Lollipop 5.1 available now.

[cybernutte]

Here you go.

Thanks for the link. It's nice, I suppose that users may have more control over where on the SD card to put something, but I'm more concerned about how few things seem to be able to be moved to the SD card at all. I don't want to root my phone, and I was hoping that the changes Lollipop was making would include allowing non-rooted users to make much greater use of the SD card. Perhaps I missed something, but I didn't see anything in the article you cited that indicated the kind of change I was hoping for. I'd love to find that I'm mistaken.

 

[rrballer11]

Thank you so much for responding! You have hit my point exactly! Why is RAM so precious that money can't be "wasted" on unused capacity? That is, why does it cost so much? They give you a computer with a terabyte hard drive which most people will never use, why not give them 5 or 10 gigabytes of RAM that they may never use? Thanks again for your help.

Because chances are that, that hardrive will be used? That's storage... The average person won't EVER!! use more then 8 GB of ram on current computers, its basically impossible to, unless your running a server or some very heavy programs. They are both 2 different things and get used totally different.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[smooth3006]

hopefully the new flagships coming out will have the most up to date lollipop release on it. google has no idea how their constant updates screw the oems and carriers. no wonder android is soo damn fragmented.

 

[StLouisMan2]

Because chances are that, that hardrive will be used? That's storage... The average person won't EVER!! use more then 8 GB of ram on current computers, its basically impossible to, unless your running a server or some very heavy programs. They are both 2 different things and get used totally different.
Posted via Android Central App

Very well. Eight gigabytes of RAM for everyone and I'll be content. I like to have a lot of programs running in the background. Clouds, Skype, Evernote, etc. and I can't do that with just 2 gigabytes.

 

[Shilohcane]

Thank you so much for responding! You have hit my point exactly! Why is RAM so precious that money can't be "wasted" on unused capacity? That is, why does it cost so much? They give you a computer with a terabyte hard drive which most people will never use, why not give them 5 or 10 gigabytes of RAM that they may never use? Thanks again for your help.

RAM memory is a volatile types of memory (such as DRAM memory modules), where stored information is lost if power is removed. RAM retains its contents while powered on but when the power is interrupted the stored data is immediately lost. That means even when you aren't using your phone the RAM is burning your battery. The more RAM you add the more battery you use. Your terabyte hard drive on you laptop is magnetic memory that doesn't require power to maintain memory that is used to load the RAM memory on yur Laptop since the Disk is too slow. A SD Card is Flash memory that doesn't require power to store information but it is too slow of memory to replace RAM. I replaced my Laptop's magnetic terabyte disk with a much smaller and more expensive Solid State Drive which is FLASH memory that is much faster than the rotating magnetic terabyte hard drive. Now I can boot my laptop is second and not minutes and every thing from the small Solid State Drive loads quick in the the fast RAM memory.

RAM cost a lot since it is very fast. As far as rotating computer disk, you have no idea how large in reality that a GB is HUGE. About 14 years ago I was selling a GB of IBM's SSA disks under Unix/AIX for about $1 million per GB. Disks back then were limited to 1.1 and 2.2 Mega Bytes not Giga Bytes. Also, back in 1980 I worked for a Computer MFG that sold 64 kilobytes of CACHE memory ( faster than RAM) for about $75,000.

RAM memory prices are already dirt cheap compared to 10 years ago but they will continue to get larger, faster and cheaper plus use less power. The only reason we are still using Magnetic and FLASH memory today is because RAM is small, expensive and requires power to store information.

 

[DLK1]

RAM memory is a volatile types of memory (such as DRAM memory modules), where stored information is lost if power is removed. RAM retains its contents while powered on but when the power is interrupted the stored data is immediately lost. That means even when you aren't using your phone the RAM is burning your battery. The more RAM you add the more battery you use. Your terabyte hard drive on you laptop is magnetic memory that doesn't require power to maintain memory that is used to load the RAM memory on yur Laptop since the Disk is too slow. A SD Card is Flash memory that doesn't require power to store information but it is too slow of memory to replace RAM. I replaced my Laptop's magnetic terabyte disk with a much smaller and more expensive Solid State Drive which is FLASH memory that is much faster than the rotating magnetic terabyte hard drive. Now I can boot my laptop is second and not minutes and every thing from the small Solid State Drive loads quick in the the fast RAM memory.

RAM cost a lot since it is very fast. As far as rotating computer disk, you have no idea how large in reality that a GB is HUGE. About 14 years ago I was selling a GB of IBM's SSA disks under Unix/AIX for about $1 million per GB. Disks back then were limited to 1.1 and 2.2 Mega Bytes not Giga Bytes. Also, back in 1980 I worked for a Computer MFG that sold 64 kilobytes of CACHE memory ( faster than RAM) for about $75,000.

RAM memory prices are already dirt cheap compared to 10 years ago but they will continue to get larger, faster and cheaper plus use less power. The only reason we are still using Magnetic and FLASH memory today is because RAM is small, expensive and requires power to store information.

Well put!

 

[StLouisMan2]

RAM cost a lot since it is very fast. RAM memory prices are already dirt cheap compared to 10 years ago but they will continue to get larger, faster and cheaper plus use less power. The only reason we are still using Magnetic and FLASH memory today is because RAM is small, expensive and requires power to store information.

So the precious aspect of RAM is its speed? It sounds like the need for power to maintain it is the precious commodity. I do see with phones and tablets being all about battery life, you need to be careful about how much RAM is involved. More is better only to the point of its draining your power supply. Similarly, a portable laptop needs a battery, so you have to careful there too about tons of RAM. So that leaves only the desktop computer which has to be plugged in all of the time anyway. There is no reason not to provide every desktop with a healthy 8 GB of RAM for anything it might ever need to do. But desktop computers is a topic for a different forum.
I think that I understand. More RAM means a need for more battery life. That is the sticky wicket. Thanks so much for your time and help.