RAM and mobiles

[Rwy in Sight]

I have found a mobile that I really like and I need your advice whether the 1 GB RAM would present an issue (like seriously slowing down) on normal use (a bit of ppruning, some apps for public transport etc)?

Thanks a lot your our answers!

[G0ULI]

One Gb of Ram would be adequate to contain the operating system for the mobile device but you would want a lot more memory to store data for additional apps and offline access. So it is not meaningful to ask this question stating just a single figure.

Many cheaper mobiles have limited RAM fitted as standard, to keep costs down, but allow the user to insert addition memory cards as necessary to "upgrade" the device to suit their requirements.

Of far greater importance is the speed of the processor chip and battery life, particularly if using GPS based applications such as maps while accessing the Internet. Only a few devices will allow a full days use with such applications active all the time. An additional external battery pack is a useful investment if you regularly rely on such applications.

[Octane]

My Chinese phone (Xiaomi Redmi 3, great phone..) has 1 Gb ram and I have had no problems at all. The limiting factor is the internet connection, not the performance of the phone...

[Rwy in Sight]

Thanks for the answers so far.

G0ULI the 1GB is the ROM, the RAM is 16 GB which is used to run apps. My current mobile which is being serviced has a 6 GB RAM which is rapidly filling. The mobile I am thinking about is the Wiko Lenny4 Plus Black Dual Sim or alternatively the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A 16GB Dual Sim or Meizu M6 Dual Sim Black.

Any comments between them?

[andytug]

You can never have too much RAM, get as much as you can afford. Certain apps will only use internal memory (BBC iPlayer downloads being one, irritatingly) so the more you have the better.
I've just upgraded from an 8Gb Android to a 16Gb version, and also have a 64Gb SD card in it, mainly for music. The 8Gb one was always close to full on the internal memory even with as many apps as possible shifted to SD.

[PJD1]

Originally Posted by andytug

You can never have too much RAM, get as much as you can afford. Certain apps will only use internal memory (BBC iPlayer downloads being one, irritatingly) so the more you have the better.
I've just upgraded from an 8Gb Android to a 16Gb version, and also have a 64Gb SD card in it, mainly for music. The 8Gb one was always close to full on the internal memory even with as many apps as possible shifted to SD.

I think you are confusing RAM with storage space. RAM (Random Access Memory) is dynamic memory that is used by the operating system and any running apps to read and write data to, a typical mobile phone might have between 1 - 4 GB and anything stored in RAM is lost when the device is powered off. Storage is persistent memory used to store your operating system, apps and data, this is not lost when the device is powered off and a typical mobile phone might have anywhere from 8 - 128 GB.


Although more RAM is generally a good thing it is technically incorrect to say you can never have too much as any operating system will have a limit to how much RAM it can address and having more than that limit is completely pointless as it would never be used.

[Octane]

PJD1 beat me to it. RAM runs the operating system. Whereas SD cards (memory) stores all your data i.e. apps, photo's, videos, music, chats, messages etc etc. So if you are a heavy user of media etc, the greater the memory the better,. Memory has become cheap, probably all phones now have a slot for micro SD cards, 64 Gb or 128 Gb cards are common. Some people are confusing ROM and memory I think.
You don't need massive amounts of RAM for the phone to operate correctly, 1 or 2 Gb is typical, and is fixed. It's soldered to the circuit board of the phone, you cannot upgrade it... Higher end phones now boast 4 or even 8 Gb of RAM, but unless you have dozens of apps open at the same time, doing a lot of multitasking or run complex memory intensive games (who does that?), the extra RAM and cost is wasted. The average user who just wants a phone to use as a phone, sending messages and a bit of surfing or streaming audio doesn't need large amounts of RAM...

[Rwy in Sight]

I went out and bought a Xiami 4X with a 3GB RAM and 32 GB ROM. Four days later I could get a 4 GB/64GB ROM for the same price. For the time is seems decent although I have to run all the apps I had on the previous mobile.
Thanks for the advice so far.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I have a new not-so-smart-phone that has 1 Gb, but I can't access the Internet at all, just get the message "Insufficient memory" despite my inserting an 8Gb. mini SD card.

WTF ?

[PJD1]

Originally Posted by Rwy in Sight

3GB RAM and 32 GB ROM.

Confusing the terminology again I'm afraid


ROM is read only memory, i.e. it is an area of persistent memory that cannot be written to or used to store user data it can only be read from. In the case of desktop or laptop it is typically a small area of memory that contains the system BIOS but on a phone it usually refers to the area of memory which is reserved to store the operating system.


The 32Gb that you refer to is the storage capacity of the phone which is available to the user to store their data (music, photos, downloaded apps etc...). Strictly speaking the correct terminology for this would be non-volatile memory. To compare it to a laptop or desktop this is the equivalent of the computers hard disk but in the case of a phone it will be solid state flash memory however the function is the same, it is storage space that can be written to and erased as often as you wish.

[Rwy in Sight]

This is the mobile I wanted to get Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X 64GB Dual Sim. And yes I did confuse the terminology. Any way I am stuck with the less powerfull model but it seems a large improvement over my previous Motorola G3 one.