The big flaw with the Charge: lack of ram

[moondrius]

As much as I like this phone I have noticed something that almost makes me want to go back to the Thunderbolt. It would be the lack of ram. In the past couple days I have had the browser force close several times with just 1 tab open. Also when playing games if you switch out to respond to a text the game will also close itself. I don't believe my Fascinate did this and I know my Thunderbolt and Atrix did not. I have even rooted and froze a lot of bloatware. I bought it from best buy so I am going to give it the full 30 days before I make a decision. This is my phone of choice but if it does not have enough ram to mulittask then I don't know what to do. I was running sbp shell when I first got it and it ran smoothly but upon exiting a game it had to reload all over again. The phone runs great but the lack of ram is annoying.

 

[whitenessj]

be careful with your "30" days it is only 13 for refund 30 if your going to exchange.. sounds like you have a TB so i would be careful just a thought..and as for the force close I remember running 2.2 on my Incredible when i first had it and it ran buggy as well until it was "truely" rooted and had a decent ROM on it....

 

[moondrius]

Thanks, I don't have the Thunderbolt anymore so if I did do this it would be an exchange. It does not seem to be doing it today. I have been testing it. I closed all of the random stuff taking up memory in the background and it seemed to help a lot.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

How much free ram does this phone have at boot?

 

[whitenessj]

normal usage for me,

 

[moondrius]

I am going try to see if I can get it to do this again. Yesterday was the first time I noticed this and I have had it for 2 weeks.

 

[DroidXcon]

thunderbolt has ddr ram and i heard the charge has ddr2 so it may be something else

 

[whitenessj]

good call on the DDR 2 thought.... i haven't cracked mine open was hoping ifixit.com would do it for me..

 

[parch11]

getting mine on tuesday!!

 

[poloboogie]

The ram is a problem for me but my galaxy s 2 should be here tomorrow so no worries.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

 

[czm2000]

Looks like the Galaxy S 2 is coming to Verizon as the "Function". Looks like it's also coming to ATT and Sprint.

Pocketnow.com has a screen shot.

I wonder if it will be LTE.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

 

[mrblahblah]

I would love to wait for the Galaxy 2, but who knows exactly when it will come out, and maybe by the time it comes out Verizon will have already taken away their unlimited data plan.

 

[Joe the Insider]

It's a new phone and with new phones comes with problems at first. Look at the TB, it had A LOT of issues, but slowly they are going away with the update and the community working together to fix the rest. My recommendation is to ditch touchwiz for another launcher..

 

[whitenessj]

I agree completely the Touchwiz hog is the issue.... 512 mb is plenty when we get rid of the UI beast.. Well that and getting the file structure fixed ....

 

[das7771]

I had the Thuderbolt but exchanged it for the droid charge. The main reason was becuase I was charging it 3 times a day and there was no video out.. I can't stand extended batteries that are almost as thick as the acutal device. I had one on my incredible and it drove me nuts.

I am happy I got the Charge, it's in its infancy and will only get better with time. The screen is gorgeous and i love the fact that you can mirror the display via HDMI at 1080p 30mhz, actually looks pretty damn good on a 100inch screen with a HD projector. 512mb of memory is plenty once we get rid of Touch Wiz. The charge's battery use is three time better literally, than that of the Thunderbolt even with a custom rom.

I found out though, that if you buy a movie from the samsung hub app, you can not view it via HDMI out due to the drm/copywrite protection, which is ******ed. But you can view movies you transfer from your comp or any other source.

It's a great device and I am glad I got it, but every one is different and entitled to their preferences.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

No HDMI on media hub sucks! Hopefully rented movies in the market will work.

 

[das7771]

No HDMI on media hub sucks! Hopefully rented movies in the market will work.

No frickin kidding. You would think that would be the main reason for having it. One thing I did not check which I will do tonight, I was meesing with root explorer and I moved the movie file from the hub folders to my download folder. I noticed that there were two license files in the same folder as the movie file before I moved it. So tonight I am going to put it back in the original folder and see if maybe that fixes it, becuase it really makes not sense to not be able to watch a movie through HDMI that you purchased. I might have screwed up the licensing and that is why it doesnt work. So if I am giving misinformation I apologize for being stupid. I will update my findings once I get off of work and try it.

 

[moondrius]

Either way I don't plan on buying anything from media hub other then with the $25 credit. Its not a big deal to me.

 

[moondrius]

I am also convinced the gps has the same fascinate problem. I am on day 13 so I am really thinking about returning it. Its a shame, this phone is awesome otherwise. I could look past the ram problem but not the gps. I am being pulled up a mile away and if it does find me it drifts as if i was moving when I am standing still. It will see 10 satellites but cant ever lock on.

The more and more I test it the more it works. I don't get it. It works most of the time but sometimes it just wont lock.

 

[reflekt2099]

255MB/328MB is being used. and I have no programs running. other than programs that are running in the background. that basically leaves approximately 73MB left for actual programs to be launched and run.

is there any way to lower this idle RAM usage? I'm guessing rooting the phone, and removing the bloatware, will lessen the RAM usage?