How Much RAM Does Your Android Actually Need?.
Your Android smartphone is essentially a mainframe computer, which means that just like a laptop or desktop PC, it uses RAM (Random Access Memory) to allow your phone to run apps and do whatever you need to do.
These days, you can buy an Android phone with anywhere from 4GB to 16GB of RAM, and there’s no way to upgrade that amount of physical RAM after purchase. This means you need to choose a phone with the right amount of RAM for your needs or you risk switching to a new phone long before you need it.
What RAM Does in Your Phone
Like other types of personal computers, an Android smartphone has a processor, RAM, and more permanent storage in the form of a built-in SSD (Solid State Drive). RAM is a fast workspace that stores the operating system, open applications, and the data they work with.
The more RAM your phone has, the faster it switches between apps. If you want to use applications that consume a lot of memory, such as video editors or complex mobile games, then your phone may not have enough memory to run smoothly.
How Android Memory Management Works
How Android manages memory allocation for apps has a big impact on how much RAM you need. Android is based on the Linux kernel and the way resources like memory are allocated works the same on both OSes.
How Much RAM Does Your Android Actually Need?
When you open an app in Android, it creates a new “process” that requests resources like RAM. The application gets as much as it needs without affecting anything else, as long as there is free memory.
If there is not enough free RAM, the first thing Android does is “pages RAM” into a special compressed segment of RAM called ZRAM. It’s not a hardware thing. It is simply a fenced-off logical part of RAM containing compressed pages of RAM. This data cannot be read directly, but must first be decompressed and loaded into the normal portion of RAM. However, it is still faster than loading app data from storage.
If ZRAM is no longer available, Android will kill old processes that are not currently in use, freeing up all the memory they are using. Android apps are written in such a way that they know they can be disabled, just like a normal part of RAM management. So in theory they should store their state in storage so you can pick up where you left off. However, this results in performance degradation.
The Benefits of More RAM
The more RAM you have, the more ZRAM space you have, the more active apps you can keep in memory, and there will likely be smoother switching between recent apps.
Android uses RAM even if it is not explicitly allocated to an application. For example, if you are transferring files, you can speed them up by using RAM as a cache. Like all modern operating systems, Android uses as much RAM as you need to speed up your work in general. As soon as a process needs this memory, it is immediately freed, but it is never literally empty or unused.
Given that many Android apps run in the background, it’s also handy to have more RAM so that background processes can run smoothly even if you’re running an app in the foreground that requires RAM (such as PUBG or Diablo). Whether you’re using the app on a split screen, listening to music in the background, or downloading files, more RAM ensures everything runs smoothly.
RAM “Plus” Features
While you can’t upgrade a phone’s RAM, and Android doesn’t replace RAM with internal storage, some third-party solutions allow you to use system memory as RAM. This reserves some of your phone’s memory as overflow space when available memory runs out.
Modern SSDs for phones are still not as fast as RAM, but still very fast in absolute terms. Moving your oldest or idle processes to a specially provisioned storage area is still much faster than running the application after the process has terminated. With a sensible approach to swapping memory, this can result in a smoother experience, especially on mid-range or low-end devices with minimal RAM.
The latest Samsung Galaxy phones like S22 Ultra and S21 Ultra have RAM Plus feature. Here you can specify from 4 GB to 8 GB of memory to be reserved for swap space. However, these phones usually come with 12GB of RAM depending on the specific model, so the returns on RAM Plus are reduced. The good news is that this feature is also available in mid-range Samsung phones.
If you don’t have a phone (like the Google Pixel) that offers such a feature, you can also use a third party app like the popular SWAP. However, you are at greater risk of instability or other bugs than a manufacturer-approved feature.
How Much RAM Does Your Phone Need?
As you saw in the discussion above, the amount of RAM you need for your phone depends on how you use it and what you need it for. So, we’ll take a look at each common RAM allocation mount found in modern phones and describe what type of user is best suited for each amount of RAM.
Keep in mind that Android phones with less RAM also tend to have weaker CPUs and GPUs, so even if you don’t need as much RAM as suggested, you may still need other components that come with it. to run certain applications. .
Less than 4 GB of RAM. We cannot recommend any user to any Android device with less than 2GB or 3GB of RAM. Modern versions of Android require about 1.5 GB of disk space just for the system, so less RAM will make the overall performance relatively poor. 4 GB RAM: This is a great amount of RAM for users who only use their smartphones for a limited number of tasks. If you mainly use social media apps, WhatsApp, email, and light web browsing with a few tabs open, 4GB of RAM should be enough for you. Playing more expensive games may result in delayed app switching or background apps freezing. You should also consider using lightweight browsers like Opera rather than high RAM browsers like Chrome.
6 GB RAM: This is a good amount of RAM for users who have several standard apps open (like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at the same time) or who like to open a moderate number of browser tabs. It’s also a good choice if you’re a frequent video or audio streamer or have background apps running on your phone.
Android Actually
This is a great choice for those who like to play advanced mobile games as you shouldn’t have any performance issues with one such game along with standard apps. This is a great entry-level segment for gamers. 8 GB RAM. 8 GB is the best balance between cost and performance. Power users who want to use video editing apps or have many different apps and games to switch between should opt for 8GB of RAM as this is perfect for heavy multitasking that results in high RAM usage. 12 GB of RAM (or more): This amount of RAM is more than enough for almost any person, in fact, for a mobile phone it is overkill. You will only find this in high-end devices like the Galaxy S21 Ultra or Galaxy Note. If you do everything on your smartphone and use Android desktop solutions like Samsung Dex, then 12GB of RAM or more is a meaningful choice.
It’s also worth it if you want maximum fluidity and system responsiveness as there is usually enough memory available to support caching and system acceleration, and if you want maximum future confidence then 12GB and up is for you!
How Much RAM Does Your Android Actually Need?
How Much RAM Does Your Android Actually Need?