The amount of laptop memory needed by a laptop owner can depend on a lot of factors. Depending on the uses of your laptop, your budget, and the type of computer you are buying, the differences in memory can be vast. Whether your memory is for music, videos and other entertainment, or for school work or business work, the amount of gigabytes (GB) of memory needed can vary greatly.
For users filling their laptop memory with songs, television shows, pictures, and movies, the space may fill up fast. A memory around 125-150 GB may be necessary for users with large amount of entertainment. For MP3 players like the iPod and the Zune that offer 80 GB models, you can fill these with around 15,000 songs or a couple hundred hours of video. This is a lot of music and video for most users, but combining the media can add up quickly and may fill your MP3 player and come close to filling older computers with GB amount around 30-50.
Pictures on a computer amass space fairly slowly, and a computer of 25 GB can hold many thousands of photographs. Word files, likewise, generally take around 100 pages to even reach 1 GB, and so a computer with modest memory can hold many word documents, spreadsheets, or graphs.
Programs and software are features on a computer that should also be accounted for when considering how much memory you need on your laptop. Different media players, file sharing programs, readers, and other software can occupy up to 1-2 GB per program and can use up laptop memory quickly.
When combining school work with multiple recreational programs and large amounts of media, a computer around the size of 150 GB may be needed. For personal use, not many users need more laptop memory than 150 GB, and most can make do with half that amount. The casual music or video fan with a normal amount of school or business work on a computer can survive easily with around 50 GB. This smaller memory size can cut a computer price by as much as 10-15%.
For those who already own computers and are running out of laptop memory, there are ways of supplementing your hard drive space without having to buy a new laptop. External hard drives are available for a quarter of the price of most computers, and many of these offer at least 100 GB of memory. Many are made to be pocket size, and nearly all external hard drives can fit easily on a computer desk next to your laptop. In addition, memory cards and floppy or CD discs are popular ways to hold extra files or programs when your memory runs out.