Is 4GB of RAM large enough for pixel 3 and XL

[Almeuit]

I agree with the sentiment, but I also don't think it's a problem to "only" have 4GB. Some people want to sensational that it's "bad for a 2018 phone" to have 4GB, even though many releases do. Like the S9...

And that's fine if they do. We all aren't going to agree on every point.

 

[anon(10092459)]

And that's fine if they do. We all aren't going to agree on every point.

Indeed. I guess it would be kind of boring if we did.

 

[Mike Dee]

Please show me in my post where I stated I "don't feel that 4GB of memory is adequate" or anything remotely resembling that. It isn't what I wrote and has nothing to do with the point of my post.

You wrote about how 2.5GB average RAM usage was some mythical, perfect number, so nothing more could even be needed or used. My point was simply this: The OS will efficiently allocate the amount of RAM available to it. IF the OS has more RAM available it can keep more apps in usage while still having a reserve available.

Look at it as a ratio - on your 4GB phone the OS allocates 5/8ths (2.5GB) of the RAM for constant usage and reserves 3/8ths for buffering/fluctuations etc. At the same ratio, more RAM would allow more apps to remain open/available AND have more reserve available for buffering/fluctuations etc. 2.5GB is not some magic, perfect number of RAM usage.

I didn't come up with a mythical number or state that it was perfect. I simply stated what average number is that Pixel uses for memory. Based on my usage of the phone for about a year i have not experienced any issues.

That's all I'm going to say on this matter because I'm not here to argue.

 

[TraderGary]

Here's my Memory usage screen.

 

[chezm]

I personally am worried a little. My 2 XL does have the slow down issues. This happens mostly when using Android Auto. I don't have a head unit with Android Auto, so everything is run on the phone. Every couple days it will slow down and get unresponsive to almost unusable. I would have to restart the phone. Been tempting to reset my phone, but decided not to since the Pixel 3 is almost here.

To be fair my iPhone 7+ has similar issues with Carplay, i recall AA being somewhat buggy at times but Carplay aint free of problems either (and thats connected to the car directly). I personally dont think its a RAM processing issue but the software bugs, but thats an assumption.

 

[klau25]

To be fair my iPhone 7+ has similar issues with Carplay, i recall AA being somewhat buggy at times but Carplay aint free of problems either (and thats connected to the car directly). I personally dont think its a RAM processing issue but the software bugs, but thats an assumption.

Possible, sometimes picture in picture can slow down the phone too. As I recall, my the Nexus 6P I had was almost unusable with how much slow down I had at the end of life, but seems like that was an issue for a lot of people.

 

[chezm]

Possible, sometimes picture in picture can slow down the phone too. As I recall, my the Nexus 6P I had was almost unusable with how much slow down I had at the end of life, but seems like that was an issue for a lot of people.

That was the same phone i was refering to with AA lol so maybe it was associated to 6P ...interesting

 

[Robisan]

That was the same phone i was refering to with AA lol so maybe it was associated to 6P ...interesting

Interesting, I haven't had any issues running AA directly on my 6P, though I don't tax the phone with anything else other than maps/navigation. No media usage while using AA.

 

[vzwuser76]

That was the same phone i was refering to with AA lol so maybe it was associated to 6P ...interesting

Let's also remember that the 6p had the SD810 inside. While Google & Qualcomm did a lot to mitigate the issues with both it and the SD808 chips in the 6p and 5x, they didn't eliminate their issues. It was definitely Qualcomm's off year. And IIRC, one of the issues with the SD810/808 was that they had thermal issues when called to take on a heavy workload, it'd overheat and performance would decrease or even grind to a halt. It was the reason that Google didn't certify the 6p for Daydream VR even though it had the screen resolution.

 

[I Can Be Your Hero]

I mean, I guess .. Guy's video was horrible. Anybody running a "test" by eyeballin' it then say "sorry, I wasn't paying attention" kinda loses all cred for me.. But to each his own.

Do you guys really open all them apps and keep them open? Games and video and Spotify and all your social media and Chrome and just leave them open and at the ready? Gracious the clutter alone after about 5 apps would drive me nuts. No wonder some people going on about enough RAM and battery size.

Well the guys video demonstrates that the Pixel 3 kills of applications rather than keeping them in ram, which leads to more reloads and a slower experience. And yes I leave the apps in the background, I don't swipe away applications from the multitasker because when I go back to the app, I'd like it to be functional right away rather than have to wait for it to reload.

Worse yet is hearing that the Pixel 3 runs out of ram very quickly when the camera app starts snapping pictures and can close off the music player.

A lot of open apps just makes it difficult to scroll through them. The Operating system does a pretty good job of memory mangement. I don't know if you or anyone else takes a look at their memory statistics which they seem to have hidden but the OS seems to average about 2.5GB in constant use with 1.5 to spare.

That's because the phone keeps killing off apps rather than keep them in the ram so they're ready for people to use. If it had more ram it'd be able to keep more apps in the background so a 6gb ram phone might be using 4.5gb and have 1.5gb spare.

This argument that less is fine and more isn't any better is so ridiculous. Maybe Google should have put in 2gb ram right?

 

[chezm]

Interesting, I haven't had any issues running AA directly on my 6P, though I don't tax the phone with anything else other than maps/navigation. No media usage while using AA.

Keep in mind this was 2 years ago, updates after 7.0 (last time I used it) could have resolved the issues I had back then

 

[mustang7757]

I think people need to get more educated about this

 

[mustang7757]

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-much-ram-does-a-smartphone-need/

 

[anon(10092459)]

Well the guys video demonstrates that the Pixel 3 kills of applications rather than keeping them in ram, which leads to more reloads and a slower experience. And yes I leave the apps in the background, I don't swipe away applications from the multitasker because when I go back to the app, I'd like it to be functional right away rather than have to wait for it to reload.

Okay, I hear you on that. Definitely a different user case than my own, as I spend more time in search and chrome, phone calls and text, than native apps and probably suggests how we see the RAM need differently. I might have 5-7 apps open, maybe.. 10 would be high.

A baseline of 4GB is more than enough to suite my needs, thus my high opinion of the device. Just like I don't think the new baseline for storage should be 128GB. I literally MIGHT touch 20GB and the rest would be wasted. But I can see how your concerns for your style of tech may be valid in your everyday use.

Worse yet is hearing that the Pixel 3 runs out of ram very quickly when the camera app starts snapping pictures and can close off the music player.

Personally, I'd like to see more than a random tweet (especially from DB) or soundbite on an interview to see this as valid. We don't know that it's just not a bug or something like that.

 

[Guyinbox]

Might be an issue. The Pixel doesn't seem to keep much in ram and leads to a lot of apps having to reload. Skip to 5:06 if the video doesn't start from there.

https://youtu.be/NrIHYHLaLzA?t=296

This is exactly what i was talking about with the 2xl. The phone runs great, but it will rarely keep 5 apps running in the background. They'll all show in the app switcher window, but most of them will have to reload once you switch back to them. It's an annoyance and a compromise i don't think they should've made on a $1k phone when you can find $300 phones with 6gb of RAM

 

[chezm]

Well the guys video demonstrates that the Pixel 3 kills of applications rather than keeping them in ram, which leads to more reloads and a slower experience. And yes I leave the apps in the background, I don't swipe away applications from the multitasker because when I go back to the app, I'd
like it to be functional right away rather than have to wait for it to reload.

Worse yet is hearing that the Pixel 3 runs out of ram very quickly when the camera app starts snapping pictures and can close off the music player.





That's because the phone keeps killing off apps rather than keep them in the ram so they're ready for people to use. If it had more ram it'd be able to keep more apps in the background so a 6gb ram phone might be using 4.5gb and have 1.5gb spare.

This argument that less is fine and more isn't any better is so ridiculous. Maybe Google should have put in 2gb ram right?

Maybe it’s more the pricepoint and if they added 2gb more it would bring cost up $100 more even closer to the iPhone X. Not gonna argue 2gb more would cost a $100, we know it’s not but maybe googles justification is more stubborn to get price point as cheap as possible.

 

[vzwuser76]

Well the guys video demonstrates that the Pixel 3 kills of applications rather than keeping them in ram, which leads to more reloads and a slower experience. And yes I leave the apps in the background, I don't swipe away applications from the multitasker because when I go back to the app, I'd like it to be functional right away rather than have to wait for it to reload.

Worse yet is hearing that the Pixel 3 runs out of ram very quickly when the camera app starts snapping pictures and can close off the music player.





That's because the phone keeps killing off apps rather than keep them in the ram so they're ready for people to use. If it had more ram it'd be able to keep more apps in the background so a 6gb ram phone might be using 4.5gb and have 1.5gb spare.

This argument that less is fine and more isn't any better is so ridiculous. Maybe Google should have put in 2gb ram right?

With Google moving to the (supposedly) faster F2FS file system it might mean that app load times are faster than they were with the previous EXT4 file system. In that case, killing unused apps of might not be as detrimental (for app load times) as it would've been had they stuck with their previous setup.

Now I'm not saying that it wouldn't have been nice to have 6GB, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the issue some reviewers are having is tied directly to RAM either. It could very well be that it's not a resource issue and that 2 apps aren't playing nicely with each other. If that's the case, throwing more RAM at the issue may not help.

That's one of the things I had to drill into the electronics techs I trained at my old job. Find the root of the problem, don't just replace hardware because many times that doesn't fix the underlying cause. I had guys who'd replace a component or piece of hardware even though it hadn't been in service for very long. Most times they ended up with 2 fried pieces of equipment.

Now you may be correct in that it is a resource issue, but guessing the cause by the effect without any evidence to support it is still a guess. So until we see some evidence to support that supposition, we're engaging in a pointless discussion. Sticking with 4GB of RAM does save Google money, but having a device that can't do what it's supposed to would cost them a lot more, and not just in the near term. I doubt Google would want to risk that.

 

[Mike Dee]

This argument that less is fine and more isn't any better is so ridiculous. Maybe Google should have put in 2gb ram right?

It's not ridiculous to everyone...it's just ridiculous to those who feel it's not enough. I'm OK with it being 4GB.... I also would have been OK if it was 6GB but it's not. I can't change that and you can't change that. You knew up front that it wasn't enough for you but you bought it anyway. That was your choice and if that makes you that unhappy, my advice is that you should just refuse it and get the device that makes you happy if such a device exists. I mean that in the sincerest way I can possibly express. You were unhappy with Pixel 2 the whole time you had it and you actually returned it once if I recall correctly.

A lot of things you didn't like about the 2 series have been corrected with the 3 series except this one issue that you are hanging on to and my instincts tell me that's its going to bug you the whole time you own it and you don't even have it yet.

Please don't take my comments the wrong way and I hope I'm wrong about the situation.

 

[WarBeagle]

Round and round we go. It's all dependent on what the user installs on their phone. So yes, 4GB could limit performance after a while if youvload the phone with tons of apps, widgets, bloat, etc that constantly use resources.

If you want a fancy UI with all kinds of sparkles and sunshine, get a Sammy. The Pixel would not be the right device for you.

I'm on OG Pixel (Oct 2016 purchase) with maybe 25-30 non standard apps. Performance is good and I've never factory reset my phone.

I think folks need to understand resource allocation with various apps, widgets, etc.

 

[Lobwedgephil]

I will say this, it doesn't crash the music when playing Apple Music and taking pictures. Must be a bug, or spotify issue and not ram, which is good news. Now closing most apps is a different story, but I don't care about that. Becoming a non issue to me.