Onboard vs DIMM RAM in Laptops

[BIC2]

Been a few years since shopping for laptops. Hard to find other than ultrabooks for consumers. The main downside to me is nothing is replaceable, i.e., battery, RAM, HD, etc. Guess I'll get over it but I do have a question about RAM. I'm looking at i5 or i7 with either a SSD or a 5400 RPM HD.

One sales rep stated the reason most ultrabooks have 8 GB of onboard (not upgradable) RAM is that the performance is so much better than DIMMs that 8 GB onboard equals 24 GB of DIMMs. I find that hard to believe. Would 8 GB onboard at least be equal to 12 GB DIMMs? I could live with that. I was hoping for at least 12, if not 16 GB of DIMM RAM.

My usage is mostly web browsing. Typically have four browsers open and each browser has 10-20 tabs or so open. Microsoft Office is next most used and then some minor photo editing along with video viewing. Thanks.

 

[McHenryB]

Sales reps, it seems, will tell you anything. Don't buy a used car from that guy. 8GB onboard is the equivalent of 8GB of DIMMs.

The reason that companies make computers that way is because it's cheaper for them, which translates into more profit. Also they can sell you expensive memory rather than letting you buy cheap third-party memory; Apple are the prime example of this.

The reason that sales reps don't tell you that is - well, make up your own mind.

 

[BIC2]

A follow up question then. I'm looking at a laptop with an i7-5500u, 5400 RPM HD & NVIDIA GeForce 930M 2GB. Will 8GB of non-upgradable onboard RAM be sufficient for uses described above? Thanks.

 

[McHenryB]

8GB should be plenty for most purposes, though that is rather a lot of simultaneous web sessions. How about popping along to your local computer store and trying out a similar laptop (I.e. same amount of RAM and similar processor). That should give you a good idea of expected performance.

Personally I always go for computers that I can upgrade.

 

[BIC2]

I usually go for the upgradable stuff myself, but with these new ultrabooks, at least under say $1200 or so, most have onboard RAM.

 

[McHenryB]

Yeah, it's a growing trend. To be fair it does help to make the computer marginally smaller and lighter but I still don't like it.