As Windows Vista becomes more apparent in the day to day life of computing I see many question asked to me with regards to the features. ReadyBoost in my opinion, is one of the biggest features to this latest operating system. Tom Archer has done research on this by talking to one the leads over at Microsoft on this.
Pretty much every question you would have on ReadyBoost is answered here and so when I am asked about whether Vista is something to look forward to or not when it comes time for the upgrade. First of all, I would say to keep the upgrade only if you are getting a new computer/laptop as it will most likely come with it. Of course if you are building a computer, you do have a choice. For me, I have definitely made the move to Vista, if for no other reason then the fact that XP is old, when it comes to computer life/time. Just the Windows 98 before, it seems that many went straight from 98 to XP, missing Windows ME and/or Windows2000 altogether. But for those that want to stay current and are wanting to upgrade their existing computer to Vista, then ReadyBoost will be a must as the odds are your (older) computer will be using SDRAM or first generation DDR (noting today DDR2 is probably standard with DDR3 starting to make a splash) and when the price of upgrading older memory can cost more then an entirely new motherboard/cpu which houses the latest RAM. The key to learn is the ratio of ReadyBoost Memory to the on board RAM as you will definitely see a difference when added to a slower machine.
Finally, when asked what to look for in laptops (which will be an entirely new blog eventually) the memory is still a big factor. I see so many "low-end" laptops these days for $500-$800 which either come with Vista Basic (don't recommend) and only 1gb of memory. Knowing this is a laptop which will usually only house 2 memory slots, having 1gb typically means 2 x 512mb and so upgrading to anything more means pulling at least one of the 512's and either donating it to another laptop or shelving it (a good place might be e-bay but don't think you will get a whole-heck-of-a-lot for it!)
