[towngirl]

Key2 has 6GB if memory serves me correctly...

Not where I live. It’s 4, and you can’t get 128gb

[ray689]

Not where I live. It’s 4, and you can’t get 128gb

The KEY2 is 6 gig everywhere I thought. You sure about that?

[johnny_bravo72]

Not where I live. It’s 4, and you can’t get 128gb

Maybe that's a KEY¹. KEY² has 6GB RAM.
https://www.androidcentral.com/blackberry-key2-specs

[Tsepz_GP]

You may have misunderstood my point.

It's not the RAM upgrade, it's the fact that OEM's think consumers should buy their newest and greatest just because it has tiny spec bumps, such as a marginally better processor and 1GB or 2GB extra RAM.

It's lazy.

I don't necessarily hate slabs themselves, just the overdomination of them in the past years.

But isn't this how Smartphones have been progressing for the last decade or so? Every now and then we have a jump in Screen Resolution, SoC, RAM, Camera etc...

In actual fact, 2018 was quite the year in terms of Smartphone Cameras and Biometrics, a lot of ground work was done in 2018 that is going to set the tone for the next few years.

Well Apple is a whole different story... they invested a lot on software optimisation in order to use less RAM.

It’s what Oreo was supposed to do for Android...

Far more overhead in Android, it will always require more RAM.

Either way, even iOS seems to be getting heavier. I remember the days of my Apple iPad 4 LTE with its 1GB RAM, it ran so beautifully up until iOS 10, where things got very wonky very quickly for any iOS device that had less than 2GB RAM.

I am now seeing the same thing with my iPad Air 2, it ran with well with its 2GB RAM for the longest time but I am now seeing little bits stuttering and apps closing, although I must say Apple did a brilliant job in optimization of iOS 12, as iOS 11 seemed to be weighing heavily on it, it runs smoother on iOS 12 and seems to keep most apps in Memory, whatever magic they did work wonders.

I remember Nokia did this in Symbian when they implemented 'Demand Paging', suddenly more RAM was available and each app took less RAM and ran more efficiently.

[bobshine]

Far more overhead in Android, it will always require more RAM.

I am now seeing the same thing with my iPad Air 2, it ran with well with its 2GB RAM for the longest time but I am now seeing little bits stuttering and apps closing, although I must say Apple did a brilliant job in optimization of iOS 12, as iOS 11 seemed to be weighing heavily on it, it runs smoother on iOS 12 and seems to keep most apps in Memory, whatever magic they did work wonders.

Many test shows that iOS at boot actually uses more RAM than Android.

The clever thing iOS does is some kind of clever coding where it allows them to use half the RAM of Android without having to kill apps.

[anon(10562251)]

Many test shows that iOS at boot actually uses more RAM than Android.

The clever thing iOS does is some kind of clever coding where it allows them to use half the RAM of Android without having to kill apps.

Clever coding aside, my iPad air has iOS 12 and 1GB of RAM, but it has insufficient RAM to run certain apps. The apps will install but not run. RAM management only works up to a point.

On the other hand, my Pixel 3 has 4 GB of RAM, not 6 GB or even 8 GB. One would think Google would have not only the foresight but the knowledge to design devices for its own OS well within any physical limitations?

I have to think this is as much a problem with poorly written apps hogging RAM and system resources as much as the OS itself, if not more so.

Perhaps Google and Apple should be doing more to reign in developers rather than stuff more and more RAM into their devices to support sloppy and inefficient coding.

[thurask]

More RAM allows manufacturers to paper over holes in their spin of the OS and/or poorly coded preloaded apps, especially if that RAM is paired with low to mid range CPUs; no wonder the RAM arms race is mostly Chinese OEMs.

[bobshine]

Clever coding aside, my iPad air has iOS 12 and 1GB of RAM, but it has insufficient RAM to run certain apps. The apps will install but not run. RAM management only works up to a point.

On the other hand, my Pixel 3 has 4 GB of RAM, not 6 GB or even 8 GB. One would think Google would have not only the foresight but the knowledge to design devices for its own OS well within any physical limitations?

I have to think this is as much a problem with poorly written apps hogging RAM and system resources as much as the OS itself, if not more so.

Perhaps Google and Apple should be doing more to reign in developers rather than stuff more and more RAM into their devices to support sloppy and inefficient coding.

Of course 1GB of ram is nothing nowadays... there are limits to what RAM management does.

Poorly written apps are always an issue... that’s where RAM management is so important because it will prevent those apps to hog memory.

[anon(10562251)]

...that’s where RAM management is so important because it will prevent those apps to hog memory.

If a system lacks sufficient hardware resources to run an app properly, it should not install in the first place. Secondly, what are these apps doing in the background that they require so much RAM, and who is responsible to oversee the quality control of the app ecosystem? Surely Apple and Google cannot simply rely on their operating systems to do that for them?

I'll admit that is a daunting task with millions of apps to manage. But I would argue this is just as much a reflection of how well the author of the OS - in this case Apple or Google - manages their ecosystems (and in Android's case, it's OEMs) rather than simply a RAM management issue of the OS itself. Which is probably why, as a general rule, so-called "RAM management" is essentially a non-issue on iOS devices. It's really far more about "app developer management".

[bobshine]

If a system lacks sufficient hardware resources to run an app properly, it should not install in the first place. Secondly, what are these apps doing in the background that they require so much RAM, and who is responsible to oversee the quality control of the app ecosystem? Surely Apple and Google cannot simply rely on their operating systems to do that for them?

I'll admit that is a daunting task with millions of apps to manage. But I would argue this is just as much a reflection of how well the author of the OS - in this case Apple or Google - manages their ecosystems (and in Android's case, it's OEMs) rather than simply a RAM management issue of the OS itself. Which is probably why, as a general rule, so-called "RAM management" is essentially a non-issue on iOS devices. It's really far more about "app developer management".

I believe that it’s more of a combinaison on everything: RAM management, quick CPU to execute, fast storage, strict app approval process...

[GadgetTravel]

I think my iPhone X has 3 gb and the iPhone Xs has 4 gb. I certainly haven’t noticed the X being slow on anything.

[bobshine]

I think my iPhone X has 3 gb and the iPhone Xs has 4 gb. I certainly haven’t noticed the X being slow on anything.

No... but iPhone is a totally different world compared to Android... and RAM is not at all comparable

[Tsepz_GP]

More RAM allows manufacturers to paper over holes in their spin of the OS and/or poorly coded preloaded apps, especially if that RAM is paired with low to mid range CPUs; no wonder the RAM arms race is mostly Chinese OEMs.

Funnily enough, Chinese phones like the OnePlus 6T and Huawei Mate 20 Pro have +6GB RAM but also have the most aggressive Memory Management of any smartphones out.

My Mate 20 Pro barely uses more than 4GB of its 6GB RAM, unless I open the Camera, this brings me onto the next reason so much RAM is needed, as some of these phones have incredible Camera capabilities that require a lot of resources.

Considering the wide array of things a Smartphone is meant to handle on a daily basis, does it actually not make more sense to have tons of RAM in it along with a huge Battery +4000mAh?

Many people here seem to be stuck on the fact that all they use their smartphone for is calling, texting and email, so they don't care for a very good camera, or a top display or more RAM to allow more functionality.

There was a time folks around here asked why anyone needs GPS and High Speed Internet on their phones, now I doubt any of those same people are complaining about having LTE and accurate GPS in their smartphones as standard.

[bobshine]

Funnily enough, Chinese phones like the OnePlus 6T and Huawei Mate 20 Pro have +6GB RAM but also have the most aggressive Memory Management of any smartphones out.

My Mate 20 Pro barely uses more than 4GB of its 6GB RAM, unless I open the Camera, this brings me onto the next reason so much RAM is needed, as some of these phones have incredible Camera capabilities that require a lot of resources.

Considering the wide array of things a Smartphone is meant to handle on a daily basis, does it actually not make more sense to have tons of RAM in it along with a huge Battery +4000mAh?

Many people here seem to be stuck on the fact that all they use their smartphone for is calling, texting and email, so they don't care for a very good camera, or a top display or more RAM to allow more functionality.

There was a time folks around here asked why anyone needs GPS and High Speed Internet on their phones, now I doubt any of those same people are complaining about having LTE and accurate GPS in their smartphones as standard.

No, not always cause iPhones have half the ram and smaller batteries, and they perform better than all phones, including the Mate 20, in RAM management and multitasking.

[thurask]

Considering the wide array of things a Smartphone is meant to handle on a daily basis, does it actually not make more sense to have tons of RAM in it along with a huge Battery +4000mAh?

Not if manufacturers sticking as much RAM as possible into garbage Chinaphones makes desktop RAM punishingly expensive.

[Rootbrian]

As if 22GB isn't enough...

Typed on my BlackBerry passport, via freedom mobile DC-HSPA+/LTE

[Tsepz_GP]

No, not always cause iPhones have half the ram and smaller batteries, and they perform better than all phones, including the Mate 20, in RAM management and multitasking.

iPhones are decent at Multitasking, they aren't capable of mutliwindow though. iOS12 gave them a nice boost as iOS 11 had the OnePlus 5T absolutely blast them in Performance.

Not if manufacturers sticking as much RAM as possible into garbage Chinaphones makes desktop RAM punishingly expensive.

Have you used some of these new Chinese phones? Like the OnePlus 6T? Absolutely brilliant devices, incredibly fast and fluid with great battery life, Samsung are in for a tough time.

[bobshine]

iPhones are decent at Multitasking, they aren't capable of mutliwindow though. iOS12 gave them a nice boost as iOS 11 had the OnePlus 5T absolutely blast them in Performance. Have you used some of these new Chinese phones? Like the OnePlus 6T? Absolutely brilliant devices, incredibly fast and fluid with great battery life, Samsung are in for a tough time.

Yeah but multiwindow has nothing to do with the amount of RAM on device. What we are talking about is how manufacturers just slap more RAM on the device without improving RAM management. Adding features are easy (such as multiwindow), but coding RAM management is difficult. That’s why chinese manufacturer just slap RAM in their devices.

And BTW, it may not be a feature available on iPhone but multiwindow is available on the iPad... all the way back to the iPad mini 2, that appeared 6 years ago. And it only had 1GB of RAM!

[Tsepz_GP]

Yeah but multiwindow has nothing to do with the amount of RAM on device. What we are talking about is how manufacturers just slap more RAM on the device without improving RAM management. Adding features are easy (such as multiwindow), but coding RAM management is difficult. That’s why chinese manufacturer just slap RAM in their devices.

And BTW, it may not be a feature available on iPhone but multiwindow is available on the iPad... all the way back to the iPad mini 2, that appeared 6 years ago. And it only had 1GB of RAM!

Yes, I know mutliwindow is available on iPad, I have it on my iPad Air 2, but we are talking iPhone.

Multi window was also available on the Galaxy S3 with 1GB RAM.

Please explain to me exactly which Chinese OEMs have such bad code that they slap on huge amounts of RAM? Its definitely NOT Huawei, OnePlus or OPPO as they still make great phones and tablets that run on 4GB RAM.

[bobshine]

Yes, I know mutliwindow is available on iPad, I have it on my iPad Air 2, but we are talking iPhone.

Multi window was also available on the Galaxy S3 with 1GB RAM.

Please explain to me exactly which Chinese OEMs have such bad code that they slap on huge amounts of RAM? Its definitely NOT Huawei, OnePlus or OPPO as they still make great phones and tablets that run on 4GB RAM.

I did not say bad coding. I said that they just take the easy way out and slap more ram without improving the coding. Just like car manufacturer that adds more horsepower by making a bigger engine, without improving fuel efficiency.

They do have great phones at 4GB, but at 4GB they struggle in multitasking vs an iPhone at 4GB! Even the 6T with a monster 6GB and i think the 8GB of RAM version barely compares to the iPhone XS in RAM management. This gives you an idea how coding is just as important. Watch this video and see at the end how even at 8GB of RAM, it can’t match the iPhones 4GB. You’ll say that no one uses so many applications... you’re right. But in a year or two, it will matter.

[Tsepz_GP]

I did not say bad coding. I said that they just take the easy way out and slap more ram without improving the coding. Just like car manufacturer that adds more horsepower by making a bigger engine, without improving fuel efficiency.

They do have great phones at 4GB, but at 4GB they struggle in multitasking vs an iPhone at 4GB! Even the 6T with a monster 6GB and i think the 8GB of RAM version barely compares to the iPhone XS in RAM management. This gives you an idea how coding is just as important. Watch this video and see at the end how even at 8GB of RAM, it can’t match the iPhones 4GB. You’ll say that no one uses so many applications... you’re right. But in a year or two, it will matter.

Lol! I knew you were going to bring up this video. The problem here is actually Aggressive Memory Management.

I use a lot of applications so this video makes great sense to me, these speed tests give a good idea of real world usage, however the OnePlus's result is simply due to a very Aggressive approach in Memory Management where the phone puts higher priority on Battery Life.

If you actually saw how much RAM was left in the OnePlus you'd find that it barely hit 50% of that 8GB. Huawei does the same thing out-the-box, the phones use their machine learning to pick up usage patterns and will close apps it believes you won't come back to for a while, no matter the RAM left, so they are bound to fall behind in a Speed Test, yet will give incredible battery life.

This is where the beauty of Android comes in, as you can turn all that crap off and have the phone use all the RAM available if you want, and to be quite honest it still barely affects the battery life unless you are running many games over a long period which is what I guess they are trying to avoid.

[bobshine]

Lol! I knew you were going to bring up this video. The problem here is actually Aggressive Memory Management.

I use a lot of applications so this video makes great sense to me, these speed tests give a good idea of real world usage, however the OnePlus's result is simply due to a very Aggressive approach in Memory Management where the phone puts higher priority on Battery Life.

If you actually saw how much RAM was left in the OnePlus you'd find that it barely hit 50% of that 8GB. Huawei does the same thing out-the-box, the phones use their machine learning to pick up usage patterns and will close apps it believes you won't come back to for a while, no matter the RAM left, so they are bound to fall behind in a Speed Test, yet will give incredible battery life.

This is where the beauty of Android comes in, as you can turn all that crap off and have the phone use all the RAM available if you want, and to be quite honest it still barely affects the battery life unless you are running many games over a long period which is what I guess they are trying to avoid.

Android will kill apps when it runs out of RAM, that’s why you see it at 50%... it’s probably because it killed some apps. iOS squeezes apps when it runs out of RAM, without killing them. RAM usinage is not available to everyone on iphone, but it’s typically always high.

[Tsepz_GP]

Android will kill apps when it runs out of RAM, that’s why you see it at 50%... it’s probably because it killed some apps. iOS squeezes apps when it runs out of RAM, without killing them. RAM usinage is not available to everyone on iphone, but it’s typically always high.

I don't think you fully understand bud, most Androids actually have an app limit and battery saving options that limit apps in different scenarios, companies like OnePlus set these to a very aggressive setting, majority of the time the phone barely hits 50% of RAM usage as it is focused on saving battery.

Here are some screenshots of how Huawei does it below, the first screenshot is Huawei's own Machine Learning Memory manager that will work in the background fuguring out what apps you use the most and what it can open in the background depending on your usage. The next screenshot is Androids own Memory Manager that is also focused on Battery Life, it allows you to choose apps that need to be optimized for Battery Life (Allowed) and Not to Optimize (Not Allowed), this culminates on how the phone manages the apps, and is based on battery life rather than RAM as the RAM is generally ample.

Android Memory Management is not as simple as you are trying to make it out to be, different OEMs have different levels of aggression on Memory Management, again, you will find that most Androids with 6GB and 8GB RAM will barely use more than 50% as due to the above settings the phone adjusts for Battery Life. The beauty in all this is that as an Android user you can adjust these settings and allow your phone to use all the RAM, Huawei even have a setting known as Performance Mode where the phone loosens all settings from the SoC to the RAM Management, Display etc...

If you go to XDA you’ll find people who have OnePlus 6Ts that running tons more apps at once as they have adjusted these to their liking to allow more apps to run.

[bobshine]

I don't think you fully understand bud, most Androids actually have an app limit and battery saving options that limit apps in different scenarios, companies like OnePlus set these to a very aggressive setting, majority of the time the phone barely hits 50% of RAM usage as it is focused on saving battery.

Here are some screenshots of how Huawei does it below, the first screenshot is Huawei's own Machine Learning Memory manager that will work in the background fuguring out what apps you use the most and what it can open in the background depending on your usage. The next screenshot is Androids own Memory Manager that is also focused on Battery Life, it allows you to choose apps that need to be optimized for Battery Life (Allowed) and Not to Optimize (Not Allowed), this culminates on how the phone manages the apps, and is based on battery life rather than RAM as the RAM is generally ample.

Android Memory Management is not as simple as you are trying to make it out to be, different OEMs have different levels of aggression on Memory Management, again, you will find that most Androids with 6GB and 8GB RAM will barely use more than 50% as due to the above settings the phone adjusts for Battery Life. The beauty in all this is that as an Android user you can adjust these settings and allow your phone to use all the RAM, Huawei even have a setting known as Performance Mode where the phone loosens all settings from the SoC to the RAM Management, Display etc...

If you go to XDA you’ll find people who have OnePlus 6Ts that running tons more apps at once as they have adjusted these to their liking to allow more apps to run. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7451ab5ced.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b87bb3b557.jpg

Honestly I have no idea what those screenshots and those features or options does. What I know is that there is no advantage or reason to let the user restrict how much RAM the OS can use. why would you tell you’r OS to use just 4GB when you have 8????

[Tsepz_GP]

Honestly I have no idea what those screenshots and those features or options does. What I know is that there is no advantage or reason to let the user restrict how much RAM the OS can use. why would you tell you’r OS to use just 4GB when you have 8????

As I have been saying, Battery Life.

I have actually turned off all those restrictions on my phone and guess what, it never hits 6GB RAM usage, so your claim that Android phones with 6 or 8GB RAM run out of RAM is false, over a full day of usage the phone could only manage to use 72% of RAM at most: