Is All Ram Equal?

[barry1010]

It seems obvious but I can't understand why my cheap phone has 12 GB of RAM, much more than most tablets.

Can anyone shed a light on this?

[bhg481]

No, RAM has varying access speeds. A tablet will require fast RAM, your phone doesn't need speed as much. Faster RAM costs more per byte.

[Gromit]

My not cheap iPhone has just 4mb of ram but is very fast.
It is able to get away with this small amount because the OS is very efficient, and there is little bloat.
Your cheap phone probably has a poor operating system.

[barry1010]

My phone might be cheap but it is faster than my iPad Pro tablet in every respect.

[bhg481]

Age difference, barry? RAM speed/£ has increased noticeably over the years.

[barry1010]

They are both fairly new, the iPad was a birthday present, both less than 4 months old, both latest models.

[Geoffrey13]

The RAM on the first computer I ever worked on was the dimension of a double wardrobe. But it certainly wasn't 12 GB (I don't remember the actual size, but certainly less than a Gigabyte). And we didn't call it RAM in those days - it was Core Store.

Those were the days [sigh]

[barry1010]

Those were indeed the days, I don't miss the squealing dial up modem, though.

[bhg481]

This was mine in 1963:

https://ibb.co/0BKvqkM

The Pegasus computer was manufactured by Ferranti Ltd from 1955 to about 1962. About 40 systems were sold. It was popular with users because of its consistent and clean architecture. The machine used plug-in package construction, main store was a 4096- or 8128-word drum, computing store about 50 words of nickel acoustic delay lines, serial bit-rate 333 kc/S, 39-bit words, paper tape in and out.

[barry1010]

Big spare room, bhg :D

[barry1010]

I have now discovered that the RAM in my phone is 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM

Good, bad, indifferent, fast, slow - anyone know?

[youngmafbog]

//Your cheap phone probably has a poor operating system.//

Ah, the typical iphone user.

Personally I wouldnt give Apple house room, never have never will. As a programmer I find their products very restrictive.

In answer to the OP, yes RAM differs. Judge it by how the machine works rather than a paper spec.

[barry1010]

Thanks, young. The phone works extremely well. I am really puzzling as to why tablets tend to have less RAM. I know the Kindle is a very cheap tablet and they need to keep price down but even my Samsung tablet has only 4GB of RAM.

As an aside, I am very disappointed that Apple still don't allow more than one user profile per iPad.

[youngmafbog]

Yes, my Lenovo has 4MB running Android 12.

Really its down to the type of app you are running, just like a laptop or PC. Most apps on tablets really dont use much so they dont put much in to keep the price down. More RAM means that more code is readily available for fast access, if it runs out of RAM then it needs to page which slows it down. Although with SD cards this is not so bad these days.

Although I bashed Gromit just now he is sort of correct in that old operating systems (Apple/Android or whatever) wont utilise the processors (not so much the RAM) so well. However having said that it is more poorly written apps (on all machines including mainframes) that give poor performance.

Really as I said above, unless you are using a really intensive app (some games for instance) then 4Gb is more than enough.

[Togo]

It is very different barry. A mobile phone uses LPDDR(Low Power Double data Rate). The low power being very important of course whilst the ram installed is used very differently. PCs and laptops etc. are equipped with RAM as we know it either Sram, Dram, Ecc being some configurations and are installed at manufacture to suit the device or intended use. Some are replaceable. It is a good question in that there is no definitive answer but their are many explanations.

[Togo]

Nice link explaining a little about mob. phone ram usage.

https://www.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care

[Peter Pedant]

oh it looks like my electron microscope

zeiss degenhardt EM 9S - saw one in a film once

1963 - surely only a few thousand bytes RAM - I thought of buying a winchester whizzy thing once.

the computer at Porton Down filled a nissen hut ( valve obviously) - Shrewsbury School had one ( hand me down computer, valve)

[barry1010]

I see the latest iPhone 13 has the same type of RAM 6GB LPDDR5

Thanks all, interesting answers, much to think about

[barry1010]

Togo, you refer to laptops and PCs. I am specifically querying the difference between phones and tablets. Why don't they put more RAM in tablets, they also use low powered double data RAM as far as I can tell.

[PsalmEquipt]

Phones with 12GB of RAM are doing so in pursuit of maximum speed and performance. More RAM doesn’t guarantee this, but because of a comparison-driven market, most phones will eventually have 12GB RAM. Tablets are taking the same route. The first 11-inch iPad Pro had 4 or 6 GB of RAM, the 2nd Gen had 6GB, and the 3rd Gen now has 8 or 16 GB RAM.