Buy Laptops

5. Laptop Memory (RAM)

With the release of the new Windows Vista operating system, having a sufficient amount of memory (RAM) is more important than ever. As a minimum your laptop pc should have at least 512mb of RAM, and ideally 1GB or 2GB of RAM is far more preferential.

To get the most out of Vista (or indeed any operating system) the more RAM you can afford the better, your laptop will run faster, smoother and accomplish task quicker. If, due to financial restrictions, you have to choose between having a faster processor or more RAM , go for more RAM every time.

RAM is the memory in your laptop (or indeed any computer) where the system stores all of its non permement data, when you power the system off the RAM is left empty and gets filled up again by the operating system the next time you turn your system on.

Your operating system (usually some version of Windows such as XP or Vista) uses the RAM to store temporary data for itself and the programs you run. As you close and open programs your operating system will remove the old data it no longer needs and use the space for the new data, this allows your laptop to run fast and smooth and reduces the need for accessing data held on the hard disk which would slow the system down as hard disks, when compared to RAM, are very slow to retrieve data from.

Memory is king

Well, not quite, but it is certainly up there when it comes to the most important parts of your laptop that affect performance. A laptop with 2048mb (2GB) of RAM would offer considerably, and definatley noticiably better performance than a system with just 512mb of RAM.

It is safe to say you can never have enough memory, and you should get as much as you can afford when you buy your laptop. If your gaming or doing graphics intensive work then a high level of memory is a must, certainly 1024mb (1GB) or more.

For more general use (email or word processing), 512mb may be adequete, but even with this low intensity use you will see a marked performance increase if you go for a laptop that offers more memory.

Conclusion

The conclusion when it comes to your laptops memory is simple, get as much as you can, even at the expense of other parts of the system such as the processor speed, as mentioned above, more RAM is a better investment than a few extra GHz of processing power so dont compromise on it.