Head to head

Compare any two computers

Pick two machines from 50 years of computing, or pit one against the phone in your pocket. Every number comes from the atlas catalogue.

Computer A

Computer B

Toshiba · 1992–2016

Toshiba Satellite laptop

Typical specs shown for a mid-2000s model. For many families the first laptop in the house.

CPU	Intel / AMD @ 1.6 GHz
Memory	512 MB
Storage	Hard disk
In the atlas	Be the first to add it

Various · 2025

A 2025 flagship phone

The computer most people now carry.

CPU	8-core ARM @ 3 GHz
Memory	8 GB
Storage	256 GB flash

The verdict

The A 2025 flagship phone has 16× the memory of the Toshiba Satellite laptop and a clock 1.9× faster.

They are 20 years apart. Doubling every two years (Moore's law) would predict about 1,024×; the memory actually grew slower than that. Across the whole catalogue memory doubled every 1.9 years.

Memory512 MB vs 8 GB

Clock speed1.6 GHz vs 3 GHz

Bars use a logarithmic scale so both machines stay visible.

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