Reply With Quote16. No brainer. Just sitting here with no apps open, I'm using 4GB
I'm about to order a new laptop for home use (browsing, streaming, MS Office). I probably only need 8GB now but given that I don't upgrade often, would 16GB be more future-proof? With the laptop I'm interested in (Dell XPS) it isn't possible to add more RAM in the future. Thanks!
16. No brainer. Just sitting here with no apps open, I'm using 4GB
Last edited by hogthrob; 2nd December 2020 at 09:18.
I'm just going to tell you what you already know but...
8gb will be fine for browsing, streaming, MS Office (assuming the rest of the spec isn't limiting)
16gb will be more future-proof (although I suspect 8gb will be fine for some considerable time unless usage changes)
What's the cost difference? If it's not a huge amount and you're planning to keep the laptop for a few years it could come down to pennies/day.
I would say that for the uses you describe, 8GB is likely to be adequate for the likely lifetime of the laptop.
Not really. Your OS has grabbed a few GB for buffers and cache, because it can. If an application needed that, it would free it up.Originally Posted by hogthrob
Depends what you're going to use it for...
General day-to-day browsing on't web, zoom calls, or using MS Office etc then 8GB is adequate and I doubt you'd notice any improvement if you had 16GB.
Serious video or image editing then 16GB would be better IMHO.
Are you a gamer?
If not then for general browsing and MS Office 8gb is more than adequate
look at your budget.
Could you spend 5% to 10% more on RAM now, which might put another 18 months on the usable life of the computer before it slows down terribly?
If your aren't doing video editing or working with huge files, you might be fine with the lower RAM......
But if in 24 months your have to replace it, that's another 100% budget spend again. Maybe the RAM purchase at the start would have been better.
Hard drive storage is slightly different, you can always plug in more or externalise at 24 months.
Battery is the final thing, it WILL be worse at 24 months, but replacement is easy.
Size/weight: it will always weight the same. If you're going to carry it around then buy the lightest you can afford, perhaps prioritise this over RAM
In my view, buy the most RAM you can afford, ahead of HDD/SDD space or other flashyness.
Thanks, some really helpful replies so far.
I'm not a gamer but I do zoom a lot.
This is the laptop I'm interested in:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapt...13-9310-laptop
16GB would cost £250 more than 8GB.
Weight of the laptops is the same.
It looks like changing to 16gb also changes the processor to the i7 which explains the price hike. It would undoubtedly be a better machine but do you need it?Thanks, some really helpful replies so far.
I'm not a gamer but I do zoom a lot.
This is the laptop I'm interested in:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapt...13-9310-laptop
16GB would cost £250 more than 8GB.
Weight of the laptops is the same.
Personally I think the lower spec one will be fine for your usage freeing up £250 for the watch fund.
That is more than adequate.
Zoom etc is more about your internet speed than the laptop.
My use is similar to yours with the addition of downloading/streaming a lot of music and I have just bought (last weekend) a Dell Inspiron 15 3000 which is less than half the price of the one you quoted.
If I was spending more than £1K on a laptop I would be buying a MacBook Air. I am not a big Apple fan but the new ones are fantastic machines
Thanks, so this would be the more budget friendly alternative option:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapt...B&gclsrc=aw.ds
Is the XPS worth the major price hike?
If you are looking at Dells, then it's always worth checking their refurb store. For instance they currently have a much higher specced similar model in stock for only a little more money.
https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/...QRR%2beVbLYQ1s
Coincidentally, when I last upgraded my laptop I started out looking at the Dell XPS range but ended up with a an Inspiron 15 7000 from their online outlet store. Would do the same again if needed.
2Gb or 4Gb would probably be perfectly fine for the uses that you describe.
The chances of you actually using more than 8Gb (and certainly the chance of you noticing any difference between 8Gb and 16Gb) is minimal.
There’s also a question of how many concurrent programs you normally have open.
For example my wife tends to have 5-6 PDF’s, the same number of word and powerpoint docs, some excel workbooks, 10 or more chrome tabs and a number of outlook windows on her iMac with 16Gb, I find she’s using 12-14Gb
You could well check what your current system is using in normal use and get an indication of how tight you are now.
The idea of memory is to minimise swapping data from live programs to and from disk when swapping tasks, though with modem ssd’ s that’s much less impactful.
This article might help
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/mon...ormance-usage/
16GB would be my recommendation - it's what I bought three months ago to cover the next few years.
You can add more RAM yourself very easily at any point in the future but 8GB is more than enough for general use.
I have an XPS15 7590 and have added more RAM myself, which XPS are you looking at? My advice would be if the RAM is soldered onto the Motherboard so you can't change or upgrade it don't buy a laptop like this, as firstly it's not very future proof and secondly but more importantly it would be a complete write off if the RAM cards fail when it's out of warranty.
Last edited by Vanguard; 2nd December 2020 at 13:59.
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop...500emea01_2105
This seems very good value for a business machine.
16GB definitely. I've got the new XPS13 and its a great machine. Make sure you use TopCashBack
Go for 16 if you can
8GB would be minimum specs nowadays
I've 16GB on my pc and 12GB on my laptop (both i5 with same type / size ssd) and they keep up with most things
You might be more suited to the Latitude business line. Good deal on the 7300 for the next 48 hours or so here https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop...ctol730013emea
Only thing I would add is if you use Firefox as you're browser then get 16GB as it's a memory hogg. Chrome uses much less memory as for Edge or any other browser I wouldn't know as I only really use chrome but more memory is always better if it's ever needed.
It will probably have 2 memory slots so just buy another 8GB and slot it in yourself. It's quite easy.
Sent from my SM-N960F using TZ-UK mobile app
I wonder how much longer consumers will have that option - more and more solder it onto the board and the new Apple chips don't have have seperate ram to solder!
Two questions.
What's the difference in price?
Can you upgrade from 8 to 16 easily yourself?
If the difference is more than the cost of RAM and you CAN simply upgrade (ie there's a panel on the back that lets you add in more RAM) then go with 8, otherwise buy 16.
M
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
The link the op provided of what he was looking at seems to show that increasing the memory to 16 is only available with a i7 processor. It would seem to be a bit of a no brainer going for the more powerful processor but given his needs it seems to be an incredibly over spec'd solution
It's a shame you didn't bother to read the first post.
Okay it's decision time: I need to buy before the end of this Black Friday weekend.
We have two contenders at similar prices: Dell and Microsoft.
The Dell XPS has Intel core i5, 8GB RAM and 512GB hard drive and I can get it for £1,175 (black friday discount)
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapt...13-9310-laptop
The Microsoft Surface Pro has i7, 16BG and 256GB hard drive and I can get it for £1349 (with discount)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/stor...&previewModes=
Which would be the better buy?
Last edited by Rocket Man; 5th December 2020 at 17:50.
One has a faster processor and more memory the other has greater storage but lesser processor and less memory.
Did you look at your existing memory usage?
Given you’ve said it’s just office, browsing and streaming it’s really your call, do you prefer one visually?
Thanks, just did that and I'm currently only using 4MB with several tabs and and office docs open.
So I guess 8GB should be fine?
In which case I could get the Microsfoft Surface 3 for £900 (8GB RAM, 256GB memory) vs the Dell XPS (512GB memory) for £1175.
Which to get?
Last edited by Rocket Man; 5th December 2020 at 18:51.
Have you actually tried physically using either of these laptops?
These specs don't tell you the whole story - they tells you nothing at all about the feel of the keypad, the angle of the keypad, the quality of the display, the placement of lesser buttons (e.g. PgUp, PgDn) which you use often, whether the Return key is full or half size, the width of the space bar, the usability of the media controls (if any), the quality of the hinges, how hot the laptop runs, now noisy the laptop is, the size and weight of the power adaptor, how many (useful) ports the laptop has, the realistic battery life, etc, etc, etc.
The amount of RAM - unless you are a game player or doing something else very memory intensive - should be way down the list of criteria when choosing a laptop.
I never realised you could buy a laptop without a dedicated GPU for this much money :O
Thunderbolts!
I've just realised that neithet the Dell XPS or the Microsoft Surface has an HDMI port. I can get an adapter but it's annoying.
The Dell only has thunderbolt ports - do I want/need thunderbolt ports?!
The Dell I posted a link to in post #20 has a hdmi port. Latest i7 chip and ample memory. For your stated needs I'd get that and buy a watch with the money saved.
Thanks, that works out as £738.14 with a Black Friday code.
Seems very good value but I wonder what it would feel like to use (speed, keyboard etc) and would the quality of the screen be good for streaming moves etc?
Just seen that it's also 15 inch so less portable.
Last edited by Rocket Man; 6th December 2020 at 10:11.
Thunderbolt can power a monitor.
It's a business machine so should be nice to use, you're right about the size though.
Thanks, so I wouldn't need to plug an external monitor in? What are advantages of that (given that my monitor is always plugged in on my desk)?
Sorry, meant use instead of HDMI. AFAIK you'll still need mains power.
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