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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (this author says if you need 8GB
to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead) This TechRadar article published today is titled: o The Samsung Galaxy S20 has more RAM than most laptops and that's stupid https://www.techradar.com/news/the-samsung-galaxy-s20-has-more-ram-than-most-laptops-and-thats-stupid The author notes the Samsung Galaxy S20 comes in 8GB & 12GB RAM choices and then the author asks and then answers the question for himself: "Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM ¡V or more? "I honestly don't think so." The author then asks (and answers) the next most obvious question: "So why has Samsung packed the Galaxy S20 range with so much RAM? I think the short answer is that it's a nice big number that sets it apart from handsets by its competitors." "By cynically including that much RAM, Samsung seems to be hoping that it will convince people that its phones are better than, say, the iPhone, because it has more RAM." The author then states: "Putting that much RAM into a smartphone isn't cheap" Is he sure about that? The TechRadar author claims: "It's $100 more than what the Galaxy S10 launched at, and a big part of that high price will be because of the RAM." Yet my current $100 64GB 8-core Motorola G7 has only 4GB of RAM (& my two year old $130 8-core 32GB LG Stylo 3 Plus had 2GB RAM), so certainly you can easily buy an _entire_ phone with 2GB to 4GB of RAM for around a hundred bucks so how much can just the few GB of RAM itself actually cost? In the end, the author is claiming that all that RAM will make developers lazy; do you agree or disagree? "But the point I'm making is that if the majority of phones start coming with 12GB of RAM, you can be damn sure that apps and operating systems will begin making use of that RAM. In some cases, it will involve adding great new features. In many cases, though, it will simply mean the software isn't as optimized as it once was. And no one wants that." Does a smartphone really need 8GB to 12GB of RAM? -- Usenet is where adults share useful tidbits of technical information. |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if youneed 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 2/17/20 12:42 AM, this is what Arlen Holder wrote:
Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (this author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead) This TechRadar article published today is titled: o The Samsung Galaxy S20 has more RAM than most laptops and that's stupid https://www.techradar.com/news/the-samsung-galaxy-s20-has-more-ram-than-most-laptops-and-thats-stupid The author notes the Samsung Galaxy S20 comes in 8GB & 12GB RAM choices and then the author asks and then answers the question for himself: "Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM �V or more? "I honestly don't think so." The author then asks (and answers) the next most obvious question: "So why has Samsung packed the Galaxy S20 range with so much RAM? I think the short answer is that it's a nice big number that sets it apart from handsets by its competitors." "By cynically including that much RAM, Samsung seems to be hoping that it will convince people that its phones are better than, say, the iPhone, because it has more RAM." The author then states: "Putting that much RAM into a smartphone isn't cheap" Is he sure about that? The TechRadar author claims: "It's $100 more than what the Galaxy S10 launched at, and a big part of that high price will be because of the RAM." Yet my current $100 64GB 8-core Motorola G7 has only 4GB of RAM (& my two year old $130 8-core 32GB LG Stylo 3 Plus had 2GB RAM), so certainly you can easily buy an _entire_ phone with 2GB to 4GB of RAM for around a hundred bucks so how much can just the few GB of RAM itself actually cost? In the end, the author is claiming that all that RAM will make developers lazy; do you agree or disagree? "But the point I'm making is that if the majority of phones start coming with 12GB of RAM, you can be damn sure that apps and operating systems will begin making use of that RAM. In some cases, it will involve adding great new features. In many cases, though, it will simply mean the software isn't as optimized as it once was. And no one wants that." Does a smartphone really need 8GB to 12GB of RAM? A do think the 'more memory will make devs lazy / sloppy" comment. Remember the days of Commodore 64s? 64GB of memory is 1 Million times larger than that 64K of memory. 1 MILLION. I wrote an entire BBS program in assembly language that would now take megs of software & memory if not gigs to do. So yes, with all this .net stuff now, it's loading DLLs up the wahzoo that carry a lot of unneeded overhead. At least on Windows, not sure about android code. I remember Word Perfect would run off of a 1.4M floppy. People toss the phrases of "memory is cheep" and "large drives are cheep" meaning: to hell with optimize, the program and data can be almost any size you want now. I lived on 10K salary back when, and if I got a $500 raise, I lived on 10.5K salary. My expenses just grew to meet the salary, I really didn't save more. It just seems to be the way of life. Al |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if youneed 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 02/17/2020 06:09 AM, Big Al wrote:
Remember the days of Commodore 64s? 64GB of memory is 1 Million times larger than that 64K of memory. 1 MILLION. When we got our first computer in 1977, hubby woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that he'd just saved 4 bytes in his BIOS program. That was the first thing he did. The second was write an editor. He's been refining that editor ever since. -- Cheers, Bev "Why put fault tolerance in the OS, when it's already built into the User?" -- Steve Shaw, regarding Win95 |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if youneed 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 2/17/20 8:09 AM, Big Al wrote:
[snip] Remember the days of Commodore 64s?Â* 64GB of memory is 1 Million times larger than that 64K of memory.Â*Â* 1 MILLION. I wrote an entire BBS program in assembly language that would now take megs of software & memory if not gigs to do.Â* So yes, with all this .net stuff now, it's loading DLLs up the wahzoo that carry a lot of unneeded overhead.Â* At least on Windows, not sure about android code. I wrote a BASIC expansion called BASIC PLUS that fit in 8K RAM (IIRC, $8000-$9FFF that could be disk-loaded or cartridge with the same code). I really got a LOT in that 8K. [snip] -- Mark Lloyd http://notstupid.us/ "We didn't send you to Washington to make intelligent decisions. We sent you to represent us." [Kent York, Baptist minister to US Rep. Bill Sarpalius] |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if youneed 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 2/17/20 10:22 AM, The Real Bev wrote:
On 02/17/2020 06:09 AM, Big Al wrote: Remember the days of Commodore 64s?Â* 64GB of memory is 1 Million times larger than that 64K of memory.Â*Â* 1 MILLION. When we got our first computer in 1977, hubby woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that he'd just saved 4 bytes in his BIOS program.Â* That was the first thing he did.Â* The second was write an editor.Â* He's been refining that editor ever since. The last thing I put into BASIC PLUS (for C64, see my other post) was the RESET command. I wanted an option that would do something else (disable BASIC PLUS if it was disk-loaded) when you entered RESET 0, but I didn't have enough memory left (3 bytes for the call to the system to get a number) so I had to make it do this other thing if you had ANYTHING after the RESET keyword. BTW, I often entered RESETT I had almost forgotten how much I liked optimizing code until a few years ago I got an Arduino, and wrote a program that converted text to Morse code using a translation table that fit into one byte per character. Morse code uses up to 6 bits per character and is variable-length. How do you fit a 6-bit code and a 3-bit count into one byte? BTW, I've been using Morse code on holiday lights for 29 years. -- Mark Lloyd http://notstupid.us/ "We didn't send you to Washington to make intelligent decisions. We sent you to represent us." [Kent York, Baptist minister to US Rep. Bill Sarpalius] |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Mon, 17 Feb 2020 09:09:23 -0500, Big Al
wrote: I remember Word Perfect would run off of a 1.4M floppy. People toss the phrases of "memory is cheep" and "large drives are cheep" meaning: to hell with optimize, the program and data can be almost any size you want now. I lived on 10K salary back when, and if I got a $500 raise, I lived on 10.5K salary. My expenses just grew to meet the salary, I really didn't save more. It just seems to be the way of life. I don't disagree. Large amounts of memory make authors lazy, but I don't think your example is a good one. Most raises, especially ones not accompanied by promotions or more responsibilities or more difficult assignments, are just enough to keep up with rising prices. And prices rise in part because salaries have. Al |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 2/17/2020 10:47 AM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 2/17/20 8:09 AM, Big Al wrote: [snip] Remember the days of Commodore 64s?Â* 64GB of memory is 1 Million times larger than that 64K of memory.Â*Â* 1 MILLION. I wrote an entire BBS program in assembly language that would now take megs of software & memory if not gigs to do.Â* So yes, with all this .net stuff now, it's loading DLLs up the wahzoo that carry a lot of unneeded overhead.Â* At least on Windows, not sure about android code. I wrote a BASIC expansion called BASIC PLUS that fit in 8K RAM (IIRC, $8000-$9FFF that could be disk-loaded or cartridge with the same code). I really got a LOT in that 8K. https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=We+Didn%27t+Have+Zeros |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if youneed 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 2/17/2020 6:09 AM, Big Al wrote:
snip I remember Word Perfect would run off of a 1.4M floppy. People toss the phrases of "memory is cheep" and "large drives are cheep" meaning:Â* to hell with optimize, the program and data can be almost any size you want now. I worked for one of the first networking companies where we had NICs for the Apple II, Commodore Pet, and TRS-80. The file server had two 8" floppy drives for a formatted capacity of 630KB ($4995). Or you could splurge and get the extended storage unit with 1.2MB ($5595). Eventually a unit with a 33MB hard drive was available for $9,995. Finally we had a 1.1GB model for $55,000 which came with a 60MB tape backup and a print server. You'd need 20 tapes to do a full backup, and good luck doing a restore. And remember, that storage was shared by a lot of users. |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 15:47:05 -0800, sms wrote:
You'd need 20 tapes to do a full backup, and good luck doing a restore. I _still_ have some of those magtapes, in a blue canister about a foot wide, with the lock ring on back, and the white plastic half-inch wide circumferential clasp on the outside (pictures avail upon request). The main question is when do phones become our "computers", in terms of RAM requirements, when particularly some of the newest phones apparently have more RAM than many laptops. Here is a related Gary Sims article (he's the guy who destroyed Apple's purely marketing argument about the iPhone RAM being better) that discusses the merits of ungodly amounts of RAM for a smartphone, such as the latest crop of top-of-the-line Android phones seem to possess... o Gary Explains: *How much RAM does your phone REALLY need in 2019*? https://www.androidauthority.com/how-much-ram-do-you-need-in-smartphone-2019-944920/ Here's another article asking a similar question of how much is too much? o *Is 10GB of RAM in a Phone an Overkill*? https://misstechy.com/2018/02/01/10gb-ram-phone-overkill/ See also iPhone's laughably paltry RAM ramifications compared to Android: o *Does Android use more memory than iOS*? ¡V Gary explains https://www.androidauthority.com/android-ios-ram-memory-usage-744848/ -- Usenet is where purposefully helpful adults share useful knowledge. |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
"Arlen Holder" wrote in message ...
Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (this author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead) This TechRadar article published today is titled: o The Samsung Galaxy S20 has more RAM than most laptops and that's stupid https://www.techradar.com/news/the-samsung-galaxy-s20-has-more-ram-than-most-laptops-and-thats-stupid The author notes the Samsung Galaxy S20 comes in 8GB & 12GB RAM choices and then the author asks and then answers the question for himself: "Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM ¡V or more? "I honestly don't think so." The author then asks (and answers) the next most obvious question: "So why has Samsung packed the Galaxy S20 range with so much RAM? I think the short answer is that it's a nice big number that sets it apart from handsets by its competitors." "By cynically including that much RAM, Samsung seems to be hoping that it will convince people that its phones are better than, say, the iPhone, because it has more RAM." The author then states: "Putting that much RAM into a smartphone isn't cheap" Is he sure about that? The TechRadar author claims: "It's $100 more than what the Galaxy S10 launched at, and a big part of that high price will be because of the RAM." Yet my current $100 64GB 8-core Motorola G7 has only 4GB of RAM (& my two year old $130 8-core 32GB LG Stylo 3 Plus had 2GB RAM), so certainly you can easily buy an _entire_ phone with 2GB to 4GB of RAM for around a hundred bucks so how much can just the few GB of RAM itself actually cost? In the end, the author is claiming that all that RAM will make developers lazy; do you agree or disagree? "But the point I'm making is that if the majority of phones start coming with 12GB of RAM, you can be damn sure that apps and operating systems will begin making use of that RAM. In some cases, it will involve adding great new features. In many cases, though, it will simply mean the software isn't as optimized as it once was. And no one wants that." Does a smartphone really need 8GB to 12GB of RAM? My programming days are far behind me so I won't comment on any of those aspects. Is 8GB of RAM or more really necessary? Depends but from what I see on a daily basis at one of my clients (hi-end automotive service) his technicians use several hand held devices which include phones, tablets and laptops - as well as having access to servers equipped with TB's of service data. A service tech often uses a phone or tablet with special apps (from Mitchell1, Bolt On Technology, AllData, etc.) to lookup service data, order parts, take photo's of repairs in progress, record repairs and to complete online forms when performing performance tuning on vehicles, updating vehicle computers as well as performing diagnostic tasks and keeping clients aware of progress. They use email and chat also as part of their daily routine on keeping customers informed and use numerous online web services to help diagnose difficult problems - and all of that takes memory - and lots of it. That may be a special use case but I can think of other uses for a phone that is essentially used as a workstation. Medical field (my niece is a trauma nurse) and a phone is way more practical than rolling around a laptop on a mobile stand and having to use two hands to hold a tablet. She can use the Bluetooth/NFC features to capture readings directly from ambulance equipment or other patient monitoring equipment, make verbal notes during procedures and send those to doctors along with the monitoring data. And when she consults with others, she can mirror the data from her phone to a large screen monitor so others can see. So yes - there really is a need and Samsung and others will fill it because there are users that need compact hand-held workstations - it just may not be you. -- Bob S |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if youneed 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 17/02/2020 17.22, The Real Bev wrote:
On 02/17/2020 06:09 AM, Big Al wrote: Remember the days of Commodore 64s?Â* 64GB of memory is 1 Million times larger than that 64K of memory.Â*Â* 1 MILLION. When we got our first computer in 1977, hubby woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that he'd just saved 4 bytes in his BIOS program.Â* That was the first thing he did.Â* The second was write an editor.Â* He's been refining that editor ever since. How many thousands of dollars will that editor cost? Are those optimizations worth it, in dollars? Who cares about saving a megabyte, if it costs a hundred hours of programmers plus whatever in testing and publishing! You have to measure optimizations in dollars, not bytes. Memory is cheaper than developer time. -- Cheers, Carlos. |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if youneed 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
On 18/02/2020 03.21, Arlen Holder wrote:
On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 15:47:05 -0800, sms wrote: You'd need 20 tapes to do a full backup, and good luck doing a restore. I _still_ have some of those magtapes, in a blue canister about a foot wide, with the lock ring on back, and the white plastic half-inch wide circumferential clasp on the outside (pictures avail upon request). The main question is when do phones become our "computers", in terms of RAM requirements, when particularly some of the newest phones apparently have more RAM than many laptops. Don't forget that many people that own a smartphone don't own any computer, thus the phone (or hopefully a tablet) is their only computing device they ever had. And the fact that you own computer tapes disqualifies you as judge of this, you are too old :-P -- Cheers, Carlos. |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
Arlen Holder wrote:
Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (this author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead) I tried reading some articles about Android, and it just isn't designed like other OSes. Android won't allow one process to use all the RAM on the machine. The max heap is set to around 50MB. So right away, the design is prefaced on "containerization" and ensuring that one App cannot inconvenience another App. Given the nature of the mechanism (without wasting any more ink on details no one cares about), no, 12GB of RAM would be useless unless you can put something other than Android on there. Android does have a mechanism, where an exited App continues to live in memory. The system RAM then, is treated as a "read cache" in a sense, allowing a program to start faster the second time it is used. But from a user perspective, this is a pretty limp usage of RAM. I wouldn't pay an extra $100 so my OS could have more fun, while I'm sitting there looking out the window. When I buy 12GB of RAM, I expect to "edit an 11GB JPG with it" :-) I did do one computing project here, where the memory footprint was 80GB, and there was a rather substantial swap file. My machine was "doing what I wanted to do" and not the inverse. That was a panoramic stitching application (which, as it turns out, didn't work all that well). Paul |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the authorsays if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 17/02/2020 17.22, The Real Bev wrote: On 02/17/2020 06:09 AM, Big Al wrote: Remember the days of Commodore 64s?Â* 64GB of memory is 1 Million times larger than that 64K of memory.Â*Â* 1 MILLION. When we got our first computer in 1977, hubby woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that he'd just saved 4 bytes in his BIOS program.Â* That was the first thing he did.Â* The second was write an editor.Â* He's been refining that editor ever since. How many thousands of dollars will that editor cost? Are those optimizations worth it, in dollars? Who cares about saving a megabyte, if it costs a hundred hours of programmers plus whatever in testing and publishing! You have to measure optimizations in dollars, not bytes. Memory is cheaper than developer time. Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1205/ |
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Does a smartphone really need 8GB of RAM (the author says if you need 8GB to 12GB of RAM, get a Windows laptop instead)
In alt.comp.os.windows-10 Carlos E.R. wrote:
.... Don't forget that many people that own a smartphone don't own any computer, thus the phone (or hopefully a tablet) is their only computing device they ever had. And the fact that you own computer tapes disqualifies you as judge of this, you are too old :-P I hate using smartphones and tablets. I prefer old school computers even if they are very old like netbooks! Yes, I'm old school. :P -- "Oh bother", said Winnie the Pooh, "There's an ant on my foot..." Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly. /\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org / / /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail. | |o o| | \ _ / ( ) |
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