4GB: was Up-to-date hardware (laptop) recommendations?

[Steve Litt]

On Mon, 7 Dec 2015 13:30:07 +0200
"E.S. Rosenberg" <esr+linux-il at g.jct.ac.il> wrote:

> BTW has anyone noticed how long we have been 'stuck' on 4GB RAM being
> enough memory....

I have.

In July 2011 I bought each of my triplets a laptop they could use for
their freshman year college in the fall of 2011. At the time it seemed
like Moore's law was slowing down: It seemed like 4GB had been the most
common laptop configuration for a year or two, and it had been slowly
descending in price. I bought each of the three laptops for just under
$400USD each.

People their age are very hard on laptops. They drop them. They use
them 10 hours a day. They use them in bed, on the blankets, where
there's no ventilation. They stumble on the power cord and break the
power jack. Bottom line, during the 4 years they were in college, I
needed to buy each of them two additional laptops.

During that time, I noticed prices didn't drop, nor did RAM expand at
the same price. First there was the touchscreen thing, which seemed to
add about $200 to the price. So 4GB laptops went up into the high
$500's. As touchscreens came down in price, 4GB laptops seemed to
settle in the low $400's. It was the first time I can remember two
years passing where either features didn't get better or price get
lower (I don't consider touchscreen a feature).

One of my daughters graduated from college last June. My son graduates
in a few days. In the last few months, I've *finally* seen the price
per Gig of laptop RAM go down. 4G laptops have finally achieved their
2011 lows, and a few weeks ago Costco was featuring a 6 or 8GB laptop
for less than $400.

And of course, now laptops and desktops aren't even a commodity
anymore: The major marketplace is the various kinds of "devices" and
"reconfigurables". With desktops it's no big deal: It's cheap and easy
to slam together a 16GB box. With laptops, I wonder if we'll ever get
better than what's happening now.

Moore's law is dying.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
November 2015 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
     of the Successful Technologist
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