I don’t get why Android phones have so much ram.
They often have more ram than my wife’s MacBook and the same or my as my desktop.
How much ram is needed if you’re not gaming or video editing?
In my case, it’s a very occasional picture or video recorded and then just social media apps and web. Do I need to get a phone with 12gb? Or is that just thrown in there for marketing?
They often have more ram than my wife’s MacBook
Entry-level MacBooks come with a pathetic amount of RAM.
How much ram is needed if you’re not gaming or video editing?
Web browsing needs RAM everywhere. High resolution displays need video memory which isn’t dedicated memory in phones but comes from overall RAM.
Do I need to get a phone with 12gb?
You need notebooks and desktop PCs with at least 16GB.
As an owner of a second hand entry level Macbook, it’s constantly swapping. You don’t notice it that much because today’s SSDs are very fast, but undoubtedly this will affect the lifetime of the device and reflects a poor choice in memory specifications.
One would notice if you they were doing dev work or analytics that’s for sure.
16gb is fine if you can afford it and you are doing lots of thinks on your computer but isn’t necessary if you just have a few tabs on a budget machine.
I would never spec a Windows machine with less than 16.
Even for a casual user. The problems it causes aren’t worth saving $50.
If I was able to upgrade a 4GB notebook to 16GB ten years ago for little money, it’s not a budget matter (unless it’s Apple who charge insane amounts of money for 16GB).
I would respectfully disagree with the last point. For Joe Schmoe who is just scrolling Reddit you will probably be fine with 8-12gb, especially if you intend to cut down on your budget.
For Joe Schmoe who is just scrolling Reddit you will probably be fine with 8-12gb, especially if you intend to cut down on your budget.
Joe Schmoe cutting down on budget shouldn’t throw away money on MacBooks then. I had a low-end notebook 10 years ago that I upgraded for little to 16GB RAM 10 years ago.
Video memory is shared with main RAM on “Joe Schmoe” notebooks. It’s really noticeable when a few browser tabs are open. Source: Me when I had an 8GB RAM HP notebook with an iGPU.
Linux uses half the RAM Windows does in a fresh install. 8GB can absolutely be done on a Linux system without worry. To aid systems with 4-8GB RAM, Windows compresses. This has allowed OEMs to ship systems with 8GB as a minimum. This just isn’t enough for multitasking. The CPU is tasked with constantly compressing and decomposing if you’re attempting to multitask. This can make an already cheap laptop feel a little more sluggish. 16GB has always been the minimum for gaming systems and these days it’s becoming apparent 32GB is needed. 8GB is just pitiful for a computer these days.
Addressing the OP, mobile devices used to only need 2-4GB for the longest time. The OS wasn’t that heavy because the ARM CPU could only do so much. As the CPUs improved, higher resolutions were used, prettier animations and more features got added. This all needs more RAM. Android developer options will tell you how much RAM you’re using. A feature of Android is to keep a process cached in RAM that’s been recently used. This is present to aid in battery life. Even if you swipe the app away from recents list, a portion is cached so the next time you start it, the CPU doesn’t have to work as hard to load it up. You can see this under Running services > Cached processes. This means it’s more beneficial for the mobile device to have more RAM.
The point isn’t that 8gb is unusable for light tasks. I have a $300 Lenovo with Windows and 8gb RAM and I don’t see any problems.
The point is that a $1500 premium device should come with 16gb RAM at minimum, because for the manufacturer the cost is almost nothing. Yes, Apple makes much more money selling extra 8gb of RAM for $300 rather than just put a 16gb chip for literally pennies and adsorb the cost but that’s because they’re scammers
I mean, 8 gigs of RAM is overkill depending on what you’re doing.
For general computing sure, but if you build out a device for a specific purpose, you can really cut down on a crap ton of resources including memory.
Unix principle, adopted by Linux. Do one thing and do it well.
Applies to more than just software design.
Because software bloat grows faster than storage and RAM sizes. Remember when Android phones had 1GB RAM and felt fast? Roughly 12 years ago. For what most people use their phones for, those old phones would still be perfectly usable, but gotta bloat the software because fuck you
Not every increase in complexity means an increase in bloat. Software today is much more capable than it was 12 years ago. People don’t use their phones only to write SMS, do some calls and maybe basic web browsing (mobile sites used to be very limited to reduce resource requirements, by the way). They want to be able to have dozens of apps open at the same time, switch between them without any kind of lag, scroll through infinite feeds with pictures and videos auto playing, watch YouTube and Netflix videos at high resolutions and let me also remind you of the fact that the mobile gaming market is the largest of them all by far.
I’m not saying that there isn’t any bloat but most people have replaced their PC with a phone because they can now do everything that once required a computer on their mobile device. So why shouldn’t the phone have similar memory requirements to a PC?
And honestly, I don’t remember Android phones from over a decade ago ever actually feeling fast. They might have been all right for a while but, in my experience, old phones would usually turn into a slog quickly.
Software today is much more capable than it was 12 years ago.
Depends on the area. For most of the corporate world, nothing changed. Databases mostly work the same since the 80s, the only new thing since then are data warehouses and nosql variants, due to the sheer volume of data available nowadays. Office applications (Word, Excel and similars) are pretty much the exact same thing as 25 years ago. CAD and 3D modelling tools haven’t changed much in the meantime, but hardware got much beefier, making part of the process faster.
So why shouldn’t the phone have similar memory requirements to a PC?
For the same reason you didn’t need 8gb of RAM just to open fucking Chrome back in 2010. Changing tabs was as instant back then on a shit computer as changing apps is nowadays on any phone, with significantly less resources needed for that. Loads of apps are little more than glorified “single page browsers”, they just load a special version of the site with a couple extra bells and whistles. You can very easily run Spotify, Youtube, TikTok, Discord, Gmail, Xitter and more on a single browser and change tabs instantly with a single click. The mobile browser experience with them is bad because why make it good when “the app is better”?
let me also remind you of the fact that the mobile gaming market is the largest of them all by far.
And most games aim at the lowest common denominator (both regarding phone specs and “type of game”) because they want to reach the widest audience possible. A lot of people use Unity to make simple 2D games, yet that thing is bloated as all hell. Does it facilitate development? Absolutely. That doesn’t excuse it for being a mess.
As a side note, did you know that the PS2 had 32MB of RAM and its main CPU was a custom RISC running at 300MHz? You know, the console that let people play God of War 1 and 2, GTA San Andreas. “Oh, but its sole purpose was for gaming and it had a specific graphics core” - true, but once your application is front and center in a phone, it can hog 90% of the CPU and eat any free RAM, which, if your phone has 2GB total, and ~1.5GB is used by other apps and the system, you still have some 400MB to play with. The OS can get in the way and does add overhead, which ends up mostly being extra CPU time.
And honestly, I don’t remember Android phones from over a decade ago ever actually feeling fast. They might have been all right for a while but, in my experience, old phones would usually turn into a slog quickly.
A Galaxy S2, back on release, was really fast compared to its peers. Once its specs became mid-low end, it started to feel significantly slower, that’s true. Could’ve been the bloat catching up.
Depends on the area. For most of the corporate world, nothing changed.
Well, we are talking about consumer technology here.
For the same reason you didn’t need 8gb of RAM just to open fucking Chrome back in 2010. Changing tabs was as instant back then on a shit computer as changing apps is nowadays on any phone, with significantly less resources needed for that.
There isn’t quite another platform that has changed as dramatically as the web over the last few years. Just look at all those new APIs. Especially with the introduction of WebAssembly, we have reached a point where running actual software in the browser has become a viable option. Back in 2010, most websites consisted mainly of static content and maybe a bit of Flash and JavaScript here and there.
Loads of apps are little more than glorified “single page browsers”, they just load a special version of the site with a couple extra bells and whistles. You can very easily run Spotify, Youtube, TikTok, Discord, Gmail, Xitter and more on a single browser and change tabs instantly with a single click.
Do so and check your memory usage.
And most games aim at the lowest common denominator (both regarding phone specs and “type of game”) because they want to reach the widest audience possible. A lot of people use Unity to make simple 2D games, yet that thing is bloated as all hell. Does it facilitate development? Absolutely. That doesn’t excuse it for being a mess.
Having a look at the list of most popular mobile games, you will see that recent ones usually aren’t simple 2D games.
As a side note, did you know that the PS2 had 32MB of RAM and its main CPU was a custom RISC running at 300MHz? You know, the console that let people play God of War 1 and 2, GTA San Andreas. “Oh, but its sole purpose was for gaming and it had a specific graphics core” - true, but once your application is front and center in a phone, it can hog 90% of the CPU and eat any free RAM, which, if your phone has 2GB total, and ~1.5GB is used by other apps and the system, you still have some 400MB to play with. The OS can get in the way and does add overhead, which ends up mostly being extra CPU time.
That’s really not comparable at all. Games back then were specifically optimized for a single console with a single hardware configuration. Android apps today target millions of different devices and mostly aren’t even native. That’s just how it works and it isn’t really an issue since RAM has become dirt cheap. There isn’t really any downside to just having a lot of RAM when it only increases the price by a few dollars.
A Galaxy S2, back on release, was really fast compared to its peers. Once its specs became mid-low end, it started to feel significantly slower, that’s true. Could’ve been the bloat catching up.
Compared to it’s peers? Maybe. But it definitely couldn’t keep dozens of apps running in the background and allow immediate switching between them without reloads. Even with the lower requirements of apps back then.
Phones are developed to store as much in RAM as possible. Storage is slow, and users are expected to switch between apps constantly. It’s not uncommon for hundreds of apps to be loaded, including their state, at the same time. Apps that don’t fit into memory are saved to storage, but the most common apps and services are kept around.
Common files are also cached in memory for performance reasons. If you don’t have any RAM available, browsing files or photos would be terribly slow.
The GPU shares RAM on many devices, and that’ll take a significant chunk out of your system memory. Rendering 60 frames per second on a 1440p screen isn’t cheap, especially if you have ten different apps ready to render full screen at all times.
My phone has about 4½GB assigned to applications, the rest is cache. I’d say phones with less than 6GB of RAM would work, but not very smoothly.
The more RAM, the easier switching between apps becomes. Websites and apps have become huge, not only because of inefficiencies but also because of how huge the graphics they need to render have become, and the expectation that everything works with a smooth 60-90-120Hz all the time. Do you need 12GB? Hard for me to tell. I can tell that my phone’s 6GB struggles when Firefox is open while Youtube is playing and I need to switch to my password manager. It’ll hold out, but only just, one more app and Firefox gets unloaded. Then again, my password manager seems to be suffering from some kind of memory leak, because there’s no reason it would need this much RAM.
I don’t know what Macbook you have, but if someone is buying a laptop these days, I wouldn’t recommend getting anything with less than 16GB of RAM or an upgrade slot. Web browsers have become operating systems of their own and buying 8GB laptops now will make your device last less than five years, at least comfortably. I would personally advocate for 32GB or more if you’re planning on using your laptop for ten years, based on current trends.
Even still, many people can and do use phones the wag they did desktops ten years ago. It’s not surprise to me that phones have grown to have desktop class RAM specs. Many people don’t know about it, but you van hook up a Samsung phone to a monitor and have a fully featured desktop right there waiting for you in DeX, you just need a Bluetooth keyboard+mouse to control it. I bet my parents could use a phone as a desktop without ever running into any trouble, partially because of how much RAM those phones sport.
If all you need is basic browsing and social media, you can go with 6GB of RAM, or even less. As time goes on, your phone will start to struggle with the ever growing websites and apps, but it’ll keep doing what it always did, you just see a few more loading screens when switching between apps. Any €350 phone will do fine for most people these days, I don’t get why people spend three or four times that on a phone if all they do on it is browse social media.
My Xiaomi 12 has 8GB. Those bastards close any 3rd open app in the background. Sometimes even the second back in line when switching apps. MIUI is pure shit.
Yeah but that’s not a ram quantity issue
No. 8 is far more than enough. It is stupid memory management.
Debloat powerkeeper on MIUI, thank me later, or better yet, install a custom ROM based on AOSP or CAF (if available).
Yeah I got a redmi note 12. Worst mistake of my life. MIUI is hot garbage. I literally went beack to my 5 year old OnePlus6 and installed Lineage OS on it. Even with a bad battery it still runs better than that piece of crap. At least it was not that expensive.
I’m happy with my purchase, I always buy a flagship and Xiaomi is actually the first for me that I bought the second time from the same manufacturer. MIUI is crap, but I always root, so it makes it bearable.
I thought about just installing a different distro on it but I need my banking apps to work sadly.
Rule of thumb in 2024:
- 8GB is a good place for a phone
- 16GB is a okay place for a computer that doesn’t do anything heavy duty (basically just web browsing and word processing)
- 32GB is the minimum for a computer doing anything heavy.
I’m probably going to go up to 64GB on my desktop soon
Bro, I bought my current MacBook Pro in 2014 with 16 GBs of RAM for “future proof” how is that 10 years later that is the “bare minimum” right now?
I don’t do anything heavy but tend to let lots of apps run in the background and never close my tabs of Firefox and I never get to use that much RAM, even nowadays, sometimes I also add Parallels running Windows 10 lol.
Yeah for someone buying today, I’d say 16GB is the bare minimum. ~10y is what most people should be getting out of their computers, rather than buying multiple worse ones in that same timeframe.
You know that in another 10 years, if it’s still running, your computer is going to be very far below the bare minimum for someone buying then. That’s not to say it’ll be useless, just not what anyone would recommend
I’m not doing anything particularly heavy on my desktop and I’m pushing 8-10gb while in zoom meetings?
insert joke about Windows bloat
You don’t want to max out your ram with running applications, modern operating systems are designed to have several gigabytes of cached stuff in the memory next to your applications. You will be experiencing less than Ideal performance (and in some cases, quite abysmal performance) if your application usage is brushing up against your capacity.
A good rule of thumb is when you’re running your heaviest task, you probably still want at least a quarter of your RAM “free” (free memory is not unused).
If you’re specced at 16GB and the most you’re doing is zoom plus a couple of web pages, then you might be cool for the next couple of years, but I’d not recommend someone buy a new computer with that amount today as software inevitably gets heavier and a new computer shouldn’t only last a few years
I agree with this rule of thumb, not because you can’t have a great user experience with less memory, but because memory is relatively cheap these days combined with the popularity of SSDs that have limited write cycles, making swap space even on fast media a much less attractive proposition.
I have a phone with 3gb and it works fine. 8gb is way overkill
You need more ram in your desktop.
My Pixel 6a has 6GB.
I’m very happy with it.
I think 4GB is ok but on the lower end.
8GB is plenty.
I’ve got 6GB in my phone. It’s been plenty for me even though Android eats half of it. The most resource intensive thing I do is use Firefox with a few tabs open though.
I can’t believe how bloated Android has gotten. My first Android tablet only had 256MB and it ran fine on that. Now my phone uses 3 times more memory than my desktop at boot.
I can’t believe how bloated Android has gotten. My first Android tablet only had 256MB and it ran fine on that.
Retina resolution graphics need more memory.
3 times more memory than my desktop at boot.
Phones don’t have virtual memory and desktop PCs often have dedicated video RAM.
Just for the sake of correctness: phones almost definitely do have virtual memory, that’s how any modern memory allocation works. You probably meant swap files/partitions.
You probably meant swap files/partitions.
Yes. I used the term I’ve read years ago a German version of Windows used. I wouldn’t want to assume everybody knows Linux terminology.
Oh, they actually do name it so! https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-virtual-memory-size-windows-10
I was under impression Linux uses the term swap partition (or swap file if it’s in a file which is much less common) while Windows calls them either swap files or paging files. Looks like you’re right and Windows uses these terms interchangeably.
My tablet has 6GB and that feels like overkill. My phone has 3GB
I had a 4GB phone and after an update, processes were constantly swapping or closing because I was bouncing off the limit. I later got a 6GB phone and I was able to get multiple updates and run more programs without any issues.
Sounds like an OS optimization issue
Because Android multitasking is inefficient with memory use.
My Palm Pilot had 512 kB of RAM and it could multi-task properly. When I re-open an app on Palm, I could always get back to EXACTLY where it was left off. Palm OS saves the app state before swapping it out of the RAM.
Android apps have to completely restart from fresh after being closed. It multi-tasks by keeping apps running in memory. But you are never going to have enough RAM for the apps if you use a variety of apps.
Samsung’s RAM Plus does something similar, but the apps are not designed to be efficient for virtual memory.
I think inefficient is a matter of perspective. Android has somewhat different goals. For example, Java has been an enormous pain when it comes to memory use, but it provided developers when the platform critically needed attention with its first phones.
Much work has been done on that front, but today Android places a lot of weight in helping developers write applications quickly, somewhat to the detriment of the specifications.
Apparently it makes it slower when u use virtual memory and causes additional additional wear and tear in the storage. Donno if that’s true but I’ve heard this being said a lot.
Well, Android runs over JVM which runs over Linux. There’s overhead and Android needs to compensate. Add in poor memory management and OEMs that happily kill apps in the background for no good reason (even if you tell them not too), and marketing guys trying to out RAM competitors just so they can release a phone with an “upgrade” every year, you get current Android RAMathon.
Your wife’s macbook and your desktop rely on swap space under pressure while your android will start killing apps.
As for your question
How much ram is needed if you’re not gaming or video editing?
The answer will vary depending on your use case and how long you intend to use your current smartphone and if it will receive future OS upgrades. If you plan to keep the smartphone for longer than 2 years get the higher ram variant with more storage.
In my case, it’s a very occasional picture or video recorded and then just social media apps and web
Get at least 8gb of ram smartphone for smooth operation. 6gb is serviceable but it will be a bottleneck down the line in a few years. You don’t necessarily need 12gb of ram. It’s just nice and makes things smooth overall. You have budget smartphones with 12gigs of ram. If the price is not high get it. Otherwise, you should be fine.
Are you running with a surprisingly low amount of ram in your desktop?
RAM chips are dirt cheap these days, and uninformed consumers will gravitate towards the bigger number even if it doesn’t have a real impact
My phone as 3gb of ram… I’m not sure what you think is a lot but most devices have around 16gb.
It never feels enough. Apps always struggle to stay in memory. I don’t want to lose my position in apps and waste time while it reloads everything.
I have 6 GB in my Pixel 6a running stock Android 14.
I don’t get why Android phones have so much ram
Marketing. Big number look better.
My phone has 16GB. It does not need it. But it has it.
