what memory for me?

I don't play games at all (nor do anything high-end) and seldom watch video/movie on a PC. Is 512MB memory enough for me?

 

Though 512MB seems okay in your case, its better to get 1GB as applications nowadays gobbles lots of resources.

 

It depends on your operating system.

 

my sister's vista home runes smoothly with 1.5gb of ram. she has a celeron D processor with gma950 integrated graphics.

Just fyi, vista alone (without running any other applications) takes up about 400mb of ram. so if you have 512mb, there is not much left for you to work with.

 

Really appreciate all your feedback! I plan to buy a T61 with windows XP. I use it mostly for web browsing, productivity, music clips. I used an old desktop with windows millenium and 128MB

 

For XP and those tasks, 512MB will be fine. Although 1GB is recommended so you'll have that extra little bit of headroom for later on if you need it (as RAM is dirt cheap right now). A better option might be to order it with 512MB and then pick up one of the 1GB sticks listed in THIS thread and just add it to the original 512.

If you want to run Vista in the future then 1GB is about the least you would want to have. Regardless, a T61 will be a *very* nice upgrade! Congrats!

 

UltraCow, thanks! Regarding Vista, I've read so many negative comments/reviews on it that I don't think I'll want it for at least 3 years It's said that it keeps asking you "Do you want to do this?" you click yes, then it says "Are you sure you want to do this?" (Can those who got vista confirm this?)

Thank you

 

Wow. Just wow. To that going from that to a T61 would be a very nice upgrade would be a *very* large understatement.

 

for XP go with 1GB.
For vista, 1.5GB and up.

It is true about vista, but you can very easly turn off those warnings.

 

That's kinda extreme. You can expect that most of the bugs will be worked out when SP1 is released (probably this fall). Especially considering you are not doing anything on the laptop that is very demanding. You should not be afraid of Vista after SP1. If you purchase Vista now, it will automatically self-update when it is released.

Somebody else can chime in about this, but I think that can be disabled. From what I understand you get use to it and it's not a big deal. It's a security feature that makes sure nothing is going on without your permission.

As for RAM, I would get 1GB for XP and 2GB for Vista.
I agree with the others about adding your own RAM. It is dirt cheap right now!

 

Ahhh UAC...out of the box, yes, Vista does do that (it's known as User Account Control, or UAC) and it's purported as a good measure to increase security. In reality, it's an annoying piece of crap that only irritates the majority of users (especially if you know what you're doing). Fortunately, it's a very simple single checkbox under User Accounts and a reboot to disable it and have your PC work normally after that.

 

More than 6 years without a BSOD Actually seems to be getting better as it ages

 

And the XP would stil be faster, less bloated and DRM free.

 

Not to get into a debate here, but that's exactly the kind of generalization about why Vista is bad that no one needs. If you have/had a specific problem with Vista, that's fine; individual issue happen and always will regardless of how good/bad an OS release is. What helps no one though is what seems to be the rage nowadays on tech forums of people telling everyone that "Vista sucks" and a lot of people take it to heart without even trying it themselves.

I'm not trying to defend Vista or any other OS here; where there are actual problems with an operating system then they should be discussed. However, the majority of the threads and opinions I see about Vista are rather sensationalist, which only furthers the spread of mis-information the majority of the time.

Anyway, back on topic and to the OP, may your new T61 serve you well for years to come!

 

So if a product really did suck and everyone on forums were *****ing about it, it would be "all the rage"? I guess then if something sucked and everyone was *****ing about it, then it would become unfashionable to think that it sucks? Grow up. Vista sucks and it's apologists like you who have no annoy me. You have no argument you just say "generalizations blah blah, can't judge it, blah blah, I'm not saying you shouldn't blah blah". Well yes I CAN judge it and I think you've seen my other post describing why.

Besides that the points unhooked makes about it are not generalizations, they are true fact. Vista is slower, more bloated, and has more DRM. Those ARE FACTS sir so please if you're going to attack it why not brings some facts of your own besides being a waffle apologist who really doesn't have any point but just likes to jump into discussions with "hey folks now lets settle down".

 

I posted the above simply because a *lot* of the time people just don't back up the "Vista sucks" statement with information that looks at all potential causes of the problem their having. I purposely chose not to respond to his post in a more specific way simply because that isn't the topic of this thread, not at all because I didn't have a more specific response in mind to what unhooked posted. Furthermore, I already said I'm not defending Vista or any other OS for that matter. For me it's simply a matter of having true information with all external factors taken into account when placing blame on something for a problem.

Anyway, I've already gone way further off-topic in this thread than I intended to; I'm not going to debate you on this as it's very much not a Vista debate thread.

Sorry about the thread derailment OP. Hate it when that happens.

 

UltraCow and xnviews: sorry for causing the debate, but as far as my original topic is concerned, you are on a common ground: "T61 will be a very nice upgrade! " :yes: