Do we really need 24GB of RAM on smartphones? – Gizmochina

News surfaced last week that OPlus Group will soon introduce smartphones with 24GB of RAM. The OnePlus Ace 2 Pro is expected to be the first phone in the group to offer the aforementioned amount of RAM.

But the world’s first smartphone equipped with 24GB of RAM is the Red Magic 8S Pro. This device will be announced in a few hours after the publication of this article.

Currently, 16GB of RAM is the maximum storage capacity you can find on most phones. That said, there are some products with 18GB, but they are mostly limited to China.

So do you really need 24GB of RAM on your phone? I don’t think so, but there are some exceptions. Let me explain.

You need at least 4GB of RAM to run basic apps in 2023

For the uninitiated, RAM is the fastest memory chip inside any device. System software is loaded into RAM every time you start your smartphone or any other computer.

RAM is also the memory where apps (including games) are loaded when you start them. So it is essential for the functioning of your smartphone.

Right now, 2GB of RAM is the bare minimum to run Android 13. It used to be just 1GB. Nowadays, you’ll only find measly RAM on entry-level smartphones that ship with the Android Go Edition.

Whereas, most budget smartphones start with 4GB of RAM. You may not be able to multitask on these types of phones, but all modern apps will work on them without a hitch.

So what is the ideal amount of RAM on smartphones?

Most apps consume around 100-200MB of RAM. Some games may require up to 1.5GB or more.

In 2023 it is advisable to buy a phone with at least 8GB of RAM.

This is why the most popular flagship smartphones like the latest Samsung Galaxy S series start with 8GB of RAM. But since Chinese brands have always been competitive, they provide a minimum of 12GB on their premium offerings.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that if you browse a lot on your phone with numerous tabs, I recommend getting the variant with the highest amount of RAM you can buy.

Because browsers like Google Chrome consume more RAM than any app or game under heavy load. In fact, the 64-bit version of Google Chrome requires at least 8GB of RAM.

But having more RAM does not guarantee an ideal experience

Ideally, if your phone has high-capacity RAM, you should be able to run more apps in the background. Applications should not be force closed unless memory is full.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case on most phones with large amounts of RAM. These types of smartphones are usually sold by Chinese brands and their software prioritizes battery life by default.

So even with 18GB of RAM, these phones tend to purge apps from RAM even though there is enough free memory. You must manually limit these actions for each app on these devices to properly use the maximum available RAM. Sometimes, even that doesn’t work.

Therefore, even if a phone offers 24GB of RAM, software optimization is crucial. Keeping multiple applications in memory consumes power, but the decision to suspend apps should be in the hands of consumers by default.

24GB of RAM makes sense in certain use cases

Personally, I think it’s okay for some smartphones to have 24GB of RAM. But it would be better if we saw this amount of memory on a device like a horizontal fold that unfolds into a tablet. Because they’re productivity machines, and they’re designed to multitask.

On the other hand, gaming smartphones will also benefit from having 24GB of RAM as you can keep multiple games in the background and switch between them, just like on Xbox Series X/S. However, some of the mobile titles Most popular right now are online multiplayer games, which don’t have to be played in the background.

However, if you have 24GB of RAM on a regular slab smartphone, the most benefit you get is keeping more apps in the background. After all, you can’t multitask as efficiently as you can on foldable devices. So, in my opinion, having 24GB of RAM on regular slab smartphones is way overkill, without any significant benefit.

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