How much RAM will your phone need in 2024?

The most popular mobile phones have a wide range of RAM sizes. On the one hand, you’ll find some of the best Android smartphones with 12GB, 16GB, and in rare cases as much as 24GB of RAM. On the other hand, some affordable phones come with only 4 GB of RAM. On the other hand, there are many devices in the middle of the spectrum with 8 GB and often 12 GB of RAM.

In general, cheaper phones tend to have less RAM, while premium, high-end flagship models have much more RAM. The question is, how much RAM do you need when buying a new phone? What is the ideal amount of RAM for an Android smartphone in 2024? How much do you need for a little extra future-proof functionality? Let’s find out.

All computers, including smartphones, use random access memory (RAM). While your computer is running, all currently running programs, their data, and the OS are stored in RAM. About 10 years ago, Android devices had 512MB or 1GB of memory. However, the average amount of RAM on devices has increased rapidly. In 2014, many premium devices came with 3GB of RAM, and a few years later, 4GB became the de facto standard. 4GB is currently considered the bare minimum for new devices, or just below.

No matter how much RAM your device has, it’s a finite resource that needs to be managed. Every time you open a new app, it must occupy some of this memory. Simple apps and games use hundreds of megabytes, while more advanced games can use up to 1 gigabyte of RAM. The most demanding games can use up to 1.5 GB of RAM.

With 4GB of RAM, there’s enough space for some medium-sized games and apps to coexist with the OS. However, at some point you will run out of free RAM.

To deal with this eventuality, modern computers use a technique known as swapping. The oldest and least used pages of memory are written out to swap storage, freeing up memory occupied in RAM. If the swapped out memory is later needed, the saved memory pages are read back from storage and copied back to RAM (swapped in). This significantly increases the amount of memory available for storing apps and data, but at the cost of being significantly slower compared to RAM.

Desktops, laptops, and servers use external storage (hard drives, flash storage) as swap space. Android uses a slightly different technique. Instead of writing pages to storage, Android compresses the data and writes it back to RAM. This is known as zRAM, following the Unix/Linux tradition of using “z” to represent compression. Assuming a compression ratio of 50%, 128 KB of RAM is reduced to 64 KB, freeing up 64 KB. The Linux kernel that powers Android sees zRAM just like traditional swap space. Compressed memory cannot be read directly, so it must be uncompressed and copied back if needed, similar to traditional swap-ins.

However, swap space (especially zRAM) is also a limited resource. When Android runs out of swap space, it has to become more aggressive and start culling apps that are already in memory. This means Android needs to make room for the new app you want to launch, which may force you to close the app you want to return to.

What this means is that the more RAM you have, the more apps Android can store in memory at the same time without erasing old apps. Less RAM means Android has to remove apps from memory more frequently. With that in mind, what is the optimal amount of RAM?

To determine the optimal amount of RAM, we looked at three phones: Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra with 12 GB of RAM, OnePlus 9 Pro with 8 GB of RAM, and Pixel 3XL with 4 GB of RAM. tested. Samsung and Google’s devices ran Android 12, while OnePlus ran Android 11. On each phone, I noted the amount of free RAM and the amount of swap space used. Next, I started the game, recorded the amount of RAM it used, and looked at changes in free RAM and swap space. I repeated these steps until Android killed the apps that were already in memory.

It is worth noting that the tested devices were subsequently replaced by their 2024 counterparts. However, the basics of RAM management apply to all Android smartphones, whether you have a Galaxy S24 or a Pixel 8.

Below is a list of the games I used and the average amount of RAM they take up.

• Subway Surfers — 750MB
• [1945空軍—850MB
• キャンディークラッシュ — 350MB
• Brawl Stars — 500MB
• マインクラフト — 800MB
• アスファルト 9 — 800MB
• シャドウガン レジェンド — 900MB
• エルダースクロールブレード — 950MB
• 原神 — 1.4GB
• クロム – 2.2GB

Testing the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Pixel 3XL

These two devices are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The Galaxy S21 Ultra has 12GB of RAM, while the Pixel 3XL only has 4GB. Below is a graph showing how the device performed in my testing. At the bottom you’ll see a list of games in the order I launched them. The blue line shows the amount of free RAM available and the green line shows the amount of swap space used.

As you can see, the S21 Ultra provides an almost textbook example of memory management. As the amount of free RAM decreases, the amount of swap space used increases. With 12 GB of RAM, the S21 Ultra was able to store every game in its memory, starting with Subway Surfers, all the way to 1945 Air Force, Minecraft, Elder Scrolls Blades, and finally Genshin Impact. Not a single app was force-closed.

To push the S21 Ultra to the brink, I fired up the Chrome web browser. With 12 tabs open, Chrome used up 2.2GB of memory, eventually forcing Android to quit Minecraft. Very impressive. A deeper analysis of what happened can be seen in the video.

Things were completely different with the Pixel 3 XL. RAM was able to host three games at the same time: Subway Surfers, 1945 Airforce, and Candy Crush. When I started Brawl Stars, Subway Surfers was killed and removed from memory. As expected, this lower amount of RAM means that apps require much less swap space and can only keep a small number in memory at a time.

OnePlus 9 Pro test

The OnePlus 9 Pro used for testing has 8GB of RAM and includes the company’s RAMBoost feature, which many devices have. RAMBoost tries to make memory management smarter. It analyzes your usage and tries to keep frequently used apps in memory and force close rarely used apps. We might also try to preload a particular app if we decide we’ll be using it right away. To properly test the OnePlus 9 Pro, I tested it with RAMBoost on and off.

The first thing to notice when testing with RAMBoost on is that the free RAM spikes when Candy Crush starts. This occurred because Subway Surfers was killed even though there was still plenty of free RAM and swap space available. I restarted Subway Surfers and continued. Brawl Stars started up without a problem, and so did Minecraft. When Asphalt 9 was launched, the androids destroyed Candy Crush and the 1945 Air Force.

Android behaves differently when you turn off RAMBoost. I was able to launch all my apps from Subway Surfers to Minecraft without any interruptions. But when I launched Asphalt 9, the phone killed Subway Surfer.

What’s odd about both tests run on the OnePlus 9 Pro is that the app gets killed when there are still free resources. The OnePlus 9 Pro has 4GB of swap space, but only about 1GB is used when apps start being deleted. The OnePlus 9 Pro seems to be quite aggressive with its memory management, especially compared to other phones I’ve tested.

Obviously, 4GB is not enough for average multitasking. Only the last three or four games are memorable. Productivity apps tend to be smaller than games, so you need to be able to run five or six small apps together before some apps reload when you switch to an app. 6GB of RAM helps alleviate this problem.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 12GB is very robust and well managed. You can have at least 15 games (including several browser tabs) left in RAM at the same time, including some fairly demanding games. I don’t see any reason for the average user to complain about this level of multitasking capabilities.

The OnePlus 9 Pro is aggressive with its RAM management, but long-term use of RAMBoost will help Android make better use of the 8GB. However, I think 8GB on other devices will provide a better multitasking experience than the OnePlus.

Also note that on-device AI models such as Gemini Nano influence the amount of RAM required. Some on-device models can run from storage, while others must be placed in RAM for better performance and can occupy large amounts of memory. Google engineers specifically pointed to a model that powers the Smart Reply feature as an example of a model that should reside in the Pixel 8 Pro’s RAM.

Considering that most phone manufacturers these days are packing in full suites of features like Galaxy AI and Pixel AI, it’s no surprise that premium devices come with 12-16GB of RAM. The Pixel 9 is a great example, with the base model having 50% more memory than its predecessor just one generation ago. Even Apple was forced to increase the amount of RAM in the iPhone 16 series thanks to a number of new features brought by Apple Intelligence.

Based on all of the above, we recommend aiming for at least 6 GB of RAM on a budget smartphone. For upper midrange or high-end devices, 8GB provides a good multitasking experience as well as some future-proofing. But our testing and what’s clear in 2024 is that 12GB of RAM is clearly useful and should provide a better overall experience for power users and on-device AI features. That’s what it means. While 16GB RAM seems to be just a bragging rights for most users, it has to be said that AI and foldable phones are expected to benefit from this.