Travel Technology - 12" PB More Ram or No More Ram?

Hello Folks,
I have a 15" PB now that has served well but is starting to slow down. I have decided on a new 12" PB but have one dillema. Is getting 1256 RAM gonna help the speed and performance? Or is 768 or 512 or RAM enough? I generally watch movies and just use basic stuff. I am a technology nut but this is stumping me. It is a pretty good amount of money between the three so your advice is appreciated! Thanks a lot!

Hello Folks,
I have a 15" PB now that has served well but is starting to slow down. I have decided on a new 12" PB but have one dillema. Is getting 1256 RAM gonna help the speed and performance? Or is 768 or 512 or RAM enough? I generally watch movies and just use basic stuff. I am a technology nut but this is stumping me. It is a pretty good amount of money between the three so your advice is appreciated! Thanks a lot!


If that is all you do with it then more ram isn't going to help you much.

I find 768 MB of RAM in my 12" PB to be more than sufficient for my needs. I can't justify the expense of anything more than that.

To paraphrase the late Duchess of Windsor: You can't be too rich, too thin, or have too much RAM.

It's not just whether you only watch movies and do "basic stuff" now. Is that all you're going to do with it for as long as you own it?

In particular, if you might use Virtual PC, you'll need more RAM. It has to create the RAM of the emulated PC within PB RAM. Sure, a PC will probably run with 256 megs, but VPC is slow enough even with plenty of RAM.

If you'll be doing serious photo editing, that's another RAM hog.

And the next release of anything will need a third to a half more RAM again than the current one does. Whatever it is. Whenever you look.

The good news is that you can always add it later, and it's not going to get more expensive (over the long term; there can be short-term blips).

the 12'' with a 512MB Ram upgrade is the way to go, just the right price point. By adding a gig chip it is just a little to costly. I have the 12'' with the 512 upgrade and no problems, runs better then the standard 256.

~icorproadie

Going for the 1GB additional, while it would ensure that you never ever would add RAM again to that PowerBook, is probably overkill in your case. If I recall the 1GB modules still cost more than 2x the 512MB ones, so you're paying a premium for that. If it were me, I'd get 512MB for a total of 768MB. Should be more than enough for a wide variety of general uses through the life of the unit.

Tip for InDiAnBoY821: if you opt for extra RAM, buy it on the open market, rather than from Apple. Apple's mark-up is unreasonable.

Step 1: Get data from a site with a "memory configurator" (e.g. Kingston (http://www.kingston.com/)).

Step 2: Find cheapest equivalent by consulting different retail sites (e.g. Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/)) and price comparison sites (e.g. Cnet (http://www.cnet.com/)).

Paul Marcelin-Sampson
Santa Cruz, California, USA

if you do a lot of video editting, the RAM will help a lot. ditto for Filemaker pro along with Final Cut Pro, Macromedia suite..

but if most of the time is in Safari, Mail, and iCal, less than a G should be fine.

i'm waiting for the G5 Powerbook before i trade mine in.

I concur. 512M upgrade is more than enough for everything bar HEAVY Virtual PC and video editing (i.e. Final Cut Pro).

Try www.oempcworld.com, as well. I've had great success with them and RAM for my three Macs.

Timothy

Spend that money on a 2MB L2 cache. That extra RAM won't help, especially if you're not running the laptop for days at a time.

Thanks for all your replies!
ktp28: So any idea if/when the G5 pb will come out? That would be one ultimate laptop.
With the G4 I think I am goin to go with 768RAM. 1gb is too much and is not justifiable for the 600 dollar price tag. Once again thanks for all your help!

...is not justifiable for the 600 dollar price tag...
See earlier posts about non-Apple suppliers. Should cost less than half that. Most of those folks have been in business for long enough to know what they're doing. They all use the same RAM chips from the same places.

See earlier posts about non-Apple suppliers. Should cost less than half that. Most of those folks have been in business for long enough to know what they're doing. They all use the same RAM chips from the same places.

Indeed. There are several places that I've used to get third-party RAM for Macs, and it's easy to install. My favorite place to just get RAM is Data Memory Systems, at http://www.datamem.com/ Good service, low prices (always close to the lowest if not the absolute lowest) and guaranteed to work in the model you specify. They know their Mac stuff, and if by a rare chance you get a bad module, they will overnight a new one with no hassle. The following link will take you to the proper parts for the current 12" PowerBook: http://tinyurl.com/69smg (Note, I have no connection with DMS apart from being a satisfied customer.)

By the way, do yourself a favor and at least wait until next Tuesday to see if our buddy Steve announces anything at Macworld Expo that might affect your buying decision. I don't know if it's likely right now, but there could still be, say, a speed bump for the PowerBooks in the wings or something like that. I wouldn't suggest you wait months, but we're only talking about a few days, until the middle of next week, just to be sure.

I noticed that my battery life was significantly reduced when I added another gig of ram to my powerbook. It also felt got hotter after long periods of use.