[bluejam]

I recently succeeded in getting a friend to get a 1Gz iBook when her IBM P4 desktop died. She likes it very much. However, she noticed a considerable difference in speed(much slower) with the iBook while browsing the internet. And this is using Safari. The IBM has 512 Ram while her iBook has 256. Is that the difference? Is there anything else she can do to speed it up? BTW, she still has dial-up.
Her IBM is now fixed and she uses it for internet browsing while the iBook waits around for some word processing chores.

[SFZoll]

Increasing the memory will improve performance to an extent, but it won't be a cure-all. The truth is the P4 desktop is going to be faster based on many things that we don't need to go into. Significantly faster though? My desktop Athlon box is a bit faster than my iBook on the Internet but not enough to make me not want to use the iBook. It downloads files just as fast, but in rendering a web page it is a bit slower, which I find the time not that noticable. In fact, being wireless and being anywhere in the house and out in the back yard is much better than being stuck in the office, and that's a primary reason I bought the iBook.

Bump up the memory, try different browsers etc. Perhaps those will help.

[tooki]

IMHO, 256MB is not enough RAM to run OS X under any circumstances.

tooki

[RadarBob2]

Note my signature below....

IMHO you will see a positive difference w/ double+ your current memory - more than "well, I think it's faster...". Also Safari is as fast a browser as is available for OS X. It is clearly faster than IE and netscape. Foxfire seems pretty snappy too.

FWIW, I found, even w/ 544MB of memory if I was printing on my HP officejet, surfing the net was virtually impossible - slower than a 28kbs modem connection.

Also, hertz for hertz (a misused measure for sure) a desktop computer will be faster than a laptop. Laptops are designed to conserve power so they generally have slower everything - memory, buss, hard drive.

Even CPUs are designed specifically for laptops - so features like "resting" and less internal cache memory make a laptop same-hertz-rating CPU slower than it's desktop counterpart.

[ghporter]

Memory is everything. It takes a lot of memory to browse the web quickly, because so many things are coming in simultaneously. The browser needs to build the page with all its pictures as each packet comes in. With more memory, the browser can set up separate sections for each picture and still process everything else. My wife's iBook was no slouch with the 256 it came with, but when we added another 512 (had to take out the external 128MB SO-DIMM, for a total of 640MB) it was amazing!

MORE MEMORY-AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AFFORD-IS A VERY GOOD THING! (Note that Apple charges about twice as much as Crucial for identical-performing memory.)

[wataru]

Originally posted by tooki:
IMHO, 256MB is not enough RAM to run OS X under any circumstances.

tooki

Seconded.

[businezguy]

I'm with the others here. When I upgraded the memory on my iBook from 256 to 640, it made for a huge difference.