topic Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM in XZ Series

Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

edmonddantes182 — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 01:27:49 GMT

Hey everybody, when Sony announced the XZ and X Compact I got super excited as I love Sony's prod. However, I don't get why the XZ (which I believe replaces the Performance as the current flagship now?) still has 3GB of RAM. Sony hasn't updated the RAM in their phones since 2014 with the Xperia Z2. I feel like Sony should've put 4GB of RAM in the XZ just to stay even more in the competition. This is just my opinion, what do you guys think?

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

MarlonUk1 — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 02:19:42 GMT

as they say Quality is always better than Quantity.

its not about how many ram they place in the phone but how the OS manage it. you can see some video comparisons on Youtube regarding 6GB ram phones performing worst compared to 3-4 gb rams with better software optimisation.,

so as long as 3 Gb ram works as intended. no need to add more. also imagine how much would sony charge for a 6Gb device...

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

YoGem — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 03:26:54 GMT

Nolramlb is right and mind also that 3gb are more than enough to run two or three heavy apps in the background, 6gb is a very nice addition but more than raising up prices it won't do really any good.

Also if Nougat will bring multiple apps in the foreground rather than in the background (and split windows) they won't arrive to use 3gb of ram at all. Many flagship of 2014 runs still with 2gb and 3gb, and they all perform without any lag whatsoever also because mind that android is based on Linux which is really greatly optimized.

3gb are good, 4gb are probably top! 6gb??? Meh, not worth.

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

0andytan0 — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 03:50:09 GMT

mine Z2 3GB Ram is totally enough for me.Phone running Kitkat 4.4.4

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

Lord_viridis — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:06:26 GMT

Some phones "need" 4gb to make up for crap memory management.
Luckily Sony doesn't use touchwiz....

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

ClarkLong — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:53:49 GMT

I'll follow you guys on this one. As Sony can optimize its custom Android and we don't have lagging issue, I don't mind to have "only" 3GB of Ram

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

azzido — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 20:38:25 GMT

I still would like to have 4GB of RAM, this 1 additional GB should not raise the price that much, and still would be more future ready. Someone mentioned that all TOP devices has 4GB, so meaning XZ is not TOP, like higher medium in terms of specs?

If others can do this Sony should be doing it as well, in the past Sony was including top specs in its flagship devices, since 2012 seems to forget about this particular component, no matter the public opinion was criticizing for it and demanding more / faster RAM. I really would like to see it for better multitasking and keeping the background apps really in the background. I mean, if you will switch to another apps and the switch back to app you've been using some time ago = it should not reload from the scratch but still keeping your session.

Fortunately Sony is doing rather good on RAM management, however I've got the feeling it has its best days on this topic behind. For some reason with newest Android the RAM management is no longer so good as it was in the past. Z5 here.

Many of my colleagus claims it is not competitive flagship and as a reason are giving always 3GB of RAM only.

I have a feeling that SONY is trying to use only its own components, produced by SONY, for example cameras, partially screens (japan display), probably internal memory (eMMC) and RAM as well. In my opinion this may be the reason why they are lacking in this area, not just because they cannot do this, because they could buy 4GB RAMs easily from other manufacturers, these are available from long time ago, but they do not rather want to. One of the reason why Sony is the most earning company in Android world when ic comes to profic from each single device being sold.

The same comes for rather slow eMMC internal memory, competition is offering faster solutions. For example S7 is using incredibly fast UFS storage that is comparable with SSD drives. This is why Shamesung was against adding SD card slot for so long time, as these SD cards are rather slow, and it could affect the performance. Sony unfortunately is still using eMMC which is not that fast. This is why in camera mode, after taking the picture it is taking so long time to load it and see in the gallery. All reviews are showing it and wondering why it happens. Sadly one big disadvantage of Sony devices...

Then again Sony, it's time to speed up and upgrade the hardware, using own processors should not be a bad idea either, as long as it would be fast and graphics as well, however I doubt Sony would be able to match or overtake Qualcommor Shamesung here.

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

Sunking1011 — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 20:14:40 GMT

Considering that 4GB has been the norm for flagships for a while now and that newer models in the coming months will have even more, I think that Sony skimped giving the XZ only 3GB. With just a few browser tabs open & one app I am using all my RAM and consequently experiencing reloading/refreshing. This is minimal smartphone usage and the XZ isn't futureproofed in this regard as already I am finding it crippled for RAM.

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

Thelastofus — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 20:56:01 GMT

When google pixel using 4GB RAM why SONY put only 3GB RAM ?? Strange move from SONY

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

Mackan87 — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 15:54:16 GMT

So people still think that more ram means more optimized and faster phone?

Re: Sony Xperia XZ and 3GB of RAM

Sunking1011 — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 17:33:26 GMT

That excuse stopped working for Apple. Until a couple of years ago they only had 1GB and suffered awful reloading. The 7+ now has 3GB of RAM and iOS is wayyyy more optimised than Android. On top of that Google still haven't sorted out the horrible memory leaks in Android (even with Nougat) so yes, throwing RAM at the problem is the best bet. 4GB is the minimum I'd want on a flagship Android phone purchased in late 2016 if I intended to keep it for more than a year.

3 GB RAM??!

HazemB — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:08:31 GMT

Why is Sony Xperia™ stuck with the 3GB RAM since the Xperia™ Z2??

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

Lord_viridis — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:53:11 GMT

Because so has everyone else up until just the last 6 months and on those cases, they need more because they have very poor ram management.

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

CameronT — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:55:12 GMT

Hi @HazemB,

3GB is more than enough for current applications. 1GB is used by Android, leaving 2GB free. Android manages RAM very effectivey, allocating the RAM to the current app, unloading apps that aren't used for a certain amount of time.

An Android device should be using all or nearly all of it's available RAM to maximise effectiveness.

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

Lord_viridis — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:59:28 GMT

Exactly that^^^
You'll find with "some" other brands, their launchers use absolutely shedloads of ram, forcing Android to close background tasks as it's designed to do. Adding more ram "hides" this and allows more background tasks to remain open than just 4-5 due to launcher being a hog.
Xperia home is very light and won't act in the same way as more hungry launchers.
On a modern, optimised handset, 3GB is ample, and keeps the system nice and snappy

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

Sunking1011 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 01:02:25 GMT

@viridis

Android itself has huge memory leaks, apparently still not fixed in Nougat and so manufacturers are throwing RAM at the problem. 4GB of RAM would have futureproofed the XZ for a year or two.

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

Lord_viridis — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 01:09:12 GMT

Not necessarily, keeping untold amounts of processes running in the background could also impact battery life if they are still running active processes. You could easily end up with lagging system or, like in the case of many Galaxy devices, apps restarting due to poor ram management.
I can't comment on Nougat, because on an Xperia it's not been seen yet, but with mm, the one thing Sony has got right is proper management of background tasks.

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

WarmWinter — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 01:11:20 GMT

No official explanation from Sony itself, but people speculating it.
1. With Sony's very light user interface, more than 4 GB is not needed. Because It will only reduce battery life, which Sony said as one of strong point of their phones. But I find some other phone with bigger RAM but has better battery life. So I'm not sure about it.

2. Trimming the fat, to cut cost. High performance RAM is expensive, and I'm sure Sony won't bother to use cheaper ones with low performance. Maybe.

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

Sunking1011 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 01:19:07 GMT

Other manufacturers manage to put 4-6GB of DDR4 RAM into their phones....along with faster internal memory too. The XZ contains a mixture of midrange and flagship specs.

Re: 3 GB RAM??!

CameronT — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 01:34:59 GMT

Hi @WarmWinter,

I am here representing Sony, you can see my response above. Viridis is also very much correct on the matter :smileysmileythumbsup: