Today the most popular smartphone models like OnePlus 8T and Vivo X60 Pro Plus offer a RAM size of 12GB. One could be very easily misled to think that a bigger size is always better for optimum performance. However, the reality is that RAM is one part of optimising performance, though it’s a very important one.
A smartphone needs at least 4GB RAM to handle demanding tasks, and a 6GB RAM mobile is the minimum requirement to future-proof a device.
How does RAM work?
Random Access Memory (RAM) is where the phone stores information temporarily so it can be processed by the CPU. When multiple apps are open on the smartphone, they are held in the RAM so that they can be used anytime they are re-opened. This makes RAM a lot faster than the internal memory in a mobile.
Why is more RAM beneficial?
The more RAM a phone is equipped with, the easier it’s to multitask. A 6GB RAM mobile is definitely better efficient at keeping more apps open in the background than a 2GB or 4GB one. The phone doesn’t need to kill these apps to function as it has more memory and can re-open it whenever required.
This means that you don’t need to restart the app or lose any information/progress when you re-open it. In very simple terms, the RAM capacity determines how many apps can simultaneously run on a phone and how smoothly one can switch between them.
Why are 2GB phones so slow?
Phones with lower RAM will show ‘out of memory’ errors and frequently shut down apps in the background. This could shut down important processes, erase the data that a user stores or even ‘hang up’ or forcibly restart the phone.
Another reason why phones with lower RAM are so slow is that certain processes take up as much as half a GB of RAM space. These processes can include the phone’s system interfaces, home screen and keyboard, and in a 2GB phone, little space is left for other apps to work with. On the other hand, a 6GB RAM mobile has plenty of space left to run a game with other apps without encountering any problem.
How do Apple phones work faster with smaller RAM sizes?
The speed performance of a 6GB RAM mobile doesn’t only depend on the RAM capacity but also on how the memory is used. Apple phones use their own processors and tightly controls what software can run on them. This means Apple phones are only allowed to store apps that run efficiently and don’t waste memory.
The custom, ultra-fast processors can deactivate and re-open apps so fast that you might not notice if they had to reload. Thus, an older iPhone XR (3GB RAM) can equal a Galaxy Note 9 (8GB RAM) in performance.
Processor speed
The processor speed is equally important in influencing the performance as the RAM size. It’s basically the brain of a device and determines your phone’s speed, multitasking abilities, and battery efficiency. Several measurements tell how powerful a processor is –
- Clock Speed
- Die Size
- The number of cores and individual performance of each core.
Of these, clock speed (in GHz) is the most fundamental measurement of speed. Mid-range phones under 25000 will offer a high processor speed of up to 2 GHz, while high-end phones offer up to 3 GHz speed.
Whether you prefer a phone with higher RAM or effective RAM management, getting a fast phone can be very costly. You can make it easier to pay for a new smartphone with the No Cost EMI facilities under the Bajaj Finserv EMI Network. This gives you access to over a million products, including smartphones, across one lakh partner outlets in the country.
Utilising these payment facilities, you can easily purchase a smartphone with a higher RAM capacity and enjoy an uninterrupted performance.
