is 256mb of ram sufficient in an ibook?

[etalns]

I'm buying a new laptop and the local stores only carry ones with 256 megs of ram. I know a laptop using windows xp needs 512 megs of ram, otherwise it runs very slow. Is this the same way for ibooks? Or will 256 megs be sufficient for watching dvd's, doing homework, and surfing the web. Doing homework and surfing the web would be at the same time.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Hi,

To run OS X very well, everyone will recommend 512mb of RAM. 256 is good enough to run OS X, but 512 is usually recommended. My eMac used to have 256mb of RAM in it and it ran very smooth, but of course a lot faster with 640mb of RAM.

If all you are going to be doing is watching dvd's doing homework and surfing the web, then 256mb of RAM is sufficient IMO. When I had 256, surfing the web and homework was all I did, and that 256 was very sufficient for me.

Hope this helps.
Good Luck

 

[Eug]

Check out this thread on new iBooks. New iBook is $999.

I would suggest adding another 256, or another 512 MB if you plan on doing video editing and stuff.

 

[FreshFish]

I think you will be fine with 256MB. Mine only has a whopping 128MB and it does pretty well even. For light usage (light what you were describing) 256MB seems fine to me. If you are going to be doing heavy duty stuff, add some more.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: FreshFish
I think you will be fine with 256MB. Mine only has a whopping 128MB and it does pretty well even. For light usage (light what you were describing) 256MB seems fine to me. If you are going to be doing heavy duty stuff, add some more.

If you're talking about an iBook running OS X, you'd be surprised at how much of a speedup you can get going from 128 to 384 MB RAM. That's a $40 upgrade, well worth it.