The system and applications need RAM to work – everyone knows about it. Its quantity determines how many applications can be open on the smartphone at the same time and how fast they will work. In budget models of smartphones, RAM can be quite a bit: 1 or 2 GB. We explain why this is critically small.
How does RAM work in a phone?
If the characteristics of a smartphone indicate that the amount of RAM is 2 GB, this does not mean that all of it is at your disposal. System services constantly occupy part of the RAM. They are disabled only when the phone is turned off. The remaining space is used to run and maintain applications.
When launched, the application takes a certain part of the “RAM.” If it is not used, it frees some of the memory, leaving enough for itself to remain open. If several applications are open, and only one is used, the system unloads data from RAM that is not used to free up space for the active application to work.
Older phones unload the apps that open the earliest. The new ones have “smart” algorithms that allow you to analyze activity in applications and upload data from unused ones.
Why is 1or 2 GB of RAM too little?
You’ll have to deal with a lightweight version of Android.
If the manufacturer has installed a full-fledged one, it will “devour” up to 80% of the volume. And with the light version (Go Edition), you will not be able to install many, even standard applications.
Applications will take a long time to launch.
Launching is the most “heavy” part of the application, which requires the most memory. On a smartphone with 1 or 2 GB of RAM, new applications will launch slowly. This is because the system will first limit activity to the maximum and upload data already open.
Applications will run slowly.
Since the system unloads the data of unused applications, when switching from one to another, you will have to wait until they are loaded back. The browser will load the contents of the tabs each time, the mail client will load your letters, and the social network client will load the news feed.
Forget about games.
A smartphone with 2 GB of memory is definitely not a gaming one. Depending on the “heaviness” of the client and the amount of downloaded graphic data, the game can completely “eat” the phone’s free memory. Other applications will not be able to work. Yes, and the gameplay will go with “lags” due to the constant loading and unloading of data.
Even the drive will not be enough.
Smartphones with 1 or 2 GB of RAM have very little internal memory, no more than 16 GB, or even 8. For a modern smartphone, this is an insignificant amount. You have to buy a memory card and constantly transfer applications to it.
So if you choose a smartphone, then try to have 3 or 4 GB of RAM upwards. You should clear the cache less often to load the data from the smartphone, not from the Web, and avoid wasting your mobile Internet.
