Is 4gb of Ram enough for an i5 with Ssd?

Nicosia Nicosia

Estimable
Jun 5, 2015
1
0
4,510
Hey, I'm seriously considering buying the Hp spectre x360, but need a little advice as to which specs I need.
My current laptop and tablet both need replacing because they're brutally slow. I will use the device mostly for school (mostly downloading recorded lectures and using Microsoft Office), web browsing with multiple tabs, Netflix, Spotify, etc.. I won't be gaming or doing any graphic design. I decided on the i5 and a ssd, because I want it to be fast, multi-task well, and last as long as possible.
The Hp spectre x360 start at $899 with i5, 128G ssd, and 4gb of RAM. For $999 you get double the RAM and storage space. As I said, I'm in college so $100 is nothing to sneer at, but I want to make a good investment.
My question is, will this device perform well, and suit my needs with only 4gb? Would it be noticeably faster or more reliable with 8gb?

Thanks in advance, this forum has already been very useful getting this far in my search.

P.s. The RAM is soldered to the board so there's no upgrading RAM later. The storage space of the cheaper model is not an issue, I can buy an external hard drive or SD cards if it came to that.
 
Solution
The additional $100 is a good deal for double the RAM and SSD capacity. You can always upgrade the SSD yourself later, but since the RAM is soldered in it will not be upgradeable.

Having more RAM can be useful if you plan on having many programs opened at a single time which means it allows you to multitask better. If you run out of RAM while multitasking, then the data will be written back and forth between RAM and the SSD as your switch programs. But for light multitasking with only 3 or 4 non RAM intensive programs running 4GB should be good enough.

Dragos Manea

Estimable
Mar 30, 2015
139
1
4,660
For your need is perfect, no need for extra memory, if u want more storage space u can buy a 2.5" 500GB external HDD, it is very small so very portable and u will get high storage space for the minimum amount spent

EDIT: i got an Asus X55A, 4GB of ram, intel pentium 2020m, very fast, in the future i want to buy a ssd to replace the hdd and the hdd to put in an external 2.5" enclosure to connect by usb 3.0. I already got a samsung 1TB m3 portable hdd. My ram was never occupied more then 70% so more then enought.
 
As far as being a decent investment, depending on the SSD and RAM quality, $100 for another 120GB in the SSD and another 4GB RAM is pretty fair currently.

Assuming the 4GB is arranged 2x2GB, then to upgrade in future you'll need 2x4GB (which would set you back probably $70* minimum at the moment for the cheapest). Price difference between a 128GB and 250/256GB SSD would be a minimum $40* for the cheapest of the cheap, more likely in the $100* range.

*numbers from Newegg.

Assuming the components are of decent quality, I'd personally go for the $100 upgrade.
 
The additional $100 is a good deal for double the RAM and SSD capacity. You can always upgrade the SSD yourself later, but since the RAM is soldered in it will not be upgradeable.

Having more RAM can be useful if you plan on having many programs opened at a single time which means it allows you to multitask better. If you run out of RAM while multitasking, then the data will be written back and forth between RAM and the SSD as your switch programs. But for light multitasking with only 3 or 4 non RAM intensive programs running 4GB should be good enough.
 
Solution