X1 Carbon 4gb vs 8gb

Just a quick question if you all don't mind. I don't plan on playing any games on this. Just office applications and maybe movies/streaming type stuff. Possibly some slight photo editing.

At the moment I'm finding it kind of hard to justify an extra $250 for 4gb more of ram. My current laptop, a brick of a G73jh has 6gb of ram and I've never had a problem with that.

My thinking is that 4gb would be plenty. Would I be thinking right in my intended use?

 

With your current laptop, under the heaviest use you do, what is your memory usage? You should be able to tell if you can get by with less simply by looking at your current usage.

 

if you just use the machine to deal with spreadsheet, words, watching movie and some other stuff, 4GB is quite enough. BUT for future apps & OS, i think 8 GB will be better cause memory is soldered
on. that means no way to upgrade it on your own. Dont forget windows 7 hp 64-bit is a memory hog even when no programs running in the background .

 

How long do you think a 4GB will last, given regular use - spreadsheet, word, movies and such?

 

I've got a number of machines with 4GB running Win 7 HP 64-bit and they are fine with browsing, word docs, etc... and have memory to spare. The machines I have at 8gb are for memory intensive apps, like working with large databases, large photo editing, etc...

4gb will last forever as long as you're not upgrading software to versions with higher memory usage. What usually happens is software manufacturers assume new systems have more memory and can program to use it. Now sometimes a new version comes out with a lower usage, but that's less common.

I went with 8gb because I usually have open a ton of apps and tabs. I regularly sit at 6gb on most days.

 

That is by design. You might want to look into modern OS memory management.

As the original poster indicates, it's hard to pay the amount because it's ten times higher than the cost of DDR3 laptop SoDIMMs. You can buy two 8GB sticks for less than $100, so paying $250 to go from 4GB to 8GB is hard to swallow.

 

Windows 7 makes best use of all the physical memory available for your benefit. It doesn't "hog" memory.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I chatted up a rep today who ended up giving me what amounted to a free upgrade on the 8GB to 256gb of storage.

So it all comes out in the wash on pricing between the 4gb and 8gb models with 256gb of storage.

 

I personally would never buy a new machine with less than 8GB. Getting a free $250 upgrade is a no brainer. What did you end up spending for the machine? Was it the i5/8GB/256GB model?

 

Yea I got the i5/8gb/256gb with upgraded 1yr Accidental Damage warranty out the door for 1850.

 

My price for that config before taxes and shipping was $1650. That included the 3 year Accidental Damage warranty. Delivered to my door the price came to $1787.

 

I lose. He didn't do much for me on the warranty but oh well. Maybe he didn't like my voice.

 

where did you get that price?

 

That order was placed through the Barnes and Noble Lenovo Gold discount site.