[sudofail]

I thought this as well and bought my wife the 8GB model, thinking it would be enough for her casual use. With nothing open but Chrome or Safari (dozens of tabs, sure) it will lock up and sometimes even hard restart. 8GB is just not enough for anyone anymore.

[acdha]

Either there’s something much bigger running or the hardware is defective. I used an 8GB M1 with VSC, Podman, Slack, etc. for a few years during the pandemic and it was fine. Chrome is a notorious memory hog but even then it was okay so I’d review the installed extensions if it’s that high.

[kcartlidge]

I'd strongly consider returning the machine. This is very far from my normal experience with an 8GB M1 over several years (as a developer as well as a casual user).