RAM

RAM (Random Access Memory) is random access memory for temporary storage of data that is critical to the operation of software. It works as a temporary buffer between disk drives and the processor, which stores important data and running programs at the moment. To simplify, this is a very fast temporary storage for data that is being processed by other elements of the computer here and now.

Computers use DDR memory, smartphones use its reduced and energy-efficient alternative with the LP (Low Power) prefix. In modern smartphones, fourth-generation LPDDR memory is usually installed. The second and third are considered obsolete, however, the “troika” continues to be actively used in entry-level gadgets where cruising speed is not needed.


However, even the fourth generation does not always cope with current tasks and increasing the amount of memory in some cases does not save the situation. For example, when recording super-slow-motion video at a speed of a thousand FPS, the bandwidth of 3200 Mbps LPDDR4 is simply not enough. Therefore, especially for flagships and camera phones, accelerated LPDDR4x memory was created with the same frequency of 1600 MHz, but increased bandwidth to 4266 Mbps.


And on the horizon looms a new LPDDR5 standard capable of delivering up to 6.4 Gbps. This speed is very useful in heavy games, virtual reality applications, 4K video shooting or recording SuperSlowMotion videos. In addition to speeding up, LPDDR5 will learn deep sleep mode when I / O buffers and internal circuitry are turned off, which saves up to 40% of energy.


And what about the RAM in the iPhone?


On the iPhone, things are much more complicated. During the presentation of new products, Apple is not particularly willing to advertise information about the amount of RAM, although lately they have been talking a lot about the stuffing of their equipment. Not because in Cupertino they consider it useless, but because the new iPhones, until recently, could not boast of something special. Due to the peculiarities of the system and optimization, Apple smartphones have always had a few gigabytes: the iPhone XR had only 3 GB, the iPhone 11 got 4 GB, and the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max got 6 GB each. Agree, this does not sound as impressive as 12 GB on the Galaxy Note 10 Plus or OnePlus 8 Pro.

Does this mean we are being fooled? Not at all. The fact is that Android applications use Java and require additional RAM for the process of freeing memory after the programme ends. This thing is called garbage collection and it works as long as there is free memory left in the system. As soon as there are a lot of active programs, difficulties begin: the efficiency of garbage collection drops significantly, and the process consumes much more memory than the application actually needs. Sometimes 4-8 times more! That is why Android smartphones require significantly more memory than iPhones.

What does this information give us?


Better understanding when choosing a smartphone. As you already understood, Apple has no problems with this, so you can buy what you like and not worry. The main thing is not to take something completely ancient, where neither RAM nor processor power will be enough.

If we talk about options based on the Android OS, then in a low-cost device you don’t have to worry about the type of memory, its quantity will be more important. By the middle of 2020, 3-4 GB are considered the norm for an inexpensive device. Two is also possible, however, open applications and browser tabs will constantly reload due to lack of memory. And after six months or a year of use, it will work noticeably slower.

In powerful devices, LPDDR4 with a volume of 6-8 GB is enough. In order to run games and applications in the tray, do not restart, and maintain the overall speed of the system.

In top camera phones, which require complex video shooting, it is best to watch LPDDR4x options with a volume of 8 - 12 GB.

Smartphones with 8GB or more RAM

Smartphone internal memory


Built-in memory is one of the most important parameters of any smartphone. It depends on its volume, how many applications and games you can install, how many photos and videos you can take, and what will be left after that for storing music, documents, e-books and other downloaded content.

eMMC memory: an old friend is better than two

Even 3 - 4 years ago, manufacturers were reluctant to indicate the type of memory used. Simply because there was no particular need for this, since the main option was the usual eMMC memory. That is, in fact, it was an ordinary flash drive soldered on the motherboard of a smartphone. At the moment, the most current version of eMMC is 5.1A, released in 2019. Its sequential read speed is 400 MB / s, almost on the level of conventional SATA SSD drives.


But the more important random write and read parameter of eMMC is much lower. eMMC 5.1A has no specifications, eMMC 5.1 has only 11 thousand read IOPS, and 13 thousand write IOPS. To make it easy to understand, sequential write speed is important when shooting photos and videos, as well as when watching large movies. It's like top speed on a speedometer. The speed of random reading and writing speaks to how agile a smartphone will be in everyday life. How quickly he can launch toys, switch to other applications, etc.

UFS: the new standard from Samsung

It was low IOPS that became the bottleneck, so eMMC eventually had a young and daring competitor in the face of UFS memory. It was created by Samsung engineers who lacked the agility of conventional eMMC. A feature of UFS is the parallelization of read and write processes, which allowed not only to expand the memory bandwidth, but also significantly reduce energy consumption.


The most recent version of UFS is UFS 3.1, introduced in 2020. It was created specifically for top-end smartphones that need even more speed with more gentle power consumption. The main innovations of UFS 3.1 were the non-volatile Write Booster cache, which allows you to speed up the writing process, the new DeepSleep power saving mode and the Performance Throttling Notification feature for temperature control.

While the new standard has not yet settled, there are many more smartphones on sale with earlier versions of UFS: 3.0, 2.1 and 2.0.


UFS 3.0 Smartphones

What about Apple?


Apple is one step ahead in this regard. Back in the sixth version of the iPhone, the company switched to NVMe drives, which, for simplicity, can be called "SSDs on steroids." The Cupertino-based company uses custom drives and PCI-E buses, while not being particularly willing to reveal their characteristics. Therefore, you can understand the real coolness of their memory only in synthetic tests and then compare them with the speed of competitors on Android. However, in such tests there is not much sense, because the operating systems are different. In the public domain, we found only tests of the same "six" in comparison with the Android flagships of that time, which are now not particularly relevant. According to more recent measurements from the guys at Techspot, the iPhone X's sequential read speed reaches 1250 MB/s, while the write hits the ceiling of 350 MB/s.


What does this information give us?

All this leads us to the conclusion that the speed of internal memory is far from the most important parameter when choosing. Especially if we are talking about ordinary devices, and not smartphones for a thousand dollars. The fact is that the maximum recording speed is now much higher than necessary. Even for complex processes like 4K video recording. Therefore, if you do not plan to frequently transfer files from your smartphone to your computer and vice versa, the speed parameter can be neglected.

Much more important will be to decide on the amount of memory. Indeed, when buying a new smartphone, many tend to overestimate the available volumes and after some time they will encounter the message “Internal memory is full”. Often, installed applications and games eat up a serious piece of the pie. The second point is audio and video content - videos downloaded from YouTube, albums of your favorite artist uploaded to memory, podcasts forgotten in the cache, and stuff like that. Also, do not forget that an operating system is installed on the internal memory, which occupies its 5–7 GB. Therefore, 32 GB has slowly become the norm even for inexpensive smartphones, and 128 GB may not be enough for flagships. Photos taken with the camera and high-resolution videos quickly fill up the memory. If we talk about smartphones based on Android, then in such cases a memory card will come to the rescue, which we will talk about in the next paragraph.

256 GB smartphones

Memory cards


With memory cards, everything is both simpler and more complicated. It’s easier in the sense that the microSD format has long been entrenched in the smartphone market, so the question when choosing depends only on the speed of the card and its class. And here with classes difficulties begin. Initially, the classes were designated by the letter “C” (for example, Class 6, Class 10) and told us about the maximum sequential write speed. Then the UHS division appeared ( U1, U3 and UHS-II U3), which indicates the speed of data exchange between the card itself and another drive, that is, a computer hard drive or smartphone internal memory). There is also a division by the letter "V", which is important for video filming.

In the case of smartphones, it is better to focus on the fourth option - class "A", which indicates the amount of input / output operations (IOPS) processed by the memory card. As we have already said, for the daily operation of a smartphone, this indicator is more important than the usual linear speed, since application data, games and systems are not copied in a continuous stream, but in separate fragments that the card “grabs” in random order.

A1 class memory cards

Now Huawei is promoting its own nano memory flash format, which so far leaves an ambiguous impression. In reality, the speed of its work is no better than fast microSD, but it costs more and in general, go find it. Yes, and smartphones with its support are still few even from Huawei itself. However, it has great potential for growth, so the question is whether Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO and other competitors in the smartphone market will want to promote the “enemy” standard to the masses.

What does this information give us?

Even if ultra-high-definition video recording is required from a smartphone, a standard U1-class card will suffice. But old cards with designations like Class 6, Class 8 are better to bypass. For gaming smartphones, it is better to look towards microSD class A1 and A2.