My kid's school chromebook is 4GB and it's barely usable -- to the point of being offensively bad. I bought them a macbook air to use at home so they could get things done.

This would be a _drastic_ improvement over what I see most middle school kids using, at a similar-ish price point. 8 isn't great but 8 with apple's really rather decent nvm paging is a step up.