Over the past decade, the amount of RAM in a smartphone has increased at an incredible pace.

Today, most smartphones come with different RAM sizes, from 2GB for budget units to 12GB for flagship models. There are even some smartphones with 16GB on the market! This trend begs the question—how much RAM does a smartphone need?

The short answer is that you need at least 4GB. That's enough RAM for web browsing, social media, video streaming, and some popular mobile games. However, while that applies to most smartphone users, the amount of RAM you need depends on the apps you use, and many opt for smartphones with between 6GB-8GB RAM.

Confused yet? How much RAM does a smartphone need?

Why Does a Smartphone Need RAM?

Random access memory (RAM) is a common piece of computer hardware. Your desktop computer, laptops, and other handheld devices use RAM as temporary memory to store frequently accessed information. For example, when your smartphone is switched on, data concerning the operating system, apps, data, and more are all stored in RAM.

Furthermore, RAM is much faster than the storage on your device where you keep your photos and videos, but its capacity is much smaller. But as it holds the data concerning your open apps and other useful information, the more RAM your smartphone has, the better.

While RAM may have different designs and architectures across devices, RAM has a similar function across all devices.

iOS vs. Android RAM Usage

Aside from apps or programs, your PC or smartphone's operating system also consumes a significant amount of RAM. There are two popular operating systems for smartphone platforms: iOS for Apple devices and Android for pretty much everything else.

iOS uses less RAM than its Android counterpart since its chips are optimized and used exclusively with Apple products. Today, even a 2014-era iPhone 6 can still run the latest iOS version with just 1GB of memory. Apple's flagship iPhone 14, released in 2022, still only uses 6GB RAM, such is the incredible level of optimization performed by Apple's hardware.

Meanwhile, Android is used by several systems and brands. Android handset makers can also add customized skins, launchers, and preinstalled apps, all of which consume more RAM. In some cases, Android users cannot uninstall certain apps, which means they constantly consume space that could be used for other apps. Still, you'll also find most Android devices launching with between 4GB and 8GB RAM.

How Much RAM Does Your Smartphone Need?

The answer to this question varies from one person to another. For example, some smartphone users only do light browsing, texting, calling, and video streaming, which doesn't involve too much RAM usage. Meanwhile, other users also do a bit of mobile gaming and video editing, which requires more RAM.

To help you gauge how much RAM you need, let's look at some of the most common activities that people do on their smartphones:

• Social media apps like Facebook and Instagram take anywhere between 100MB to 500MB of RAM, depending on usage.
• Browsers like Chrome can consume a great deal of RAM, depending on usage, the number of tabs you have open, and the content of those tabs. It's not uncommon to see Chrome use more than 500MB RAM or even 1GB+.
• Video players like Youtube also consume about 500MB RAM depending on how many tabs are open and the video quality you are viewing. The better the video quality, the more RAM is required.
• Mobile games vary greatly based on their graphic quality and whether you play online or offline. For example, games like Minecraft on Android can use up to 1GB of RAM while running. However, extremely taxing games like Genshin Impact advise a minimum of 4GB RAM installed, and will likely use at least half of that while you're gaming.

Take note that you also have to add the RAM consumed by your operating system. From here, you can see why it makes sense that some mobile companies offer 6GB, 8GB, and even 12GB of memory. If you're using something like Samsung DeX, you're going to want more RAM.

Another thing to note is that you might see apps suggesting minimum recommended RAM, although the app doesn't use nearly that amount. That's because the app developer knows that you need more RAM to account for other apps running on the smartphone. So when the Facebook app says you need at least 2GB RAM, that's not because the app requires all of the RAM to run properly; it'll just make your smartphone experience much better overall if you have 2GB RAM installed while using the app alongside others (and again, not forgetting the operating system RAM requirements).

How to Check RAM Usage on Your Smartphone

To grasp how much RAM you need for your smartphone, you should also consider how much memory you are currently using. To do that, follow these instructions:

For Android Users

1. Go to Settings. Tap Device Care or Device Maintenance (varies by model).
2. Tap Memory. From here, you can see your phone's total amount of RAM, and how much is currently being consumed by the apps and services currently running.
3. In some phone models, you must enable Developer Options before completing the previous two steps. To do this, head to Settings > About. Scroll down and tap on the Build Number seven times before entering your PIN.

For iOS Users

1. From your home screen, go to Settings > General.
2. Tap iPhone Storage to see the available and used memory, plus a breakdown of which apps are using your RAM.

How Much RAM Does a Smartphone Need?

Just a decade ago, smartphone RAM wasn't even reaching the 1GB ceiling. Fast forward, and some flagship smartphone models have 12GB or even 16GB RAM on top of their impressive features. It's important to note that these models are still outliers, though.

Most smartphones phones come with between 6GB and 8GB RAM. For example, the 2022 Google Pixel 7 launched with 8GB RAM, and is a top-tier device. The aforementioned iPhone 14 (and its Pro variant) launched with 6GB RAM. It shows that using RAM efficiently is also important. Merely stuffing heaps more into a device isn't the be-all and end-all of creating a flagship smartphone and delivering a premium experience—though it can absolutely help.

If you are looking for a device with 16GB RAM, try Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G or the Oppo Find X3 Pro, both excellent smartphones.

So, how much RAM does your smartphone need? Anything with more than 6GB RAM should suffice, though if you're buying a smartphone for gaming or other intensive operations, you might consider an 8GB model.

Is 2GB RAM Enough for a Smartphone?

If you are using an older iPhone model, 2GB RAM is enough to operate. Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 16, will run on the aging iPhone 8 with just 2GB RAM. However, note that iOS 16 is the first iPhone to drop support for the iPhone 6, iPhone 7, and iPhone SE (and their variants).

For Android users, 2GB RAM may pose some concerns if you want to do more than browse or watch videos. Sometimes you may even experience OS-related slowdowns while completing typical daily tasks. Android 13, the latest Android version at the time of writing, requires at least 2GB RAM and 16GB storage. However, there is also a trick wherein you can use a Micro SD card to increase your RAM.

If you ever feel that your phone is slowing down when running some of the common apps you use, then you might want to consider upgrading to a device with more RAM.

The More Smartphone RAM, the Better

The answer to how much RAM a smartphone needs varies from one person to the next. Since we have different uses and priorities for our smartphones, you may need as little as 2GB or as much as 12GB. Overall, the best thing to do is allocate some extra RAM to ensure your smartphone runs well, even when the next big update rolls in.