Last week, there was information that the OPlus group will soon introduce smartphones with 24 GB of RAM. The OnePlus Ace 2 Pro is expected to be the first phone of the group to offer the specified amount of RAM. However, the world’s first smartphone with 24 GB of RAM is the Red Magic 8S Pro. This device will be announced a few hours after this article is published.

Currently, 16GB of RAM is the most amount of memory that can be found in most phones. There are some 18GB products, however, mostly limited to China. So do you really need 24GB of RAM on your phone? I don’t think so, but there are some exceptions.

You will need at least 4GB of RAM to run essential apps in 2023

For those who don’t know, RAM is the fastest memory chip in any device. System software is loaded into RAM every time you start your smartphone or any other computer. RAM is also the memory where programs (including games) are loaded when they are started. Therefore, it is very important for your smartphone to work.

Currently, 2GB RAM minimum to run Android 13. Before that, there was only 1 GB. Today, you’ll only find mid-range RAM on entry-level smartphones that come with Android Go Edition. Whereas, most budget smartphones start with 4GB of RAM. You may not be able to multitask on such phones, but all modern apps run smoothly on these phones.

So, what is the ideal amount of RAM a smartphone should have?

Most programs consume about 100-200 MB of RAM. Some games may take 1.5GB or more. In 2023, it is desirable to buy a phone with at least 8 GB of RAM. This is why most popular flagship smartphones like the latest Samsung Galaxy S series start with 8GB of RAM. But since Chinese brands are always competitive, they provide a minimum of 12GB in their premium offer.

Also, if you’re browsing a lot on your multi-tab phone, I recommend choosing the one with the most RAM you can buy.

Because browsers like Google Chrome consume more RAM under heavy load than any program or game. In fact, the 64-bit version of Google Chrome requires at least 8GB of RAM.

However, having more RAM does not guarantee a great experience.

Ideally, if your phone has a lot of RAM, you should be able to run multiple apps in the background. If you’re running out of memory, apps shouldn’t be forced to close. Unfortunately, this is not the case with most phones with large amounts of RAM. Such smartphones are usually sold by Chinese brands, and their software prioritizes battery life by default.

So even with 18GB of RAM these phones tend to throw apps out of RAM even though there is enough free memory. You must manually limit these actions for each app on these devices to properly use the maximum available RAM. Sometimes even that doesn’t work.

That’s why software optimization is essential, even if the phone offers 24GB of RAM. Keeping more apps in memory is energy intensive, but the decision to suspend apps by default should be made by consumers.

24GB of RAM makes sense in certain use cases

Personally, I think it’s normal for some smartphones to have 24GB of RAM. However, it would be better to see this much memory in a device such as a horizontal folding tablet that folds into a tablet. Because these are high-performance machines designed to handle several tasks at the same time.

On the other hand, having 24GB of RAM on gaming smartphones also comes in handy, as you can keep multiple games running in the background and switch between them, just like on the Xbox Series X/S. But some of the most popular mobile games are now available online. multiplayer games that don’t need to be left in the background.

However, if you have 24GB of RAM in a regular smartphone, the maximum benefit you will get is keeping multiple apps running in the background. After all, you can’t multitask as efficiently as you can with compound tasks. So, in my opinion, having 24GB of RAM without any significant benefit in a regular smartphone is definitely overkill.