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So I'm helping my girlfriend shop for a Macbook. She really doesn't do that much of anything on the computer. I mean, she uses the basic functions, but she doesn't game or play with video. Maybe some stuff with photo's, but very little at that. She just wants a reliable, long-term computer that won't let her down or prompt her to update her security software every other week. The basic Macbook comes with a 2.1 Ghz procesessor and 1 gig of memory. She probably only needs the basic, but ... Is 1 gig really enough? Perhaps I'm leery of too little memory because of so many years with my family's 256k Dell, but I just don't trust 1 gig. And it's only $90 to double it. But, it's still $90, and I don't want to advise her to waste her money.
Any thoughts? Is the difference between 1 and 2 gigs significant for more or less normal usage?
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I have a macbook. And I just upgraded from one to two gigs of ram on it. The nice thing about the mac os is it handles one gig of ram way better than its windows counterpart. I got through a year of college just fine with one gig of ram, and I consider myself a pretty heavy computer user. If she really only uses basic functions, the one gig will be MORE than snappy.
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Memory is cheap and it is better to have more than you need than to discover you need more later!
Posts: 176 | Registered: Jun 2008
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I always go with the cheaper upgrades especially if I plan on owning it for a long time. It may not seem important now but a few years down the road and her interests may change (which happened to me) and future software may require that extra little kick. It may be worth the small investment now to avoid situations later.
But then again, even I wasn't that basic of a computer user when I got my laptop so its hard to say especially since $90 can mean something different for two people in varying financial situations.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Upgrading later is easy (and memory prices pretty much always go down). Why not start with 1, and if there are performance problems, buy the second chip?
Posts: 650 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Is upgrading memory in a laptop possible? I figured because they're compact it might be more of a hassle.
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Usually about the only two things you can really change in a laptop easily is RAM and the hard drive. I don't know if Macs are any different, but when I was looking to upgrade the RAM on my laptop all I had to do was just unscrew a little square piece of the case off the bottom and pop out the RAM.
And I just got through a year of school on a laptop that has Widows Vista and only a 1 gb of RAM, and it sounds like I use my computer a lot more heavily than she does. She should probably be fine.
Posts: 980 | Registered: Aug 2005
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The problem with retail upgrades, including upgrades to service agreements, is that they are expensive. The retailer makes a much higher margin on them than on sale of the core product, usually.
Looks like the current MacBook model uses up to 2 2gb 667 Mhz SODIMM modules. You can get a pair (for 4gb total) for something like $75, according to pricewatch.com, and installing it yourself looks easy.
So, I'd save the $90, see how it goes, and then, if needed, install it yourself instead of paying the retail upgrade price.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I have 1 Gig of memory, counting inbuilt memory or whatever it's called. It's certainly enough for what you're describing. (But I use Windows 2000, so I don't lose any to the OS.)
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Teshi: 2000 uses a decent bit of memory, though not as much as Vista or OS X in normal operation.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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$90 is way too much for 1GB of RAM. Even if you're going to go for 2GB, don't do it that way. As scifi noted, you can buy RAM separately and install it yourself for much less. (Honestly, installing laptop memory used to be very difficult, but it's mostly a snap now. Check out the site scifi posted.)
Most laptops have two RAM slots. It looks like this is true for the Macbook. If you're going to upgrade yourself, you'll probably want to make sure that the the 1GB on the machine already comes as 1 module, instead of two 512MB ones, which is the likely default. That way, you can keep it when going to 2GB. If it doesn't come as one module, they'll probably charge you to do so, and you're again likely going to be better off just buying two 1GB modules then paying for the upgrade and then 1 1GB.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem with retail upgrades, including upgrades to service agreements, is that they are expensive. The retailer makes a much higher margin on them than on sale of the core product, usually.
Looks like the current MacBook model uses up to 2 2gb 667 Mhz SODIMM modules. You can get a pair (for 4gb total) for something like $75, according to pricewatch.com, and installing it yourself looks easy.
So, I'd save the $90, see how it goes, and then, if needed, install it yourself instead of paying the retail upgrade price.
Keep in mind, that once you do that self install, you void your warranty. To keep your warranty you have to have the memory added at an Apple approved retailer. That being said, it is cheaper and if the warranty is not a concern I would go that way.
Posts: 176 | Registered: Jun 2008
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Does Apple have the equivalent to Windows ReadyBoost (lets you use USB devices as memory cache)? And has anybody tried ReadyBoost?
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem with retail upgrades, including upgrades to service agreements, is that they are expensive. The retailer makes a much higher margin on them than on sale of the core product, usually.
Looks like the current MacBook model uses up to 2 2gb 667 Mhz SODIMM modules. You can get a pair (for 4gb total) for something like $75, according to pricewatch.com, and installing it yourself looks easy.
So, I'd save the $90, see how it goes, and then, if needed, install it yourself instead of paying the retail upgrade price.
Keep in mind, that once you do that self install, you void your warranty. To keep your warranty you have to have the memory added at an Apple approved retailer. That being said, it is cheaper and if the warranty is not a concern I would go that way.
Where are you getting that information from, Lost? From what I found, the official policy is that it does not void the warranty.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I believe I should point out that my first intel-compatable computer had four megabytes of memory, and tell you kids to get off my lawn.
I don't know enough about how greedy the current versions of the Mac OS are memory-wise to comment informatively. I do think on a Windows box, 1 GB ought to be enough for the functions you're describing. My laptop (again, a Windows box) has 1 GB, and it made a decent replacement for most of the desktop functions we wanted to do in New Zealand.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem with retail upgrades, including upgrades to service agreements, is that they are expensive. The retailer makes a much higher margin on them than on sale of the core product, usually.
Looks like the current MacBook model uses up to 2 2gb 667 Mhz SODIMM modules. You can get a pair (for 4gb total) for something like $75, according to pricewatch.com, and installing it yourself looks easy.
So, I'd save the $90, see how it goes, and then, if needed, install it yourself instead of paying the retail upgrade price.
Keep in mind, that once you do that self install, you void your warranty. To keep your warranty you have to have the memory added at an Apple approved retailer. That being said, it is cheaper and if the warranty is not a concern I would go that way.
Where are you getting that information from, Lost? From what I found, the official policy is that it does not void the warranty.
I was going by the fact of this does void most computers warranties when you open up the computer. I admit I was wrong. I didn't search the faqs just skimmed the warranty quickly and I would have assumed changing the memory would be considered changing the computer.
Posts: 176 | Registered: Jun 2008
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I don't know of any computer retailers that don't allow you to upgrade your ram without voiding your warranty. At least not for typical models. In fact, many companies such as Dell, HP and Gateway actually encourage customers to do their own troubleshooting if they're comfortable with it. Saves them time and money in the long run.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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My dell has a tab that would break if I took it apart that says warranty void if broken...the only way I could add ram to my computer is to break that seal.
Posts: 176 | Registered: Jun 2008
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Lost, I know that Dell's official policy is that replacing the RAM doesn't void the warranty. However, your computer could be from before that time.
If it's not that old, definitely if you've bought it within the last three years, which I think is the standard length of Dell's warranty, then I don't think that going through that sticker is the only way to upgrade, though of course I don't know the specifics of the situation.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Lanfear: I have a macbook. And I just upgraded from one to two gigs of ram on it. The nice thing about the mac os is it handles one gig of ram way better than its windows counterpart. I got through a year of college just fine with one gig of ram, and I consider myself a pretty heavy computer user. If she really only uses basic functions, the one gig will be MORE than snappy.
Promise.
Doubling the ram effectively doubles the computing power. If she ever upgrades to a new operating system, which is possible, then more ram will be needed then, and harder to get. For $90, it's the best thing you can do to make a computer better. I'd rather have a slow processor and a lot of ram.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I agree that more RAM is often better, but it totally depends on what you use the computer for and how much RAM is left over once things are running. A Vista Ultimate PC used for video recording and editing probably will function much better with 2 gb of ram than it will with 1. However, some people have asserted that their MacBooks perform basic tasks snappily with only 1gb, which may be due to better RAM utilization by the operating system and by the programs that they use. I'm not sure these people would realize an effective doubling of performance - they might not notice any difference at all. To oversimplify a bit, if the computer peaks at using 512 MB of ram, then having 1 GB is plenty. Adding extra GB won't make much difference. (I'm leaving out considerations like the total memory IO bandwidth because they probably aren't that much of a concern compared to the capacity [they are rarely a bottleneck], and how much free RAM a MacBook actually needs in order to avoid excessive disk caching because I don't actually know.)
Also, it's probably not true that it will be harder to get the upgrade later. Unless one waits until the computer is badly obsolete, RAM will probably be as easy to get later as it is now, and most likely cheaper. If the computer IS badly obsolete*, it will probably not be possible or advisable to upgrade the OS anyway.
*If I tried to buy RAM for my 386 so I can run Windows XP, I've got bigger problems than the cost of the chips. But aside from that, I can STILL buy those memory modules for a reasonable price, despite the platform being well over a decade out of date.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
It's quite odd to me that everyone and their brother is chiming in when they don't know what they are talking about....
Here it is in a nutshell
A) I personally guarantee that 1 gb of ram is MORE than enough for the tasks described. I played WOW on this macbook, I edited basic video, did some photoshop, and had 5 or 6 programs running at once including iTunes, all on 1 gb of ram. All running GREAT.
B) Apple charges a hefty hefty premium for their ram. I purchased 2gbs of aftermarket ram for my macbook for 50 shipped from newegg. It took 15 minutes tops to install, and I don't like opening my computers
C) Installing ram voids NO warranty, as of late computers are making it easier and easier to install things.
So best option:
Save the cash, see if it's adequate (it will be), and if it miraculously isn't, buy new ram for a savings of 40 dollars.
Posts: 332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Computers are like crack heads, give them a little and you can be sure they will be back for more. Eventually they will be stealing money from there grandmother and dating a anorexic chick with rotting teeth and stringy hair. It just spirals down from there.
Posts: 1458 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
When buying a Macbook, I'd recommend getting the middle one, since you get a big step up in processor, memory, and DVD drive relative to the cheapest one, where the most expensive computer you pay for the fancy color, and a bigger hard drive which most people don't need. The middle one usually has the most bang for your buck. If you and your girlfriend have any access to an educational discount- go for it, you'll get a bunch of money off.
However, except for the DVD drive, my 2006 mid range MacBook, is not nearly as nifty as the current lowest model, and I'm happy with the speeds, etc. running Tiger. My big computer uses are Safari, email, and lots and lots of X11 windows at work. My old computer that runs Ubuntu and XP is slow. I think of my computer as fast and responsive, unless I'm on a lousy SSH connection, which is the other computer's fault.
I don't know if Leopard is a memory hogging pain like Vista. Since mac has been trying to dispel the notion that Macs are slow, the lowest processor will probably not leave people unsatisfied, even with Leopard. Leopard also runs on the pre-intel macs, so it can't be that bad on the slowest new computer.
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: I believe I should point out that my first intel-compatable computer had four megabytes of memory, and tell you kids to get off my lawn.
Megabytes?! Hah! My first computer's was measured in bits, and we were grateful for its monochromatic splendiferousness anyway.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Macbooks are much happier with 2gb than one, but it may be cheaper to just do the upgrade on your own. There is a huge difference between 1 and 2 gb, in my experience.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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