macOS is shockingly good at memory management, the issue is most people will want to slap Chrome and run 50 tabs on it, if you use Apple's built in tools and treat it essentially like you do your iPhone but with some better features for photo editing, document editing and research tools then it will be an incredible entry level device for most students and office workers.

Upgrade to air if you do things like coding and video editing semi-regularly and upgrade to a Pro if you do long running intensive tasks.