A while ago I got myself a Samsung Q1U Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) which I’ve really enjoyed using for RSS reading, basic browsing, and as a glorified remote control for my SlimServer. I’ve been lucky enough to be using the Origami Experience v2 which you can read about here which really rocks (though I must get it set up for speech so I can yell “next” at it when I’m on the elliptical!)

One problem though is that the UMPC devices are, by their very nature, a little underpowered. With an 800Mhz Intel A110 processor and only 1GB of RAM trying to do a lot of things was a bit painful.

Luckily Hugo Ortega (who I’d been lucky enough to get some advice from before buying my Q1U) had posted some very clear instructions on doubling the RAM in the Q1U to 2GB.

With a couple of hours free on Sunday I headed down to Frys and grabbed a Crucial 2GB 667Mhz 200 pin SoDIMM (less than $50 from Amazon or your local electronics store). As it turned out it took longer to get to Frys and back than it did to actually complete the installation!

The machine certainly feels a lot quicker and more stable. The HDD is spending less time thrashing which in turn I hope will help battery life. The addition of a 2GB Readyboost SD card will also help keep things smooth and fun.

The lesson I’ve learnt from this … along with last weeks flattening of my day-to-day Vaio to install a slipstreamed SP1 build and get rid of all the cruft … RAM *really* matters to Vista. Even on a low power processor it can be the difference between usable and painful for anything other than really simple tasks.