What size ram should I go for?

Lendusapund

Hi
I mentioned to the geezer who fixed my laptop that as it was an old tv computer (best used when tv is on as its so slow), I was considering changing it for different computer (laptop).

He's well into computers and his email reply was like something out of a text book. I didnt actually say either new or second hand - but I think his reply may be for new.

Basically, hes advised that if I change laptops, I should go for 120 gb hard drive (60 or smaller & would always compromise performance) and 512 mb RAM. (plus p4/or M processor).

My laptop is only used at moment for internet browsing plus spreadsheets (poss. due to it being an antique) but am not all that bothered about games or dvds much either. Having looked for laptops with the spec he's quoting, Im looking at fairly highly priced machines.

I dont want to contradict him cos he made a great job of fixing my comp, but could I get away with slightly lesser spec? (spend would be around £400 tops).

Thanks
RichT

Browntoa

whats the curent Laptop ??

we can look at the spec and advise

Alechjo

Hi RichT,

I guess he was right about P4+512 Ram - that's excellent perfomance, I've got this on my laptop. However, 120Gb drive is handy, but have nothing to do with perfomance! Actually, large drive is slowing things a bit. Notebooks large HDDs are pricey. I would recommend going for 40Gb and save - not sure if you can get into budget. Try Dabs (https://www.dabs.co.uk) it's cheap and has massive range. Celerons are worse than P4 M as they eat more power. On a desktop I would say yes! go for Celeron if you are not crazy about 3D action games, but not so convinced with laptop. RAM is essential for perfomance and should be the last thing to sacrifice.

John_Gray

XP runs very nicely in 512 MB unless you have extremely memory-intensive programs like video-editing (in which case your guess is as good as mine, probably starting at 1 GB!).

As Alechjo says, the hard disk size is largely irrelevant.

At £400, you will have very little choice in laptops -- 256 MB memory and 40 GB hard drive would be typical configurations.

John

mike_paterson

Check for Dell deals before Christmas. I bought laptop 2 weeks ago for mother in law It had 512MB RAM plus 60GB hard dism and M360 processor great value at £419 all in with delivery. Sales chap told me there would be great deals coming up to Christmas - but none there yet.

inatomato

I think 120Gb for surfing the net is excessive. I am in the biz (corporate networks, not sales/repairs) and have never needed more than 60Gb. If I need extra storage, I plug in an external USB2 hard disk (Freecom do a self-powered one, 30Gb for about 60 quid) USB2 speed is plenty fast enough unless you're doing video editing or manipulating large images in a professional program like Photoshop, then it may slow things a little. As for RAM, my advice would be to buy as much as you can afford to squeeze in there, as this is the thing that will hamper performance if there's not enough - and will provide a little "future-proofing".

Unless you're an Intel purist, why not consider an AMD chip instead of a P4? For the average user (I include myself in this category) there's little difference, and some of the new ones beat the P4's in performance even though the clock (running) speed is slower. As I said, I'm not on the retail end of things, but the price of the processor may make a difference to the price of the machine, see what you can find out.

Hope some of this helps, and that I've managed to avoid excessive jargon for once in my life!

Lendusapund

Hi
At moment Ive got a Tosh Sat Pro 480 - a fish has bigger memory. It works not to bad apart from takes half an hour to load ebay.
Regards
RichT

Lendusapund

mike_paterson wrote:

Check for Dell deals before Christmas. I bought laptop 2 weeks ago for mother in law It had 512MB RAM plus 60GB hard dism and M360 processor great value at £419 all in with delivery. Sales chap told me there would be great deals coming up to Christmas - but none there yet.

Thanks for this Mike. ive mailed back the chap who I use for laptop probs to see what he thinks. Did you take on the 3 year £103 warrenty? I also noticed they charge around £60 when returning it. If I could get a one more local I could do away with the service fee & get my mate to ensure its OK.

RichT

brummybloke

Lendusapund wrote:

Hi
At moment Ive got a Tosh Sat Pro 480 - a fish has bigger memory. It works not to bad apart from takes half an hour to load ebay.
Regards
RichT

it will do if you are using dial up connection.

does it have to be a lap top you get? why not get a desk top pc and just keep the lap top if you think you need it?

£400 will get you a pretty smart pc compaired to a lap top.

mike_paterson

Nope I dropped the extended warranty as I reckon I can fix most things that might go wrong ! (hope so anyway)

Lendusapund

brummybloke wrote:

it will do if you are using dial up connection.

does it have to be a lap top you get? why not get a desk top pc and just keep the lap top if you think you need it?

£400 will get you a pretty smart pc compaired to a lap top.

Hi

Its a question of where to put a desk top. If I can find somewhere to squeeze in a comp. unit - with plugs/telephone connection, Id have one, then would get better deal.

Im on dial-up at min - could I remain on it with new machine or would it contradict the whole purpose of changing?

Re Dell delivery/service charge - someone at work said they may send someone around to fix rather than send it back and thinks the £105/3 years is worth it. At min, looks like dell may be the way Im going - laptop or desktop.

Thanks
RichT