Studio 15 with Vista 64 bit or 32?

I am interested in a Dell Studio 15 and am not clear on what the benifit of a 64 bit version of Vista would be other than it would fully utilize 4GB of RAM. I also read it would be a bit faster for certain things. Are there any other benifits to the 64 bit version? The laptop will not be put to any extreme use (it's actually for Mom) so wondering if it's worth the extra configuration hassels (fewer configs with 64 bit). Also was reading reviews on Best Buy's site from Studio 15/Vista 64 buyers who had lots of bluescreen problems. Buyers of the Studio 17 (looked like it came with Vista 32) had no such problems.

 

Maybe Dell has some bad 64Bit drivers. If it's for Mom, I would just get 32bit.(if your mom is anything like my parents your are going to over a few time showing them how to run vista as it is).

 

That's what I was thinking, since it seemed specific to just the particular model BB was selling. My sense is that 64 bit would be uneccessary but I'm not familiar with either version of Vista. I get tolearn too, yea!

 

If you're not really concerned with performance, and there's a possibility Dell could have trouble providing quality drivers, go with 32-bit. Perhaps those issues have been fixed - there's a lot of people out there who don't know how to update their computers and complain about long-fixed issues.

For performance, 64-bit is great with 3GB RAM and over. If it'll be used for WB&WP (word browsing, word processing), it doesn't really matter.

64-bit Vista is only problematic if the drivers suck.

 

If you don't need more than 3GB of RAM, you'll be fine with 32-bit. DELL seems to be lagging in offering 64-bit (available on sporadic models/configurations). They also don't support 64-bit as well as they should...so far, at least.

Here's a great deal on the Studio 15 from the December DELL catalog (still valid)- http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=19&kc=6F968&oc=DNPCUZ2&x=10&y=11