laptop Upgrade to SSD or add more RAM

[Agus Wardana]

A little confused, i own Acer E1-451G, a very old laptop, maybe it's arround 4 or 5 years ago i bought this laptop. so i am wondering, which is better to upgrade to SSD or just add another ram ? FYI i still used HDD and this laptop has 4GB RAM DDR3, and my budget could only buy one SSD 240GB or buy 8GB RAM

[bleedblue]

I'd get a new laptop.

[Electronics Wizardy]

The ssd will help the speed the most.

[Guuhan]

SSD for sure.

[wojtepanik]

buy ssd and 4gb more ram, probably you have 1 slot free

[vanished]

My attempts to locate the product page for that machine were unsuccessful, so either Acer's site is so useless it should just be shut down to save money, or this thing's specs were so embarrassing they're trying to bury it.  If it's a case of the latter, I would second the suggestion to just get a new laptop, but I can't know for sure and it's perfectly possible that it would still be very usable with the upgrades you've mentioned, if the other specs are good.  Honestly, I couldn't choose between them though.  You need both to make it usable.

[manikyath]

7 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

either Acer's site is so useless

it's acer.. be happy there's a website at all..

[vanished]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

it's acer.. be happy there's a website at all..

With a bit more searching I managed to find a third party site that had specs for something similar.  I say similar because they said it has 8 GB of RAM, but the model number agrees.  If it's correct, OP has an A8-4500M and a 1366 x 768 display.  I know the budget is tight so it may not be within the realm of possibility but I would replace this immediately and not sink any money into upgrades, if it was me.

[Grifterguru]

My "better half" always swore by Acer as being right for her. Decent screen size, nice keyboard, light, half decent specs et-al. Then she used my 6 year old Lenovo Thinkpad T420 for all of a couple of hours.

 

Instant convert!

 

I owned an Acer for all of a week before I knew it was not right for me (thats just me

mind you). I found it fragile, too awkward with the island/chiclet keyboard, the trackpad was awful et-al. I moved on to a Thinkpad and have never once looked back. I now own three (T420, L412, X31) with a fourth on the way. All used for different things. The T420 & L412 being capable of everything I need and want from them. The X31? Thats about nostalgia, old games and WinXP!

 

Honestly? Ditch the Acer.

 

Personal experience is they are poorly supported by manufacturer, spares are hard to come by and upgrading is just not worth it.

 

Have a look towards the Lenovo Thinkpad range. Something in the "T" or "X" range. Plenty useful for school, work and some gaming dependant on what model you go for.

 

Early units can be CPU upgraded, run up to 16GB RAM (more on recent units so I believe), some can run mSata SSD drives, in addition to the HDD/SSD in standard position and, if you have an optical drive, that can be swapped for an ultra-bay caddy for a THIRD HDD/SSD.

 

my T420 has mSata SSD, 750 HDD (upgrade SSD ready to go in when I get time) PLUS I have the choice of using my optical drive or ultra-bay with SSD.

 

There are also, on certain machines, ways to install a more modern 1920x1080 LCD too.

 

 

It all depends what you want from it and how long you intend on using it.