Here’s how much RAM is good enough for you in a phone

Today’s smartphones, especially the premium flagships, offer users tons of RAM to add to lightning-fast chipsets. Not that long ago, 1GB to 2GB of RAM was considered decent enough for a phone. We now have devices that can easily traverse 6GB of RAM. Some even go as high as 16GB or 18GB of storage. But do you really need all of the RAM in a phone? What’s the number that makes you happy? We checked and here is what you had to say.

How Much RAM is Good Enough for You in a Smartphone?

Results

Obviously, our survey of the best maximum amount of RAM on a phone was very popular with our readers. Almost 40,000 people took our survey, and two RAM options were the most popular with our readers.

Most of you (32%) think that you are happy with 8GB of RAM on a phone. Just under 25.9% of respondents also agree to have 6 GB of RAM on their phones. 15% said 4 GB of RAM is satisfactory, while nearly 10% said they need 16 GB or more of RAM on their devices.

The results aren’t all that surprising. 8 GB of RAM has become commonplace not only in flagships but also in mid-range cell phones. In fact, most of the flagship Snapdragon 888s offer 8GB of RAM in their basic variants. No wonder it was the most popular option in our survey.

What you had to say

Resuna: Any company that ships an Android device with less than 4GB of RAM is a monster, and anyone who uses flash in normal use for swaps to make up for a lack of RAM lives in sin. The last bit also applies to you, Apple, on your new ARM-based Macs.

Evie: I think 6GB is the sweet spot for the average person. Probably 4 is usable, but a little more won’t hurt!

Cryio: I have 12GB of RAM and I think I never managed to get it over 9.2GB. For most people, 6GB is more than enough.

Stanley Kubrick: My first Packard Bell desktop PC had a whopping 4MB of RAM … that’s 4 megabytes, not gigabytes. It cost me $ 400.00 to upgrade to 8 megabytes! The woman wasn’t happy! Boy, those were the days. 6 GB is sufficient for the vast majority of people. How many apps need to be kept open all the time? More RAM = more battery usage to keep all those gigabytes alive!

Wongwatt: I’ve been a tech user for decades, so I tend to close down things that I don’t use, unlike the Young’uns. However, I chose 8GB because I think that’s the right amount for worry-free smartphone use.

Jim: The truth is that the average person uses around 4GB of RAM, so 6-8GB of RAM is actually a lot, and anything beyond that is excessive. People are trying to rationalize that by saying they are future proof. However, since smartphones have been on the market since 1992 (Simon Communicator) and these nearly 30 years, the actual demand has not gone much beyond 4 GB. That being said, I sincerely doubt the average person will hold onto a phone for nearly another 30 years just to take advantage of that extra GB of RAM.

Aashish: One of my Android phones has 4GB of RAM but a fast processor. Never feels slow to me.

артин Рачев: My Note 10+ has 12 GB of RAM and rarely uses more than 8.5 GB. The storage thing is I want my apps to stay open, I have enough free RAM but the phone refuses to go over 8.5GB of RAM and close my apps. I’m not sure how the tech works, but it seems like there isn’t enough RAM to keep all the apps open. For me, phones with less than 8 GB in 2021 are a compromise, 6 are usable, 4 or less a nightmare.

Ron Cosby: 6 GB is the bare minimum for Android now, but I recommend 8 GB or more. To run smoothly and quickly, 6GB is the bare minimum, even for budget phones. With less and I guarantee it will become a problem at some point. Any high-end phone worth the money should have at least 8GB in it. At least that’s my experience with Android.