A comparative study of the normalized and unnormalized Booth-type R indices is carried out in the structure completion stage corresponding to the following cases: (i) Crystals and models satisfying the requirements of the basic Wilson distributions and (ii) Crystals containing a few heavy atoms in the asymmetric unit (as well as a large number of light atoms) and belonging to triclinic, monoclinic and orthorhombic space groups. Indices based on intensity as well as on structure amplitudes are considered. In all cases the normalized index appears to be more powerful than the unnormalized one. Applications of the results to a few actual crystal structures confirm this.