Why do they still make laptops with 8 GB Memory

[NETWizz]

Why do they still make laptops with 8 GB of memory?

At work they ordered me some new fancy Dell All-In-On tablet/laptop machine with an Intel 13th generation i7 of some kind. Of coruse, I checked and it has 8 GB of RAM (soldered onto the motherobard), so I refusedi it.

Why does Dell, HP, and all those companies even offer less than say 16 GB of RAM this day and age?

It wouldn't be a problem, but we have bean counters who have zero (0) It knowledge. All they do is procure stuff. These are the type of people that end up buying things with a touch screen, tablet capability, some stupid stylist, and perhaps a 13900 or 13700 CPU ... but not enough RAM to open Chrome, Outlook, and Excel at the same time. It's nuts!

 

[lan101]

I made a post a while back that I couldn't find any configurations for a 2TB SSD Laptop unless it was like an alienware for 3 grand. I know I can upgrade it myself etc...but still I don't understand why it's not even offered anymore on any reasonable priced laptop. Pushing cloud storage I guess is the only thing I can think of.

 

[britechguy]

Why does Dell, HP, and all those companies even offer less than say 16 GB of RAM this day and age?

12 GB still can work pretty darned well.

I always presume 8GB machines are meant for very light duty use by non-business customers. No business class machine should come with less than 12 GB and, ideally, no less than 16.

 

[lan101]

The cheap home laptops for 400 bucks I'm fine with 8gb of ram because a lot of them don't multitask much...but any business machine should have a minimum of 16gb for sure.

 

[britechguy]

Pushing cloud storage I guess is the only thing I can think of.

It also works in the opposite direction, too. I continue to be floored at how many people, including residential clients, have paid for cloud storage (maybe because it's trendy) in amounts they'll never come close to using.

But in the last set of machines I had built, upgrading the SSD capacity was significantly less expensive than upgrading RAM, which took me by surprise.

 

[Mike McCall]

Why do they still make laptops with 8 GB of memory?

So they can charge $100 for an additional 8GB.

 

[alexsmith2709]

I made a post a while back that I couldn't find any configurations for a 2TB SSD Laptop unless it was like an alienware for 3 grand. I know I can upgrade it myself etc...but still I don't understand why it's not even offered anymore on any reasonable priced laptop. Pushing cloud storage I guess is the only thing I can think of.

Last night my partner asked me what the standard size drive in a laptop was, i said the average was probably 512GB, but you can get 1TB if you spend a bit more. Her response was "Oh, i assumed it would be more than that, my current one (6 or 7 years old) came with 750GB (I have since upgraded to a 1TB SSD)." I then explained to her about the advances in tech and now a different type of disk (NVMe) is becoming standard. She was disappointed!

8GB is stupid for a business class machine, even home machines to some degree. I often get scoffed at when i quote for a 16GB i5 machine as "basic" with the "but this 8GB i3 is cheaper"..."yes, and ive told you so many times these machines are rubbish and you keep complaining about the ones you've already got".

 

[Blues]

I actually disagree and find 8GB sufficient for most users unless they are dealing in large documents/files, high count for multiple tabs (and most users I see can barely manage 2), or specific software that does work better with higher memory. If we are talking web browsers, MS Office suite as the primary applications few will be able to notice the difference in a system with 8GB vs 12GB vs 16GB. I will say and i5 vs i3 is a noticeable and worthwhile investment for business machines and only the most basic home machine can use anything less than i5 or equivalent. I will say the business' life cycle plan on a machine is a factor if they only plan to run them for 3 years cutting cost can make more sense than when you want to keep it for 5 years. I haven't really seen any business with a cycle outside of those ends as more than 5 is really pushing a system and less than 3 is often a bit too rapid.

 

[Canadian Tech]

Here in Canada the majority of new laptops come with 8gb of memory and 256gb ssd. I do see laptops with larger hard drives/ssd's but they too come with 8gb or occasionally 12gb

 

[frase]

Same reason people purchase a laptop with 4GB and a 256 SSD, they do not know any better. Though the companies do especially here in AUS we have a place called Kogan. Sells cheap crap, a customer purchased one the other day I had to work on. Could not restore data as was only 90GB available on SSD left. I felt sad for that poor laptop, destined to die too soon

 

[fincoder]

explained to her about the advances in tech and now a different type of disk (NVMe) is becoming standard. She was disappointed!

I get this all the time with customers. Most of my refurbs are 256GB SSD, so I ask how much storage they need. People with old PCs might say they have 1TB or whatever, why are current ones so low in storage?

New laptops are usually 256GB or 512GB, so same issue. It's frustrating trying to explain how the "advances" in technology have resulted in less storage in newer computers.

 

[alexsmith2709]

I get this all the time with customers. Most of my refurbs are 256GB SSD, so I ask how much storage they need. People with old PCs might say they have 1TB or whatever, why are current ones so low in storage?

New laptops are usually 256GB or 512GB, so same issue. It's frustrating trying to explain how the "advances" in technology have resulted in less storage in newer computers.

As @lan101 said, its probably pushing the cloud, which is fine if you're also backing up the cloud (which less face it, the average user isnt as they consider that a backup) and use "Storage Sense" within Windows to keep removing copies of less used files from the actual device.

 

[Diggs]

8GB of memory is actually pretty comfortable if you watch the memory statistics during use. Even 8 GB in business use is reasonable. 90% of business use is Word/Excel, Outlook and a browser and don't need 16 GB to do that. I have Word, Chrome (4 tabs), FireFox (7 tabs) and Thunderbird (6 email accounts) open on this 8GB laptop and it's using 48% of memory.

 

[britechguy]

which less face it, the average user isnt as they consider that a backup

But it definitely is, of a sort, at least for stuff you haven't deleted over 30 days ago. When services like OneDrive, Google Drive, Drop Box, etc., are managed by data centers where the data is multiply-redundant, the need to have user data backed up in the way it once was does, in fact, become unnecessary.

When is the last time you heard of anyone, from individuals to multinational corporations, losing data under professional data center storage (and backup, as that's part of the equation) in a cloud data store?

Even full system image backup software doesn't back up the user data that is resident in the cloud.

I certainly sleep much better at night when I know a client has their data safely tucked in the cloud, and way more peacefully than I do when they have it all local, and backed up locally, usually with the backup media physically co-located with the original data.

 

[NETWizz]

8GB is fine on a MAC with an ARM processor. That's it. 8 GB was fine within about 3 years of Windows 7 64-bit, and 16 GB is still fine today. Honestly, it's pushing it. I am on my old work laptop on a docking station. It has 16 GB and an 11th gen i7. Looks like 9.9/15.7 GB memory in use per task manager. I have the Windows Snipping program, a command prompt, Outlook, 4 text files, and one Chrome browser with 11 tabs.

Teams is running in the tray as is Cisco Umbrella and Citrix Workspace... Also MS Defender (managed through Intune) and Global Protect VPN though it's not connected right now.

 

[britechguy]

I've got a ton more open and "workin' hard" than @NETWizz does, and I'm still only at about 85% of the 16 GB on my machine.

 

[NETWizz]

This what I am looking at... also a 16 GB machine. That's 12 Chrome Tabs, one (1) instance of Outlook, one (1) word document, and Teams running only in the tray. I cannot say how it actually counts apps.

 

[Diggs]

and Teams

You need to remember that you are in a different environment. 99% of American business (~50% working population) is SOHO without the accoutrements of remote access, Zoom meetings and the heavy-handed corporate antivirus running all the time. Many are still running on 4GB and quite happy doing it.

 

[NETWizz]

You need to remember that you are in a different environment. 99% of American business (~50% working population) is SOHO without the accoutrements of remote access, Zoom meetings and the heavy-handed corporate antivirus running all the time. Many are still running on 4GB and quite happy doing it.

Fair enough, but I am going to say that Windows Defender, Intune, Microsoft End-Point Manager, Cisco Umbrella, Duo MFA on Winlogon, are all fairly lightweight, but you do bring up a good point.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Teams is a huge memory hog for no good reason. Outlook is too!

New Outlook is better...
New Teams... is better...

Still not GREAT... but both are better. But yes if you lean into the MS ecosystem you need 12gb of RAM to operate smoothly, so all production machines in a professional environment should be 16gb.

4GB is almost useless, my phone has more... that's nuts. 8gb is plenty if you don't use Teams / Outlook.