8GB or 16GB Laptop? And do T480 vs X280 weight differs by that 'much'?

[TukangUsapEmenq]

In a nutshell, I wanna upgrade from my ThinkPad 11e 2nd Gen (M-5Y10c, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD) onto something more 'sensible' for heavier workloads. To be fair, this laptop is serving me enough in really basic use of browsing and basic document processing (and love the IPS screen despite it's an entry level laptop on the lineup), but of course (expected this) it'll struggle when I gave it an heavier Excel worksheet and, while it's perform 'enough' for CAD, it'd struggle on heavier project documents, while working from home (I don't have a corporate laptop as I use PC on office and simply remote it).

 

I don't need too fancy thing, an 8th gen i5 laptop will do. The picks are between secondhand X280, X280 Yoga, T480, or T480s. Might be considering to X290/T490 series either if it's worth the additional price. I would do few CADs (AutoCAD, Solidworks, maybe a little Revit), maybe some coding, while (on the worst case) opening loads of Chromium-based browser and documents on the background.

 

Problem is, when I'll pick the ultrabook variants of the ThinkPads, most of the RAM will be soldered. I already made a 'mistake' when I bought this 11e, with 4GB soldered RAM, thinking 'the 4GB could serve me good enough' and.... Nah, It's not good enough. I already have a PC with 16GB of RAM and it sometimes touches 10 GB with my use above (even it'll touch near 14-15 GB while I'm using Photoshop, or middling around on Starfield's world), and my PC on office is using 12GB of RAM, and it even never touches 8GB even while I opened loads of things. This is what made me confused, as the jump between 8 to 16GB is good enough amount of money that I could spare for something else.

 

So... Welp, 8GB, or just YOLO onto 16GB?

 

And lastly, since I actually never use a laptop that's below 1.5 kg (lol even my 11e are simply got the same weight with my past E5-475G), do the X280/T480s 300gr - 500gr difference with T480 really makes that difference on the backpack? Since I usually travel on the weekends using backpack while I'm window-shopping lol

 

Thanks in advance

[Kilrah]

Pretty widely considered that 16GB is the minimum nowadays, especially on laptops where the iGPU is going to use some of it.

[jre84]

I have a 8gb/16gb/16gb/64gb laptop and all are fine for what OP is doing. ram is dirt cheap these days so just go ahead and jump to 16gb or 32gb. but if thats not an option even 8gb will be enough. if you plan on gaming at all 8gb will not be enough hence why the vast majority of people will say go for 32gb and 16gb as a minimum. but my one vivobook is just the stock 8gb and 512gb and it does geforce now gaming just fine, youtube is snappy, everything is zippy and runs well. never had the ram be the bottleneck. but once you start throwing a real load on the system it will start using the page file and performance will tank.

[powertoys]

Get 16 GB, or, even better, get 8 GB and upgrade it yourself as that will be even cheaper. RAM is very cheap nowadays, take advantage of this.

[Dillpickle23422]

On 2/11/2024 at 3:22 AM, TukangUsapEmenq said:

In a nutshell, I wanna upgrade from my ThinkPad 11e 2nd Gen (M-5Y10c, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD) onto something more 'sensible' for heavier workloads. To be fair, this laptop is serving me enough in really basic use of browsing and basic document processing (and love the IPS screen despite it's an entry level laptop on the lineup), but of course (expected this) it'll struggle when I gave it an heavier Excel worksheet and, while it's perform 'enough' for CAD, it'd struggle on heavier project documents, while working from home (I don't have a corporate laptop as I use PC on office and simply remote it).

 

I don't need too fancy thing, an 8th gen i5 laptop will do. The picks are between secondhand X280, X280 Yoga, T480, or T480s. Might be considering to X290/T490 series either if it's worth the additional price. I would do few CADs (AutoCAD, Solidworks, maybe a little Revit), maybe some coding, while (on the worst case) opening loads of Chromium-based browser and documents on the background.

 

Problem is, when I'll pick the ultrabook variants of the ThinkPads, most of the RAM will be soldered. I already made a 'mistake' when I bought this 11e, with 4GB soldered RAM, thinking 'the 4GB could serve me good enough' and.... Nah, It's not good enough. I already have a PC with 16GB of RAM and it sometimes touches 10 GB with my use above (even it'll touch near 14-15 GB while I'm using Photoshop, or middling around on Starfield's world), and my PC on office is using 12GB of RAM, and it even never touches 8GB even while I opened loads of things. This is what made me confused, as the jump between 8 to 16GB is good enough amount of money that I could spare for something else.

 

So... Welp, 8GB, or just YOLO onto 16GB?

 

And lastly, since I actually never use a laptop that's below 1.5 kg (lol even my 11e are simply got the same weight with my past E5-475G), do the X280/T480s 300gr - 500gr difference with T480 really makes that difference on the backpack? Since I usually travel on the weekends using backpack while I'm window-shopping lol

 

Thanks in advance

Go with at least 16. It's cheaper than buying 8, using that for a few months, needing more, only to find that you can't upgrade it yourself and are out another few hundred bucks buying something you could have just bought in the first place

[Re_Moor]

the T480… best machine. I bought the the t450 refurbed and love it to bits. I’d prolly go as far as to say the OG framework laptops. You get 2  batteries with a hot swappable external one. Upgrade any component you wish including the screen. Bags of ports. 

[Attilavsq]

RAM is especially easy to change on ThinkPads and 8GB SODIMMs can be had for dirt cheap, even more so when you don't need high frequencies (the memory controllers on 8th gen don't support more than 2666Mhz iirc), so definitely go for a 16GB and upgrade yourself.

Also if you are in europe there seems to be good deals on L14 G1's right now, as they are just making it out of inventory. Got mine, a 4500U w/ 256GB storage and 8GB RAM for 370€.