Why is my phone using so much RAM with only background items running?

[TopEnd77]

Note 3- even just after cleaning, with no programs open or running other than in the background, my phone is right at 2GB out of 2.77GB of RAM used. It's been noticeably slower even after a restart.

 

[Rukbat]

First - never "clean" RAM - Android doesn't run that way, it wants as much RAM in use as possible. (Multitasking the Android Way is an explanation of why by one of the engineers who worked (works?) on Android.) If you do, and can see what apps you're "cleaning", you'll notice that sometimes you "clean" an app out only to have it pop right up again. Let Android do its thing - the phone runs faster, and you use less battery, that way. (I've decided, after a bit of study, that any company that understands Android so little that they write "RAM cleaner" apps doesn't know Android well enough for me to use any of their apps.)

The reason it runs slower after a restart is that Android is loading the app you want to run plus other apps it needs running that you're not aware of. After a while you'll be using more RAM, so those apps will already be loaded and the phone will speed up again.