Android phone hits 24GB of RAM, as much as a 13-inch MacBook Pro
Android manufacturers tend to love big spec sheets, even if those giant numbers won't do much for day-to-day phone usage. In that vein, we've got the new high-water mark for ridiculous amounts of memory in a phone. The new Nubia RedMagic 8S Pro+ is an Android gaming phone with an option for 24GB of RAM.
The base model of the RedMagic 8S Pro+ starts with 16GB of RAM, but GSMArena has pictures and details of the upgraded 24GB SKU, which is the most amount of memory ever in an Android phone. Because we're all about big numbers, it also comes with 1TB of storage. [...] This suped-up 24GB version of the phone appears to be a China-exclusive, with the price at CNY 7,499 (about $1,034), which is a lot for a phone in China.
You definitely want an adequate amount of RAM in an Android phone. All these apps are designed around cheap phones, though, and with Android's aggressive background app management, there's usually not much of a chance to use a ton of RAM. Theoretically, a phone like this would let you multitask better, since apps could stay in memory longer, and you wouldn't have to start them back up when switching tasks. Most people aren't quickly switching through that many apps, though, and some heavy apps, games especially, will just automatically turn off a few seconds once they're in the background.
There were a few smartphones on the market with 18 GB, but it looks like 20 GB has been skipped entirely by Nubia.
Now we need to be on the lookout for 32 GB of RAM and alien technology in upcoming smartphones.
Previously: SK Hynix Begins Production of 18 GB LPDDR5 Memory... for Smartphones
Samsung Announces Development of LPDDR5X Memory
Related Stories
SK Hynix Commences Mass Production of 18GB LPDDR5 RAM Chips for Smartphones With 6,400Mbps Speeds
Android phone makers will continue to push the limits of hardware specifications, and from the looks of it, SK Hynix will lend out more than just a helping hand. The memory manufacturer today announced that it has started mass production of 18GB LPDDR5 RAM chips for flagship smartphones, meaning that premium handsets touting more memory than notebooks will become a commonplace.
SK Hynix claims that its 18GB LPDDR5 RAM for smartphones can operate up to 6,400Mbps, making it around 20 percent faster than the previous-generation LPDDR5 RAM, which could run up to 5,500Mbps. The manufacturer also mentions that it has supplied ASUS with these DRAM chips for the upcoming ROG Phone 5 flagship. Keep in mind that during a specifications leak, the ROG Phone 5 was spotted with the aforementioned RAM count.
Why does a smartphone need 18 GB of memory instead of the previous 16 GB? From the press release:
"This product will improve the processing speed and image quality by expanding the data temporary storage space, as the capacity increases compared to the previous 16GB product," an official from the company said.
So we will see smartphones with 18 GB of RAM, or perhaps smartphones or laptops with 16/32 GB of error correction code (ECC) LPDDR5 memory.
Previously: Samsung Begins Mass Producing 12 GB DRAM Packages for Smartphones
Samsung Mass Producing LPDDR5 DRAM (12 Gb x 8 for 12 GB Packages)
Get Ready for Smartphones with 16 GB of RAM
Samsung Announces Mass Production of 16 GB LPDDR5 DRAM Packages
Samsung Announces LPDDR5X DRAM for Smartphones; 1.3x Faster Than LPDDR5 With Speeds up to 8.5Gbps
Samsung today officially announced LPDDR5X DRAM chips for smartphones and other applications. Compared to the LPDDR5 standard, the new chips bring increased speeds, and it will be no surprise that we will see them in action in several 2022 flagship handsets.
[...] In contrast to LPDDR5's 6.4Gbps maximum bandwidth, LPDDR5X can achieve 1.3-times the performance with processing speeds that go up to 8.5Gbps. Samsung has used its 14nm technology to mass produce the next-generation DRAM chips, and it will be advantageous for portable devices too because the new standard is 20 percent more energy-efficient than LPDDR5.
The press release says that 16Gb LPDDR5X chips will enable 64 GB memory packages, "accommodating increasing demand for higher-capacity mobile DRAM worldwide." In other words, Samsung is planning to put 32 dies in a single package, and eventually stick 64 gigabytes of memory in smartphones (or tablets, or laptops). Recently, Samsung has been making 16 GB packages with only 12 or 8 dies:
The 16Gb LPDDR5 can build a 16GB package with only eight chips, whereas its 1y-based predecessor requires 12 chips (eight 12Gb chips and four 8Gb chips) to provide the same capacity.
Also at AnandTech.
Previously: SK Hynix Announces 8 GB LPDDR4x DRAM Package for Mobile Devices
Samsung Announces LPDDR5 DRAM Prototype Before Specification is Finalized
Samsung Announces Mass Production of 16 GB LPDDR5 DRAM Packages
SK Hynix Begins Production of 18 GB LPDDR5 Memory... for Smartphones
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Saturday July 08 2023, @12:58PM (1 child)
Now we can even run 20 Gigs of always-on, preinstalled crapware!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2023, @04:09PM
https://beebom.com/how-remove-bloatware-android-phone/ [beebom.com]
Best advice, don't buy your phone company's bargain feature phone on credit. Pay up front, get an unlocked phone, without any carrier's crapware.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday July 08 2023, @02:08PM (5 children)
So more storage and memory then your average desktop computer. Sweet. Mainly for playing games then. So it's more of a gaming console with a phone attachment. After all the kids don't phone or talk to each other any more do they? Isn't texting or sending little movies or something that is the core communication method these days? A side benefit is that you never have to terminate all the tracking apps, they can just stay resident in memory all the time now without interfering with your day to day gaming needs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday July 08 2023, @08:17PM (2 children)
The RAM is almost never a bottleneck for Android games or console emulators running on phones, 8 GB is probably fine for almost everyone, maybe 12 GB for some extra cushion. Sustained CPU/GPU performance is more important for gaming.
If all you wanted to do was talk and text, a feature phone would be fine. The smartphone/fondleslab form factor lends itself to being better for the basic functions of web browsing and maps, and either one of those could be a killer feature for some people. Then comes the many apps. One example: you have to install a Walmart app to use a price scanner, they removed the physical ones that were hanging around in some aisles.
Smartphones are also the camera of opportunity for most people. Feature phones from 20 years ago have had cameras, but nothing like what is being put into smartphones. Videos taken by smartphones have changed society.
By its very nature, you are handling a surveillance device that is being location tracked by cell towers. Rather than worrying about every bit of tracking code, you should self-moderate what you do with it, not carry it everywhere, or don't buy one if tracking is a grave threat to you.
In theory, you could use a smartphone as a docked desktop and find ways to use RAM more aggressively. I'm not sure that Android's memory management can be trusted to work in sane ways in that scenario. There is no central desktop mode in the OS aside from an experimental one in Android 10, so you have to rely on vendor-specific modes like Samsung and Motorola. You could try running Linux or an Android alternative on your phone.
RAM specs above 16 GB are primarily for the Chinese market. 8 is a lucky number in China and that could be the MAIN REASON for the handful of 18 GB smartphones. I think the 18 GB package itself exists for both that reason and because 18 GB could be made into a 16 GB ECC package. I heard that ECC RAM could have some kind of efficiency benefit for smartphones but I don't think that has ever materialized. 24 GB is for bragging rights. We can only imagine how badly Android will waste or ignore all that memory.
Hundreds of gigabytes of storage could easily be filled by video recording, or downloaded games - I'm thinking a large library of emulator ROMs, some titles being in the 5-50 GB range. I'm pretty sure the latest flagship phones are emulating the Nintendo Switch with better resolution/FPS than the Switch can actually run its games.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 08 2023, @10:38PM (1 child)
I know there are docking stations, for lack of a better term, for phones but I had assumed that most of them was to get a better speaker and microphone solution, at least the once I have looked at. A sort of handsfree deluxe mode.
But perhaps that would be a nice thing if you could have a proper OS for the phone that could sort of switch between computer mode and phone mode. Phone-mode when you undock it and bring it with you and when it's docked it's still sort of phone as in you can use the phone functions but then also via the docking station connect it to a proper keyboard and a screen where you don't have to squint when you want to read a large document or keep doing that stupid "zoom" thing all over the document or constantly scrolling cause it can't display enough of it on screen. A "best of both worlds" sort of thing. Where you can use all the storage and computing power that is clearly not at least on tablet level or at least reaching perhaps standard lowbudget laptops in computing power. But if all you do is write some documents, surf around and reach email and videocalls then why would you need more.
But as Tangomargarine, it would be kind of bad if you dropped your "computer" in the toilet. Cause people don't do backups. Or that magical cloud does that with some kind of sync. But then the annoying popups and then eventually they are horribly out of date when you actually need them.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 10 2023, @03:33AM
The New Galaxy S23 Ultra Is Also Powerful Desktop PC! DEX Mode Is Amazing [youtube.com] (11m8s)
It's been done, and the phone and the desktop interface can be controlled separately rather than simple mirroring.
Turn An Android Phone Into A Desktop PC! Motorola’s New Desktop Mode! Moto Edge X30 [youtube.com] (10m28s)
I think at least 3 of the Android manufacturers have done this. Android could have its own native version, but Google seemed to have lost interest.
You can also use scrcpy [wikipedia.org] to mirror an Android phone's display inside of a window on another OS.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Saturday July 08 2023, @09:56PM (1 child)
I don't know about you, but *I've* always been disappointed at my inability to accidentally drop my desktop PC in the toilet.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 08 2023, @10:40PM
That is what I have been missing. Perhaps if you got one of them talking Japanese toilets? The drop could be bad, but then I have never misplaced my desktop computers either. So there is that one left to explore to.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 08 2023, @04:07PM (3 children)
I've never encountered a system error on Windows, Mac, or Linux, telling me that there is too much memory available.
"Windows is shutting down to disable excess memory that Windows is unable to address."
Nope, I've not seen that one.
(Score: 3, Touché) by SomeGuy on Saturday July 08 2023, @10:10PM (1 child)
I have. Windows 95 will refuse to start if there is more than ~940MB of ram available to it. There is an easy workaround for that. Of course, it was not designed for that much. There certainly were other OSes that had unintentional upper limits as well.
It still boggles my mind why anyone would need more than a couple GB of RAM unless they are running virtual machines, large databases, or other nerdy things that normal people would never do - especially on a toy cell phone.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 10 2023, @03:36PM
Firefox / Chrome can use a couple gigs of RAM just by themselves. Let alone, if they want to start Candy Crush or not.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday July 08 2023, @11:47PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Informative) by istartedi on Saturday July 08 2023, @07:12PM (1 child)
That's 375,000 C-64s.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by corey on Saturday July 08 2023, @11:43PM
I got more wholesome fun and education out of my C64 than any smartphone. Though I have to concede, you really could do a University degree by watching YouTube videos. But then again, do University degrees teach you machine language? 😊
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Saturday July 08 2023, @07:36PM (3 children)
... a 55 inch 8k screen and a keyboard and mouse?
If not, I think I will pass.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 08 2023, @08:20PM
You can probably connect it to a USB-C hub capable of supporting an 8K display, keyboard, and mouse. Or just the display and use a wireless keyboard/mouse.
The latest SoCs [qualcomm.com] are capable of decoding 8K @ 60 Hz HDR video.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday July 08 2023, @09:54PM
No kidding. My off-the-shelf desktop PC that's a couple years old now is only 1TB HD and 8GB RAM.
Also, what the heck is a "gaming phone"?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday July 08 2023, @11:49PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Saturday July 08 2023, @08:06PM
Needed for all the monitoring software and social credit score logging.