Question Help me choose a laptop?

[Mha1987]

I need a light portable laptop for work, it will be used for ms word, web browsing, movies.
I found these 2 laptops for a good price, which one is better?

X1 Carbon Gen 6- i5-8350U, 8gb ddr3, SSD 512,
Dell Latitude 7390- i5-8350U, 8gb ddr4, 256GB SSD

is 8 gb ddr3 bad in 2023?

 

[jeremyj_83]

I need a light portable laptop for work, it will be used for ms word, web browsing, movies.
I found these 2 laptops for a good price, which one is better?

X1 Carbon Gen 6- i5-8350U, 8gb ddr3, SSD 512,
Dell Latitude 7390- i5-8350U, 8gb ddr4, 256GB SSD

is 8 gb ddr3 bad in 2023?

This issue isn't DDR3 vs DDR4 but only 8GB RAM in 2023. Ideally you want 16GB RAM minimum now on any system. If one of the two can have user upgraded RAM to 16GB or more I would go with that one. If neither can upgrade the RAM I would try finding something else as 8GB just isn't enough now.

 

[lvt]

X1 Carbon Gen 6- i5-8350U, 8gb ddr3, SSD 512,

This.

is 8 gb ddr3 bad in 2023?

For what you want to do with the laptop, it's fine.

MS Word and movies don't need much RAM.

Web browsing does require some RAM, but 8GB is enough for daily web activities unless you are doing something that forces you to open 100 tabs at the same time. But if you have to do so, better do that on a desktop.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Web browsing does require some RAM, but 8GB is enough for daily web activities unless you are doing something that forces you to open 100 tabs at the same time.

Modern web pages it doesn't take much to use up quite a bit of RAM. I have 9 tabs open on my laptop and that is already over 1GB RAM being used. On top of that once you hit 6GB RAM used on an 8GB system you start to page swap and the system feels like it is stalling out. IMO you want to get the system that will let you get to 16GB RAM and if neither of them can it should be a pass. A laptop like this could still last for another 5-7 years if you take care of it and by then with 8GB RAM it will be like using a 4GB RAM Win 10 laptop right now (basically unusable).

 

[lvt]

Modern web pages it doesn't take much to use up quite a bit of RAM. I have 9 tabs open on my laptop and that is already over 1GB RAM being used. On top of that once you hit 6GB RAM used on an 8GB system you start to page swap and the system feels like it is stalling out. IMO you want to get the system that will let you get to 16GB RAM and if neither of them can it should be a pass. A laptop like this could still last for another 5-7 years if you take care of it and by then with 8GB RAM it will be like using a 4GB RAM Win 10 laptop right now (basically unusable).

You can upgrade the RAM whenever you want, RAM prices drop everyday.

Even if you have 16GB RAM the system still use swap file, leaving you with a lot of free RAM (what a waste!)

 

[jeremyj_83]

You can upgrade the RAM whenever you want, RAM prices drop everyday.

Even if you have 16GB RAM the system still use swap file, leaving you with a lot of free RAM (what a waste!)

Not all laptops can have their RAM upgraded. Since these are business laptops, the chances are better that it can have upgraded RAM but that still isn't guaranteed.

Yes all systems use page file. That doesn't mean that having 10GB RAM free is a waste. First the OS will expand more services into RAM when there is enough free RAM. That causes the system to feel snappier. Second it also allows you overhead before you start going to the page file for basic processes. Remember if you are writing to the page file all the time, this happens once you hit 6GB (75%) RAM usage on an 8GB system, you are using R/W cycles on your SSD and causing unneeded ware. Third getting to 6GB RAM usage on an 8GB system doesn't take much in 2023. It is exacerbated if the iGPU is set to say 1GB RAM in BIOS and you cannot change it. Overall the only reason to go with 8GB RAM in 2023 is if you have an extremely tight budget. However, with RAM prices what they are right now I don't see how you cannot fit 16GB into any budget. Especially since 2x4GB SODIMMs new cost the same as 2x8GB SODIMMs right now.

 

[LordVile]

What is your actual budget?