Is it necessary to purchase a smartphone with a large memory capacity? How should we view this phenomenon of smartphone memory expanding to 24GB+1TB?

High cost-effective phone recommendation!

Wechat alone takes up dozens of GB. Let’s take a look at my phone’s memory. Wechat takes up 21GB, King of Glory takes up 17GB. Is 128GB enough? Definitely not!

I use a Xiaomi phone with dual apps function. So, after using Wechat for a year, it takes up 21GB. Imagine if there were no dual apps, Wechat would occupy double the memory. But can you not use Wechat? No, so this is occupying your space without fear.

I now have used up 196GB of the 256GB phone memory, and there is little left…

Wechat’s cache does take up too much space, not to mention photos. For people who often do evaluations, videos and photos can occupy a lot of space. Additionally, most people who buy phones frequently use the camera function, and gamers like King of Glory also have high storage requirements.

However, I bought the 1TB version of the Redmi K60 Pro a while ago, and I’ve only used 121GB so far. It feels unnecessary to buy such a large one. 512GB can last three to four years. Reject memory anxiety! Is it necessary to look at the price? Definitely choose a phone with larger memory at the same price. Moreover, now you can fill up a large amount of memory by simply installing a few “essential rogue software”. The demand for phone memory has been driven up!

Recommendations for cost-effective smartphones!

Let’s talk about WeChat alone, it takes up several tens of gigabytes. Take a look at my phone memory. WeChat alone occupies 21GB, and King of Glory takes up 17GB. Do you think a 128GB phone is enough now? Of course not!

I use a Xiaomi phone with a dual app function, so after using WeChat for a year, it only occupies 21GB. You can imagine that without the dual app function, WeChat would occupy twice the amount of memory. But can you stop using WeChat? No, so this is an unassailable occupation of your space.

I have already used 196GB out of the 256GB phone memory I currently have, and there is little left…

WeChat’s cache does take up a lot of space, not to mention photos. For those who frequently evaluate phones, videos and photos take up a large amount of space. Additionally, most people who buy phones also frequently use the camera function. Furthermore, for gamers who enjoy games like King of Glory, the storage space requirement is relatively high.

However, I bought the 1TB version of the Redmi K60 Supreme Edition a while ago, and I have only used 121GB so far. I don’t feel the need to buy such a large capacity. 512GB will suffice for three to four years. Say no to memory anxiety!

High memory smartphones: Future predictions, necessity, and marketing impact.

Currently, there are three models that are equipped with 24GB+1TB of memory for smartphones, namely the realme GT5, OnePlus Ace 2 Pro, and Redmi K60 Supreme Edition.

If nothing unexpected happens, there won’t be many smartphones with 24GB+1TB of memory in 2024… A reasonable guess would be not more than 10 models.

The reason is simple. The price of storage components started to soar in the second half of this year. You can see that the highest memory configuration for various high-end flagship models released at the end of this year is only 16GB+1TB.

For ordinary consumers, having a smartphone with large memory is actually necessary.

At least for purchasing a phone now, I personally suggest going for a minimum of 12GB of RAM, with 16GB being the optimal option. As for 8GB of RAM, I do not recommend it at all.

Currently, mobile systems and applications are increasingly consuming more and more memory space. In addition, next year, all brands of smartphones will be equipped with large AI models. Among them, using large models on the device side often requires consuming 1-3GB of memory space. To be frank, 8GB of RAM is truly insufficient, and 12GB can ensure smooth daily use. And if you want to use it for a longer period of time, 16GB or 24GB of RAM has more advantages than 12GB or 8GB.

As for storage space, currently, I do not recommend 128GB. 256GB can be considered the minimum, and 512GB can cover the majority of users. If you have a lot of storage files, you can also consider the 1TB storage version.

As for whether 24GB+1TB is necessary?

Personally, I don’t think 24GB+1TB is necessarily a strong demand for users, but it is very effective for brand marketing.

If there are two models like this, with similar configurations in terms of SoC chips, screens, cameras, battery capacity, charging power, etc., but one model has a combination of 12GB+256GB or 16GB+512GB, and the other model has 24GB+1TB.

Which one is more tempting? Isn’t it easy to judge?

For users, 12GB+256GB can be used smoothly for several years, and 16GB+512GB is more than enough. 24GB+1TB is not really a strong demand.

But for manufacturers, combining the RAM and storage space into 24GB+1TB has a significant marketing effect.

Insufficient memory capacity and battery life for high-performance usage.

This issue is not actually determined by the size of the memory.

For example, recently I had a dilemma.

I have a Honor 90 phone, it has 12GB of RAM and forcefully uses the hard disk as cache, and there’s no way to change it. I didn’t know about this before buying the phone… If I had known, I wouldn’t have bought it…

Using the hard disk as cache with the amount of 256GB in the phone will cause a decrease in write speed over time. Therefore, I strongly oppose the setting of phone memory + virtual memory, very much so.

But recently I got another phone

With a configuration of 16GB of RAM + 512GB of hard disk.

Then I was surprised to find that the manufacturer is quite confident, as it doesn’t kill background apps by default.

So, I frequently get the above prompt. Damn it, WeChat doesn’t have any problems but this Zhihu app does. I didn’t install Weibo so I don’t know about other apps, but Zhihu is being used quite frequently.

This indicates that 16GB of RAM is sufficient.

So, a problem arises: if you choose a model with 16GB of memory, there might not be many options for a 1TB hard disk. It is likely that there will be more choices for 24GB of memory in the future in order to have the option of 1TB. And if you don’t manually set a large number of apps to close in the background, battery life and power consumption may become an issue, a big issue:

The Importance of Memory in Smartphone Usage

The demand for this thing varies from person to person.

However, in the current application scenario, having more memory does not necessarily improve the user experience of a single application or game, but only allows for more background processes to be retained. If you plan to use a phone for several years after purchase, then having more memory is necessary.

But if your own usage needs are relatively low, and you only use a few common applications or you regularly clear the background processes, then for current Android phones, 8GB of memory is sufficient. It is also the configuration of most flagship Android phones at present.

This is the Xiaomi 14.

This is the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, which has a maximum of 12GB, while the Galaxy S23 only has 8GB.

In fact, if you are not good at managing the background processes, limited memory can actually prevent more background processes from running. After all, as long as the memory is not empty, all sorts of miscellaneous background programs will run, which will consume power!

In my opinion, when it comes to memory, striving to increase it to the extreme, even to the exaggerated levels of 18GB or even 24GB, is not a worthy bragging point, but rather should be mocked. After all, many computers still only need 8GB of memory to function properly! It’s quite ridiculous that a single front-end smartphone needs double that amount. By the way, the iPhone only increased to 8GB with this year’s iPhone 15 Pro series!

From an economic perspective, there are only two ways to increase memory at the moment. Either the consumers pay directly, as larger memory in Android phones is currently provided as an optional feature that requires extra payment, or sacrifices other hardware qualities are made! No company is doing charity.

From a user’s perspective, what they care about is the user experience, not how powerful various hardware components are. For example, an A16+ with 6GB of memory and iOS can ensure a smooth and delicate experience, so why pay attention to how much memory there is? There are still iPhones with 3GB or 4GB on the market!

On the contrary, if memory is being excessively consumed by rogue applications, the solution from manufacturers is only to accommodate by increasing memory capacity, which is essentially a way of avoiding the problem. In fact, as long as the operating system is capable of managing applications well, starting from 8GB of memory already provides enough room for flexibility.

Those who truly require higher memory are fundamentally only those who need to run numerous applications simultaneously and must keep them running in the background stably. But such people are rare. In most cases, users simply have no idea what is consuming their 8GB of running memory!

Is it necessary to buy a smartphone with large memory?

The development of smartphones today is an undeniable fact that many users have excess performance. In their daily use, they are mainly using WeChat, Weibo, camera, and some shopping apps. In this situation, how can we make them willingly spend money to upgrade their phones?

Only by a series of actions can we make them feel like their phones are not enough, like they are not mainstream anymore!

Compared to the difficulty of technological upgrades, the effect of increasing memory can be seen immediately. For many people, 8+128 or 8+256 is enough. Now we offer you 24GB+1TB, making your real needs seem so non-mainstream. Will you then succumb to the manufacturers?

So, you may ask, is it necessary to buy a phone with a large memory?

However, whether you think it is necessary or not doesn’t matter, because the trend is that regardless of your needs, you may not be able to buy a phone with small memory anymore…

Reality is so ruthless. If you’re stingy and don’t spend money, manufacturers can only find ways to help you spend. They make you spend money that you didn’t even really need to spend!

The Importance of Memory and Storage in Smartphones

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus will still have 6GB of RAM this year, while the iPhone 15 Pro series will start playing console games and have 8GB of RAM. If your 24GB of RAM is really useful, then won’t the iPhone 15 series just freeze in place? Perhaps you haven’t understood the true essence of smoothness in phones!

Why is it that my computer and tablet can run smoothly with the same 8GB of RAM, but my phone is laggy?

It’s simple. The lack of visible innovation is what causes phones to continuously strengthen their inherent weaknesses. To put it bluntly, it’s even neglecting the areas that require more investment but desperately need improvement and instead focusing on the areas consumers can easily see.

There’s a term called e-waste, and in my opinion, electronic products that tirelessly tinker with unnecessary hardware are exactly that - e-waste.

Of course, I know that some people need abnormal amounts of memory and storage space. For example, configurations like 192GB + 8TB. Some people even say that the specifications aren’t powerful enough and that the memory cannot be less than 1.5TB! Honestly, at least for me, this 8TB of storage space is too small! Of course, I don’t really need the computer itself to provide me with such a large storage space.

Obviously, there will always be exaggerated demands. But the key issue is turning the exaggerated demands of a few individuals into standard requirements for everyone, which is just unreasonable! Many smartphone cameras today are the result of this kind of logic!

Many people criticize Apple for starting the unified memory of Mac at 8GB, but if it were really all starting at 32GB, then you would definitely never have the opportunity to experience the Mac mini at 3699 yuan that comes with a free AirPods headset!

Not to mention, I’ve seen many people happily using the Mac mini with 8GB of memory for office work too! Must we force them to spend more money on a Mac with larger memory?

So, whether it’s 24GB of memory or 1TB of storage, manufacturers can certainly offer them and let those who truly need them upgrade at an additional cost. But if you have to create an atmosphere where a phone without large memory and capacity is only usable for a short time, then I can only say, can your phone’s processor keep up with the memory requirements? Will the Android UI start to lag if it doesn’t actively clean up the background processes?

For example, how many years of system update support can your phone’s Android UI provide? Isn’t it likely that when the demand for 16GB of memory has not yet become mainstream, your phone’s system will already be outdated?

And for a legitimate phone these days, if it’s not used for filming videos, then 1TB is already a huge amount. How can you even fully utilize it? And if you really want to film videos, shouldn’t you learn about iPhones?

By the way, it’s not until 2022 that the iPhone will have 6GB of RAM across the entire lineup! And the iPhone 15 series in 2023 will continue with this specification!

Is 24GB of memory necessary?

It is necessary, but not necessary to have 24GB. Recently, there have been many discussions about 24GB+1TB, indicating that the strategy of smartphone manufacturers is effective.

One thing that is always mentioned is the measurement standard. How much memory is considered large? We need to establish a measurement standard. Currently, the memory configurations of smartphones on the market usually start at 8GB, then 12GB, 16GB, and 24GB. Currently, the mainstream is 12GB, so we can establish a preliminary measurement standard: 12GB of memory as the dividing line, and anything larger than 12GB can be called a smartphone with large memory.

First, 24GB of memory is only meaningful for manufacturers

Currently, there are 3 models of 24GB=1TB smartphones on the market:
Redmi K60 Ultimate 24GB+1TB version: 3599 yuan
OnePlus Ace 2 Pro 24GB+1TB version: 3899 yuan
Realme GT5 24GB+1TB version: 3599 yuan

For consumers, a smartphone with 24GB of memory is not significant at this stage. It serves more as a means for smartphone manufacturers and flagship models to compete and create marketing points.

The reason for this phenomenon is the bottleneck in the development of the smartphone market. The progress of new smartphones is already limited, so they need to create selling points without affecting the price range of established brands.

This has led to a stark contrast between high-end phones focusing on camera and performance, mid-range phones focusing on storage, and low-end phones focusing on cost.

Mid-range phones are the most awkward in this situation. The key components of a phone, namely the camera, battery, storage, and body material, can only have data stacked in the camera, battery, and storage.

The camera module involves modules and brand authorization, which is costly and can only be left for high-end models. Battery technology has made progress over the years, but increasing capacity would only increase the size, which would affect the feel of the phone. Therefore, the only part left to innovate is storage. Additionally, the cost of storage itself will gradually decrease with increased production and popularity of domestic brands.

Therefore, for smartphone manufacturers, 24GB of storage is a new selling point that can be created under controllable costs.

Memory growth has boundaries at each stage, and bigger is not always better.

For individuals, this is a problem of marginal utility.

Simply put, when your device has only 8GB of memory and cannot meet your current needs of 12GB, upgrading to 16GB will significantly improve the experience. But when you upgrade to 24GB, the improvement in experience becomes negligible. This is because your actual needs have already been met with a 12GB configuration. The cost of purchasing 24GB and the satisfaction derived from it are inversely proportional.

For businesses, this is a problem of marginal cost.

The price of memory at each stage is different, and the price of memory usually decreases by half every 18-24 months. For example, at this time, the price of 8GB and 12GB memory is the same. But as the amount of memory increases, the cost increases exponentially. It may currently be feasible to mass-produce 24GB of memory at a balanced cost, but if production continues to increase to 32GB, the problem of selling more but losing more may arise.

How much memory do we need now?

The biggest problem restraining the user experience of Android smartphones in China is not the absolute performance of the devices, but the issues related to push notifications and background mechanisms after breaking away from the Google ecosystem. Looking ahead, memory will gradually increase but also have limits.

For example, it took 5 years to develop from 4GB to 12GB, with growth almost every year. But the first smartphone with 12GB of memory was released in February 2019, nearly 5 years ago, and the mainstream configuration is still 12GB. The growth rate of memory has slowed down significantly, especially after memory expansion technology was introduced to smartphones, further slowing down the growth of smartphone memory.

In general, a smartphone with 12GB of memory is already sufficient for daily use for 2-3 years, and if you want to future-proof your purchase, 16GB of memory would be enough. Apart from increasing the cost of purchase and battery consumption, 24GB of memory currently only serves as a marketing stunt for smartphone manufacturers, so it does not need to be considered.


Related content:

How much RAM does your current phone have, and how much does RAM affect phone performance? How do you view mid-range phones focusing on increasing RAM? Is a 24GB+1TB phone meaningful?

If you have 24GB of memory, actually 16GB is also enough, even 12GB is fine if you don’t play games. It’s just that the larger the memory, the more background apps you can open, and the faster it will be when you enter again. But once the memory reaches 24GB, the overall speed of the device can indeed reach a good level.

I vaguely remember that a few years ago, gaming phones were all about emphasizing large memory, large screens, fast triggers, and long battery life. But now many gaming-oriented phones have either failed or their product lines have been discontinued. Why is that? In fact, the gaming phones from various manufacturers are more or less the same. What needs to be compared is the player experience. In other words, it depends on how well the mobile phone manufacturers and game developers optimize the game experience.


However, compared to memory, the improvement in storage space may be more noticeable.

If you only use WeChat and commonly used software, then you don’t need 1TB of storage. 256GB is probably enough. If you install games, it is still recommended to start with 512GB, and if your budget allows, go for 1TB, after all, it’s hard to have space anxiety for several years.

For example, I currently use a 256GB phone, and in just a few months, I have already used 215GB. Among them, WeChat takes up 32.1GB, King of Glory takes up 22.8GB, QQ takes up more than 7GB, and Zhihu takes up more than 5.6GB, not to mention the cache of short video apps. And this is the result after I recently cleaned it up.

I just tested it, deleting and reinstalling King of Glory takes up 14GB, Genshin Impact takes up 20.6GB, Alipay takes up 520MB, Taobao takes up 759MB, and JD takes up 839MB…

If you like the content, please follow me. Your support is my greatest motivation for updating. I am Nicholas lalala, bringing you more interesting things.

Android System Determines the Uselessness of Any Amount of RAM!

Nostalgic for the Nokia era, where monthly 30m was more than enough for chatting and reading novels, even a few megabytes on QQ could support video calls. Now, a single app occupies several gigabytes of your RAM!

My Highly Praised Answer for You to Read: Are there any clothes that are worth recommending and can amaze people when worn for the first time?

Android System Determines the Uselessness of Any Amount of RAM!

I miss the Nokia era, where I could chat and read novels every month with just 30MB of data. Even with a few megabytes, QQ could support video calls. Nowadays, just one app can occupy several gigabytes of RAM!

Feel free to check out my highly upvoted response:

“Are there any clothes that are worth recommending as they instantly amaze you the first time you wear them?”

Insufficient Memory for Applications and Storage

It is embarrassing to admit that I am still using a phone with 6GB/8GB of RAM (I don’t remember exactly, it should be one of these two capacities) and 128GB of internal storage. It has been a few years, and now some phones have increased their memory to a whopping 24GB+1TB. The 24GB refers to the RAM, while the 1TB refers to the internal storage.

Let me talk about the current situation of my phone memory. It seems to work smoothly when I open two or three apps, so 6GB/8GB of RAM is sufficient, at least for me. I don’t play mobile games, I watch short videos, and I use apps like WeChat, Douyin, and Kwai for a while, which take up a lot of internal storage. And in my daily life, whenever I encounter interesting scenes or beautiful landscapes, or meet interesting people or objects, I like to take photos or videos with my phone. Over time, this can occupy a significant amount of internal storage. Now, my phone frequently reminds me that the available memory is less than 10% and prompts me to clean the phone memory, otherwise it will really affect the speed and user experience of the phone.

It seems that I really need to switch to a phone with larger memory.

However, a high-memory phone doesn’t necessarily mean I have to choose one with 24GB+1TB of memory. For most users, 16GB+512GB or 12GB+512GB is also sufficient. With 12GB or 16GB of RAM, the phone can achieve a relatively smooth performance in everyday use. Of course, for some gaming enthusiasts or power users, even 24GB of RAM may not satisfy their desires.

Compared to ordinary users, I believe the actual need for internal storage is greater than that of RAM. Many people nowadays don’t pay much attention to daily cleaning of their internal storage. They keep everything on their phones, causing a demand for 512GB or even 1TB of internal storage. In fact, if you regularly clear app cache, avoid installing unnecessary apps, and transfer photos and videos to external storage devices such as computers, personal NAS, cloud storage, or portable solid-state drives, then 512GB of internal storage is more than enough. 128GB and 256GB were sufficient a few years ago, but now they are inadequate due to the increased demand for data storage and the larger size of app software.

One reason why phone memory is getting bigger is the rapid development of storage technology in the past year or two. The cost per unit capacity has dropped significantly, allowing for larger memory configurations at the same price. When buying a phone, various factors need to be considered, such as system smoothness, chip performance, camera capability, design aesthetics, and security. Memory is just one aspect among them.

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