Android RAM usage has always been the topic of hot competition for manufacturers and they have always tried giving more and more RAM.
So the smartphone industry is progressing and we are building apps that need more ram and we are multitasking and all the associated explanations. But, I feel that the for smartphones, the RAM market is extremely overhyped and there are too many misconceptions associated. Let us have a look at some of them and hopefully, by the end of this article, you might have seen some new angles of the Android RAM conspiracy.
More Free RAM?
Now, this is something that has always hit my nerves. I see a lot of Gadget reviewers, even the most respected ones often talk about the available RAM that they get.
So a common notion is, that more free RAM is better. I recall this video I was watching, where a YouTuber showed us 2 devices where both had the same amount of RAM and one of them was running stock android and the other had MIUI.
And that person cleared all recent apps to check the amount of free ram available and declared the device running stock android a clear winner. I was seriously shocked. How could someone in their right frame of mind compare the RAM availability of 2 devices that have completely different ROMs?
When a device runs stock android only has to run the core operating system so it can have free memory lying around. But a device that uses a custom skin like MIUI will probably use the available ram to store some cache data that it feels is important.
Or it could be running extra features and services that are needed to run those features. So it wouldn’t be sensible to judge a device just by comparing the amount of free ram that it has.
Using less RAM saves battery.
A lot of people have this feeling that if they use fewer apps, they will be using less ram and thereby they will elongate their battery. So I often see a lot of people clearing up their recent apps. This is not needed at all. The reason here is that a RAM is an electronic component. It needs a certain amount of power to function. So it doesn’t really matter if you use just 1% or 100% of the total ram available. The power consumption is going to be the same. At least with respect to RAM.
Isn’t having more RAM, better?
By all means, it is. But so is having a phone with 10 SIM-card slots, or 2 headphone jacks. It would be great. But would you really need it ?.
There is absolutely no problem in getting more RAM with your device but having to pay a ridiculous extra sum of money just for the extra RAM may not be the best trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever.
More RAM is the way to go.
We already know how these manufacturers are trying to sell users into the idea that more ram is good. They even sell different RAM variants of the same device. This is being written in April 2018 so let me give you an example from today. The Redmi Note 5 Pro sells its 4 GB RAM variant for 14 thousand rupees and its 6 GB RAM variant for 17 thousand.
Now I am not against usage of more ram but just think about why you would want to spend 3 thousand extra just to get that extra RAM that you probably won’t even use.
I am not saying an additional 3 thousand is too much to ask for 2 extra Gigs of Ram but I just feel for a phone in that segment it would have been more sensible to either give true support for fast charging or some other feature than simply giving 2 GB of ram that isn’t even helpful to the device.
I mean seriously, how many of you would actually exhaust the 4 Gigs of RAM and have more apps that need RAM. So I just feel that the idea that more RAM is better has been built up by these manufacturers and it doesn’t hold too much ground.
What do you think about this? Let me know in the comments section below.