Over the past decade, the amount of RAM in a smartphone has increased at an incredible pace.
Today, most smartphones come with different RAM sizes, from 2GB for budget units to 12 GB for flagship models. This trend begs the question—how much RAM does a smartphone need?
The short answer is 4GB. That’s enough RAM for web browsing, social media, video streaming, and some popular mobile games. However, while that applies to most smartphone users, the amount of RAM you need depends on the apps you use.
So, how much RAM does a smartphone need?
Why Does a Smartphone Need RAM?
Random Access Memory (RAM) is a common piece of computer hardware. Your desktop computer, laptops, and other handheld devices use RAM as temporary memory to store frequently accessed information.
While RAM may have different design and architecture across devices, RAM has a similar function across all devices.
iOS vs. Android RAM Usage
Aside from apps or programs, your PC or smartphone’s operating system also consumes a significant amount of RAM. There are two popular operating systems for smartphone platforms: iOS for Apple devices and Android for pretty much everything else.
iOS uses less RAM than its Android counterpart since its chips are optimized and used exclusively with Apple products. Today, even a 2014-era iPhone 6 can still run the latest iOS version with just 1GB of memory.
Meanwhile, Android is used by several systems and brands. Each handset maker also adds in their own "skin," which takes up more RAM. For example, any of the newest Samsung Galaxy models’ OS takes up anywhere between 2 to 3 GB of RAM.
How Much RAM do you Actually Need?
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The answer to this question varies from one person to another. Some smartphone users only do light browsing, texting, calling, and video streaming, which doesn’t involve too much RAM usage. Meanwhile, other users also do a bit of mobile gaming and video editing, which requires more RAM.
To help you gauge how much RAM you need, let’s look at some of the most common activities that people do on their smartphones:
- Social Media Apps like Facebook and Instagram take anywhere between 100 to 300 MB of RAM depending on usage.
- Browsers and video players like Chrome and Youtube, respectively, consume about 500 MB depending on how many tabs are open and the quality of video you are viewing.
- Mobile games vary greatly based on their graphic quality and whether you are playing online or offline. Games like FIFA Soccer on Android can use more than 1 GB of RAM while it's running.
Take note that you also have to add the RAM that is being consumed by your operating system. From here, you can see why it makes sense that some mobile companies offer 6 GB, 8 GB, and even 12 GB of memory.
How to Check RAM Usage on Your Smartphone?
To grasp how much RAM you need for your smartphone, you should also consider how much memory you are currently using. To do that, follow these instructions:
For Android Users
- Go to Settings. Tap Device Care or Device Maintenance (varies by model).
- Tap Memory. From here, you can see the total amount of RAM of your phone, how much is currently being consumed by the apps and services currently running.
- In some phone models, you must enable Developer Options before completing the previous two steps. To do this, head to Settings > About. Scroll down and tap on the Build Number seven times before entering your PIN.
For iOS Users
- From your home screen, go to Settings > General.
- Tap iPhone Storage to see the available and used memory, plus a breakdown of which apps are using your RAM.
Is 8GB RAM Necessary for a Smartphone?
Just a decade ago, the smartphone’s RAM wouldn’t even reach the 1GB ceiling. Fast forward to today, and some flagship smartphone models have 12 GB RAM on top of their impressive features.
Mid-range phones usually offer 8GB RAM. However, that amount of RAM might not be as necessary as you think. After all, the main advantage of having more RAM is that you can run more apps simultaneously without one of them slowing down or being forced to close.
Consequently, some graphic intensive games, such as PUBG and Black Desert Online, require smartphones to have at least 8GB of RAM before you can play them.
In short, having 8GB memory is great but not always necessary. Unless you want to play high-end mobile games or constantly multitask, 4GB RAM or less will still suffice.
Is 2GB RAM Enough for a Smartphone?
If you are using an older iPhone model, then 2GB RAM is more than enough to operate seamlessly. Even Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 14, will run on the aging iPhone 6S with just 2GB RAM.
However, for Android users, 2GB RAM may pose some concerns if you want to do more than browse or watch videos. Sometimes you may even experience OS-related slowdowns while completing typical daily tasks.
Last year, Google announced that phones running on Android 10 or Android 11 would need to have at least 2GB RAM. However, there is also a trick wherein you can use a Micro SD card to increase your RAM.
If you ever feel that your phone is slowing down when running some of the common apps you use, then you might want to consider upgrading to a device with more RAM.
The More Smartphone RAM, the Better
The answer to how much RAM a smartphone needs varies from one person to the next. Since we have different uses and priorities for our smartphones, you may need as little as 2GB or as much as 12GB. Overall, the best thing to do is allocate some extra RAM to ensure your smartphone runs well, even when the next big update rolls in.
