Google announced this through a post on the official blog Android that the 13-based variant of Go increased the hardware-level requirements to 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.

For those who are lost Android Go is a variant of Google’s mobile operating system aimed at modest devices those who would find it hard to throw away the standard version. It is mainly marketed in developing countries, where the purchase of low-middle-class equipment, as we usually spend in the “rich” West, is a luxury that is not available to everyone.

The increase in resource consumption is a trend that has always been in the software industry as a result of the constant increase in hardware performance. Software monopolizing more resources isn’t a bad thing in itself, as long as it does so in exchange for good responsiveness, new features that are useful, and even better hardware utilization, which was seen when Chromium was benchmarked over the years. previously with the “original” Gecko that Firefox used, before Quantum came along.

However, looking at Android Go’s approach, the increased hardware requirements are perhaps bad news on all fronts, as having to use a more powerful device usually means spending more money. While the increase in RAM levels was announced via the official Android blog, Jason Bayton, Android Enterprise Expert and Google Product Expert, said about the storage.

The increase in hardware requirements will be reflected, as Google explains, in some improvements compared to Android 12, with special mention of faster application launch, greater autonomy, easier application sharing and greater privacy control. Some of these improvements were announced for the stock version of Android 13 at the time, and the Go variant is nothing more than a scaled-down version to improve system performance on modest devices.

Therefore, any device that doesn’t have at least 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage won’t be able to update to Android Go 13. We’ll see how the whole thing plays out when everything is deployed and consolidated.