If there’s one advise for those who are buying a new notebook PC and expect to use it for many years to come, don’t skimp when it comes to adding RAM. Add as much RAM as possible along with your purchase. If the limit is 4GB, get 4GB of memory for a start.

My faithful IBM R50e has 768MB of type DDR1 RAM which was phased out about a year or two ago. DDR2 is commonplace now and gives the best value for money. DDR1 on the other hand, if you can find them on the market now are many times more expensive than DDR2. I regret not upgrading the memory in my notebook earlier when DDR1 is still going strong and cheap.