Conclusions

Despite its major flaws, Window's Vista does have a number of neat features that I see many taking advantage of when both the OS and available hardware matures a bit more.  ReadyBoost happens to be one of them, and while the results clearly showed a very slight boost in performance, it is basically a feature that will cater more to budget PC users looking to maximize performance.  When considering the advantages this feature does bring, you really have to look into the future (sort of speak) and see how and when many may actually make use of it.   Why?  Well, flash drives have gone down significantly in price and will continue to do so.  By the time many users will finally give in and switch to Vista, flash drives will be so cheap that many will likely have more than one on hand.  This is when many would experiment a bit and put that trusty old flash drive to good use before considering a more costly memory upgrade.

Performance Impact

In terms of a performance perspective, it is important to note that the results will vary and testing such is feature is actually very difficult due to these factors.  There are two things to keep in mind here that are very important and play a key role. Overall performance will depend on not only the PC components you choose to run Vista, but also the performance of the flash drive that will be used with ReadyBoost.  With that said, you should take all results you find only as an idea of just what an impact this feature does bring to the table.  In our tests, there honestly wasn't too much to brag about.  Yes, it did help boost performance slightly, but at the present time, you are seriously better off investing your hard earned money on additional memory. 

A look ahead

Aside from seeing many users taking advantage of this feature later on, there are other things I predict will happen in regards to hardware itself.  You see, ReadyBoost provides a huge open door to flash drive manufacturers in a purely marketing perspective.  I see many taking advantage of the feature and releasing a number of products clearly marked as "ReadyBoost Ready" drives.  While there is no official ReadyBoost logo currently available, I do see one in the horizon and many flash drive manufactures using it in order to make their products stand out a bit over the huge competitive market.  In fact, if any are currently working on this, I find it to be a wise marketing approach to entice a majority of users. 

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