Here is a good buy on a Laptop

Lefty

Yank
The only thing I see wrong with it is it is a 32bit operating system only using 3g of ram. Otherwise I would have jumped all over it.
 

joec

New member
Gold Site Supporter
I've yet to have any experience with 64 bit yet but my next one will be. I'm not a fan of HP but the price is right with HD capability. 3G to 4G is about max for the 32 bit XP system really.
 

Keltin

New member
Gold Site Supporter
Geek post ahead! :yum:

A 32 bit OS can only address a total of 4 gig of address space. It’s binary, which means 2 positions (1 or 0 – On or Off), so 2 to the 32nd power:

2^32 = 4,294,967,296 or 4 gig

However, the OS must reserve some of that space to address internal hardware like cache, USB & PCI interfaces, etc. Depending on the system and BIOS, this can take 500 meg, and up to about 800 meg.

So realistically, all the ram a 32 bit system can address is 3.5 at best, but typically, 3.2. You can load a 32 bit system with 4 gig (it’s actually cheaper than using 1 gig modules) and it won’t hurt a thing, but you won’t be able to use that upper 500 – 800 meg. Your system will only report 3.2 to 3.5 of ram installed.

A 64 bit OS can address 2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616

That’s 18 Exabytes. An insane number.

The naming is: Exabytes, Petabytes, Terabytes, Gigabytes, Megabytes, Kilobytes, Bytes

The only problem I have with a 64 Bit OS is that many popular programs are 32 bit and aren’t guaranteed to work with them, so there is a compatibility issue, especially if you’re doing video capture and high end graphics work. Plus, 64 bits for Windows means Vista right now, and it’s just not stable enough for me. Windows 7 is on the way, but it’s fresh out of the blocks, so it’s sure to have stability issues until SP1 or SP2.
 

Keltin

New member
Gold Site Supporter
I just took a look at that Laptop, it comes with the option of XP Pro or Vista business – your choice.

It ships with 4GB of ram, but can be upgraded to 8GB.

So all you need do is opt for Vista when you buy it, and then tell them to slap another 4 GB of ram in it.
 
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