Consumers are inherently looking for better smartphone features and specs, even if they had recently purchased a new smartphone. Our eyes keep beseeching for better value-for-money options at all times. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that we would be purchasing yet another smartphone, it is a part of evolution — for becoming smarter, and more knowledgeable consumers.

And one particular specification that almost always catches our eye is the RAM size. Most of us even use it as the deciding factor while choosing a new smartphone. If there are two smartphone models from different brands that are being offered at the same price point, more often than not, we go with the one that has the higher RAM size.

Smartphone OEMs today offer smartphones with different RAM sizes. From 2GB RAM in the budget and sub-7,000 INR segment to 4GB RAM in the sub-10,000 INR segment, and 6GB RAM and 8GB RAM in the mid-range segment, we have multiple options to choose from, even if we don’t want to splurge a lot of money on our new phone.

As we move up the price ladder, we now have multiple brands that offer even 12GB RAM along with their flagship models. An excellent example would be Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, or the recently released OnePlus 8. In fact, there are new phones that even come with 16GB RAM, but they haven’t hit the Indian market just yet.

This raises an important question: how much RAM do you really need in your phone? To better understand the necessity of a higher RAM size, we first have to know what a RAM does.

Importance of RAM

RAM is one of the most important components of a smartphone. While a phone’s processor can be considered as its heart, the RAM is akin to the central nervous system of the human body. It acts as temporary storage and feeds the data to the processor to process.

Considering RAM is much faster, and is easier to access than the internal storage or ROM of the smartphones, it is the link between a processor and the information it needs to process. RAM is also a volatile memory and needs the power to store the information.

When you use a smartphone, the processor ensures that the phone operates smoothly, while the RAM ensures that the actions, such as opening apps or switching between different applications, are done instantaneously. This essentially means that the higher the RAM size the phone has, the easier it becomes to multitask or fetch previously used apps.

When you hit the ‘Home’ button, the previously used apps still run in the background, unless you close or stop them. The apps running in the background make it easier for you to open the app again, and pick up from where you had previously left.

This is particularly important when it comes to playing games on your phone. You can go back to ‘Home’ while you are in the middle of the game, send a text or attend a phone call, and pick up from where you left, as the app keeps running in the background.

However, if your smartphone does not have enough RAM, that won’t be possible, and the app immediately closes, or you will get the dreaded ‘out of memory’ warning on your handset.

How much RAM do we really need?

Now coming to the most important point: how much RAM do you really need in a smartphone? The answer depends on how much you use your device, and for what purpose. Most of us use our phones to chat, text, call, maybe watch a few videos, and at times, click pictures.

However, there are those that depend on their phones extensively for various reasons. From playing their favorite games such as PUBG Mobile and Fortnite to editing documents, or even editing videos; smartphones today enable us to do most of our work on our pocket-sized devices.

If you fall into the latter bracket, then you would need an 8GB RAM mobile to be on the safe side. While 4GB RAM and 6GB RAM phones should be adequate, as the task becomes more intensive, the phone begins to lag, and you might experience the apps crashing, which can lead to you losing your data.

You wouldn’t want to lose the progress you make in a mobile game or work on a slow mobile phone that lags. In fact, the best mobiles under 25000 INR today come with 8GB RAM, such as Vivo V19, Vivo V20, and OPPO Reno3 Pro.

Thus, if you do light gaming, and do not perform intensive tasks, a 6GB RAM mobile would do. However, if you are an avid gamer, or edit videos on your phone, or depend on your smartphone for other work, an 8GB RAM mobile would be the ideal choice.