Cell phone question

[CoolRich59]

Photos and downloaded music, along with lots of apps, are what use up all the space in your phone. If you don't have many apps, don't take many pictures, or have music on your phone, you can get by with the minimums.

Also, it's been a while since I worked in the cellular field, but I don't think RAM is an issue with phones. In fact, I don't ever recall it even being a spec that was reported. But, like I said, it's been a few years and maybe RAM is a factor now.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoolRich59 Photos and downloaded music, along with lots of apps, are what use up all the space in your phone. If you don't have many apps, don't take many pictures, or have music on your phone, you can get by with the minimums. ...

Agreed, it is an "It Depends" situation.

Quote:

Also, it's been a while since I worked in the cellular field, but I don't think RAM is an issue with phones. In fact, I don't ever recall it even being a spec that was reported. But, like I said, it's been a few years and maybe RAM is a factor now.

I recall it being routinely spec'd when we got into smartphones. For example:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DZJFSZ4...ing=UTF8&psc=1

Quote:

1.5 GHz Snapdragon 617 Octa-Core CPU; 32GB Storage Capacity + 2GB RAM; Android Marshmallow 6.0.1

-ERD50

[Nightcap]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Agreed, it is an "It Depends" situation. I recall it being routinely spec'd when we got into smartphones. For exampel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DZJFSZ4...ing=UTF8&psc=1 -ERD50

RAM is never referred to on Apple iPhones, only storage. (And the fact that this year’s blindingly fast model is some multiple faster than last year’s.)

[FIREmenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Agreed, it is an "It Depends" situation. Quote: Originally Posted by CoolRich59 Also, it's been a while since I worked in the cellular field, but I don't think RAM is an issue with phones. In fact, I don't ever recall it even being a spec that was reported. But, like I said, it's been a few years and maybe RAM is a factor now. I recall it being routinely spec'd when we got into smartphones. For exampel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DZJFSZ4...ing=UTF8&psc=1 -ERD50

(S)RAM is used by the microprocessor to perform functions. RAM is much faster for the microprocessor to use than other memory types in the phone. Therefore, the RAM is loaded from the other (slower) memory types with the things that the microprocessor needs to get its work done. If it won't all fit in the available RAM, then it needs to load more things, swapping out the previous items, more often, from the other slow memory types.

So the more RAM that is available, the faster the microprocessor can get its job done without swapping out batches of data between it and the other memory types --- and your system "appears" faster.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightcap RAM is never referred to on Apple iPhones, only storage. (And the fact that this year’s blindingly fast model is some multiple faster than last year’s.)

Yes, I think Apple's philosophy is that we should not concern ourselves with these technical details, they will handle that for us (but you can find it from other sources). And in a way, I agree - two phones could have the same amount of RAM (talking CPU RAM here), but if one makes more efficient use of managing that memory space, it might perform as well as another phone with more RAM. It's results that matter.

And as FIREmenow just pointed out, if you fill the CPU RAM and have to move some out to swap space, performance really suffers (this is often the source of the 'spinning beach ball' on a Mac). That's why I have 12 GB of RAM on my laptop, and use the zram function (compresses what is stored in RAM), to support my browser-open-tab habit. So even though there is a slight hit in compressing/decompressing RAM to use it, it is not noticeable to me, but going out to swap space (my hard drive) is like molasses in January.

-ERD50

[CoolRich59]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightcap RAM is never referred to on Apple iPhones, only storage. (And the fact that this year’s blindingly fast model is some multiple faster than last year’s.)

Thanks. I'm a confessed Apple fanboy - which explains why I was surprised to see a RAM reference for a phone.

(Sorry for the thread drift too!)