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Would 4GB be fine for my mother?

J

jojoba

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 9, 2011
1,584
21
My mother's laptop (a Toshiba) just got drenched in a glass of red wine so I thought I'd get her something new for Christmas.

I've looked at a couple of HP laptops for her but I'm also considering getting her a 13" MBA. She's quite frugal and has always bought low budget laptops that are SLOW (which end up driving her crazy). I'd quite like her to have something a bit more snappy and I think she might also find a mac more user friendly.

She mostly uses her laptop for emails, word processing, viewing and sorting (but not editing) photos, and web browsing. Would 4GB last her for a while? She's not the sort of person who upgrades regularly, she uses what she has until it doesn't work anymore, so I want this to be a long term investment.
 
4GB would indeed be adequate for your mother's uses.
She will also like the speediness of the macbook air. Tell her to enjoy :)
 
Hell yes

Yup, she's going to be blown away by the SSD speed.

And the RAM is suitable for the basic stuff you described.

Heck, if would probably be enough for most of us much of the time, as long as we didn't open 60+ tabs at once.
 
In before "She needs 16 GB for future proofing!"

4 GB will be well more than enough for those tasks for a long time.
 
Thanks so much for the input, everybody! I suspected 4GB would be fine, but wanted some reassurance :)

I decided to pick up macbook pro for her instead. Her eye sight isn't great so I thought the retina screen might do her good. The store has a 30 day return policy, so if she ends up not liking it, I can send it back. I'll see what happens on Christmas Eve...

556fmjoe said:
In before "She needs 16 GB for future proofing!"
Click to expand...

:D Yes, I was waiting for those, surprised nothing's come in yet!

flowrider said:
]You may also want to tell Mom to lay off the sauce:eek:
Click to expand...

Totally :D I've written up some instructions for her on the main differences between PC and mac. I added a line specifying "please keep red wine away from keyboard" :)
 
My GF has 4GB and it's absolutely fine. It pages out rarely, and when it does it's absolutely not noticeably due to the speed of the SSD.
 
Beachguy said:
She needs 16GB for future proofing!!!!!

(fulfilling prophesy)
Click to expand...

Now this thread feels right :D

Well, she seems happy so far. I was worried about her making the switch in operating systems because she generally finds technology difficult to deal with. But so far she says it's fairly easy to use and she likes the screen. She's not quite used to the track pad yet (keeps scrolling in the wrong direction), but it's coming along. And she seems determined to back up a bit more regularly after the red wine incident :) I'm broke, but I think it was worth it.

Thanks all for the input!
 
You guys are insane. 4GB was good enough 10 years ago. You need at least 1TB of RAM for your computer to function. 2TB for future proofing..

Nah, 4GB is fine.
 
For me personally I'd go 8 because I keep my laptops a minimum of five years. Five years ago I'd say 4, next year when I upgrade to a (hopefully) retina Air it will be 8. I'm less concerned with SSD because I will never need more than the base, and SD cards are cheap enough if I do.
 
USF813 said:
For me personally I'd go 8 because I keep my laptops a minimum of five years. Five years ago I'd say 4, next year when I upgrade to a (hopefully) retina Air it will be 8. I'm less concerned with SSD because I will never need more than the base, and SD cards are cheap enough if I do.
Click to expand...

The current requirement for Yosemite is 2GB, meaning that if you have 2GB, you can run the OS and still get some useful work done.

Ballpark guess, that might mean that the OS takes up 1GB and then you have 1GB available for your software.

So if you have 4GB RAM, that means you have twice the minimum necessary and (hypothetically) three times the amount of memory that Apple thinks you might need to do something useful.

That's not going to become outdated soon.
 
USF813 said:
Resale value.
Click to expand...

If anything, resale value is an argument against buying any upgrades.

I have bought and sold many used Apple products on Craigslist and they have all sold for base-model prices. A common, effective, and usually honest negotiating tactic: "but I only need the base model, I'm just looking at yours because it [looks like its in good condition|you live nearby|etc.]"

Same thing happens with cars too. That sunroof that cost $2000 from the dealership? Check out how it affects the car's value on Edmunds. Wouldn't be surprised if it's like $30.
 
jojoba said:
My mother's laptop (a Toshiba) just got drenched in a glass of red wine so I thought I'd get her something new for Christmas.

I've looked at a couple of HP laptops for her but I'm also considering getting her a 13" MBA. She's quite frugal and has always bought low budget laptops that are SLOW (which end up driving her crazy). I'd quite like her to have something a bit more snappy and I think she might also find a mac more user friendly.

She mostly uses her laptop for emails, word processing, viewing and sorting (but not editing) photos, and web browsing. Would 4GB last her for a while? She's not the sort of person who upgrades regularly, she uses what she has until it doesn't work anymore, so I want this to be a long term investment.
Click to expand...

My 2014 MBA 4GB Ram blows away my 2011 MBP 8GB ram. With SSD there is hardly any differences between using ram or swapping memory to the hard disk. Your mum should be fine with 4 GB.
 
jojoba said:
Now this thread feels right :D

Well, she seems happy so far. I was worried about her making the switch in operating systems because she generally finds technology difficult to deal with. But so far she says it's fairly easy to use and she likes the screen. She's not quite used to the track pad yet (keeps scrolling in the wrong direction), but it's coming along. And she seems determined to back up a bit more regularly after the red wine incident :) I'm broke, but I think it was worth it.

Thanks all for the input!
Click to expand...

She must be thrilled with your generosity. Glad she likes it!
 
jojoba said:
She's not quite used to the track pad yet (keeps scrolling in the wrong direction), but it's coming along.
Click to expand...

You might want to try a BT mouse. I use mine with the Magic Mouse that came with my Mac Pro.

Lou
 
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