Understanding your laptop memory needs

The laptop you purchased a few years ago may feel as if it is no longer able to perform adequately enough to handle certain tasks. You may notice this more often during web browsing sessions, and this has a lot to do with an ongoing trend by web publishers to load pages with elements that consume more resources.

REASONS YOUR LAPTOP FEEL SLOWER

If you have been updating your operating system, browsers, and productivity applications, you may also notice that your laptop has become slower and sluggish, and this can be expected to a certain extent. In many cases, this problem can be traced to the available RAM no longer being sufficient, although there may also be other problems such as spyware, hidden files, and improper configuration; nonetheless, there is still the issue of RAM to consider.

An article in Laptop Magazine discussed the modern RAM needs for computing tasks such as web browsing and office productivity, two of the most common purposes assigned to laptops. The device chosen for testing was an Alienware gaming laptop with 16 GB of RAM, and the measurement tool used was the Windows Resource Monitor. No issues should be expected from a high-performance laptop with 16 GB of RAM, but the machine was put to the test when very large Microsoft Word and Excel documents with more than 1,000 pages or sheets were opened simultaneously. For web browsing, the laptop was strained when faced with more than 30 tabs opened by Google Chrome, an application that consumes quite a bit of memory.

SO HOW MUCH RAM DO YOU REALLY NEED?

The conclusion of the Laptop Magazine article can be summed up as follows: modern web browsing and office productivity tasks will require at least 4 GB of RAM. If you expect your laptop to perform adequately under gaming and video editing conditions, you will likely need more than that.

Even though laptops do not offer as many upgrade options as desktops, adding RAM is possible in many cases, and this is an excellent option for extending the life of your hardware. If you are interested in getting the most out of your laptop instead of shopping for a new one, consider seeing if it’s possible to upgrade the hardware; you would be surprised at how much better your laptop can perform once it is optimized and upgraded.