open (8+). (Depends on the sites. Could be 30+ regular sites. Ads kill browsers more than the sites!)

So probably ok for daily use except gaming and anything other than consumer level video editing.

 

[7a2eer]

Will the M3 model be able to handle HD Netflix and YouTube streaming without any issues? What about content heavy webpages such as The Verge? Will scrolling be smooth on such heavy duty webpages?

In what applications or scenarios will the M3 with 4GB RAM struggle compared to the i5 with 8GB RAM? Can you guys provide some insights?

I am currently using a Dell Latitude hybrid equipped with an Intel 5Y10 with 4GB RAM. My last laptop was a Lenovo with a much faster i5-4200M with 4GB RAM.
For me personally the experience overall is similar despite the performance disparity. There are obvious hangs due to high CPU usage, i.e during page loading, however they are brief. Multitasking works good when applications are not racing for resources. For example I can have a web browser with multiple tabs loaded, word processor, SSH terminal/client, and SFTP client running simultaneously without performance issues.

Ultimately I think you will be happy so long as your computing demands are not high.