Since there are a bunch of computer guys on here I was wondering what is the difference between system memory (ie 3 GB 2 GB DDR2) and your hard drive (ie 250 GB or 320 GB)? And what is sufficient for these two, (I’m just looking for a laptop to surf, email, excel, nothing too taxing)? -Thanks
At a high level your hard drive represents the amount of storage space on your PC, while memory is related to your computer’s performace
Buy as much Ram as you can afford as this is the working memory of your computer which is very fast. If you have a ton of windows/applications open, the virtual memory must be used which is an allocative amount of the hard drive. Virtual memory very slow. To be honest you probably won’t know the difference between a 250/320 gig hard drive. That is an insane amount of space that will probably be of little use unless you are heavy into video editing, creating, etc.
ok i think I am more concerned with memory then and can’t you just buy a hard drive disk if you run short? any ideas on brand…toshibia, dell or hp are the ones I am thinking about?
i have a toshiba - no complaints
Yeah, hard drive space is dirt cheap. I don’t know about brand differences, but stick with an Intel processor. It’s my understanding they are better than AMD.
ditchdigger2CFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yeah, hard drive space is dirt cheap. > > I don’t know about brand differences, but stick > with an Intel processor. It’s my understanding > they are better than AMD. Agreed I have heard that too. Thanks for the info.
System Memory is primary memory and is used when you open up an application. Say for example you are working on you Excel Spreadsheets, which listening to some music and there is a gadget that gets the latest ticker symbol data every couple of minutes - then all these use RAM (Random Access Memory) memory to run/execute the code. No data is stored permanently in it; it’s reused and re-re-used… So next time on, when you watching a movie, the space needed to run the Windows media player and load the move frame-by-frame is again taken from RAM Hard disk on the other end is a secondary permanent storage. So prepare a presentation and save it on harddrive, switch off the computer, it would be still there sitting on the harddisk. I think 4GB RAM and 300GB harddisk is more than sufficient for mission critical applications, if you just need to operate on Excel’s then you know what to order for…
alright thanks for the good explanation, understood now. how about processer I’m looking at 2.16 ghz, fast enough? any info on battery life and over heating on brands? and hp is saying “The 2GB allows you to configure your notebook with an incredible amount of memory and go for the best performance right from the start! HP recommended for the maximum Windows Vista experience”, why wouldn’t 4gb be better? 4 gb says this…? HP recommends a 64-bit Operating System to ensure a full experience with 4GB memory. DISCLAIMER: While your notebook may show 4GB available, up to 1GB of this memory may not be available with a 32 bit OS due to system resource requirements. DDR2 is the latest memory architecture with flexible memory bandwidth up to 8.5 GB per second. Dual Channel is only supported when the system is configured with DDR2 symmetric memory (i.e. 2x1024MB). The 4GB lets you appreciatee increased system performance and greater overall speed in running your favorite applications.
Given what appears to be your level of understanding of computers, I highly doubt you will need a super fast processor. So yes, 2.16 Ghz is fast enough. As far as a brand goes, computers are basically commodities, and brands do not matter that much anymore. Focus more on the size/weight that you think you would like instead of being caught up with brand names. If you are concerned about battery life, Dell recently announced its new Latitudes will have batteries that last for at least 10 hours. Don’t buy retail unless it is on sale and don’t listen to salespeople (especially don’t buy the extended warranty) --was a CompUSA salesperson in college
I have a dell laptop and I’m happy with it, good values in general
Don’t forget to buy the $300 extended warranty for 3 years. So when your laptop breaks and you take it in for repair the Geek Squad can laugh at you and tell you that stupidity and dropping the laptop is NOT covered under FULL warranty. Now if your laptop gets infected by a virus while browsing p0rn = stupidity or not is a completely subjective topic.
where’s csk when we need him? 
I am here :), but i am not a big hardware buff 2gb + 250gb to surf and some excel is over the head. get 3gb if you want to run vista comfortably