[ghettochild]

Not sure if this is a specific PB question, but anyways...

I'm somewhat unclear about (possible adverse?) effects of adding RAM to the current 12" PB model.
does maxing out the RAM w/ 1.25 GB as compared w/ the standard 512 MB actually increase or decrease battery life (and also fan activity)?

as always, thanks for any input!

[mduell]

It depends on use, but in general it will decrease the battery life (not much, on the order of tens of minutes) and increase fan activity.

[mrmister]

on the other hand, not having enough RAM will definitely increase HD use a lot, which will kill your battery more than the extra RAM will.

[SpaceMonkey]

RAM is good. It's not worth worrying about.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by mrmister

on the other hand, not having enough RAM will definitely increase HD use a lot, which will kill your battery more than the extra RAM will.

Based on the info I've been able to find, 512MB DDR2 RAM uses on average about 1.6W, all the time. A laptop hard drive, on the other hand, uses about 1.2W more when reading/writing/seeking than when idling. So even assuming the worst case where you were constantly swapping to disk, you're still better off in terms of battery life with less RAM (although with all that swapping, your productivity would probably be heavily impacted).

If you need the extra RAM to avoid swapping (to keep productivity up) then get it, but if you do go for more RAM keep in mind that you will reduce your battery life.

[fisherKing]

the only difference i've seen on my 12" (1.33g), outside of apps launching faster, etc (of course),
since bumping from 512meg ram to 1.25gig is....more heat (& consequently, more fan)

but worth it!