Is Pixel 9 Pro's 16GB of RAM Bad News For Z Fold 6 With 12GB? 

Just keep in mind it's really hard to isolate for ram being the cause of improved performance because very few of us are going from one phone to the exact same phone with more ram. We're almost always upgrading to a phone that not only has more ram, but also likely has a faster processor. Unless there's a use for that ram, there should be no real change in performance. When I went from 16 gigs in my PC to 32, there was honestly no appreciable difference.

@@scaryifliteral That's a fair point; and it may just be that my use case is particularly memory heavy, but there are tell-tale signs when RAM is the performance bottleneck: (i) first, apps that are computation-simple but memory-heavy stutter and freeze (eg. Outlook, Chrome, Acrobat); (ii) eventually the system/home screen/app drawer itself stutters and freezes; and (iii) clearing cache for one of the memory-heavy apps drastically improves performance. And the thing with RAM is exactly as you going: getting more than you need will not improve performance; so you'll really feel the difference going from 8 to 16, but depending on your use-case you may not see any difference going from 16 to 32.

8gb is more than enough for a phone

​@@bmoz3675maybe for your use case, I'm on 8.1gb of ram usage rn and not trying that hard.

Unless you're an enthusiast I would seriously hold on with the pixel fold...until a few months pass by for bug fixes

Google might've had these things in development for a long while already, and the 16GB ram choice could've been in selection since then\. I really don't even think they're competing with Apple how we think they are.

Newer SOC will help, but my understanding is that these LLMs are just big and need to unpack into RAM.

It could but the way LLM's work, it'll put too much pressure on the SOC. Like imagine running a gaming PC. We can have the best CPU and best GPU, but the moment we start running that high graphic intensive game it'll burn through the memory in both very fast. Need the extra RAM to help carry that load.

@@hobbitpsi Makes me think I might have to upgrade much sooner than I thought I would then.

@@WallyWestDefenseAttorney Honestly, if you have 12gb of RAM in your current device, it'll be perfectly fine. For the new device, even if they add 4gb more RAM, it's still using an Exynos variant SOC for the Tensor. Personally, I'd just wait for the Pixel 10 as it's rumored that they're ditching Samsung's chipset and going for something better.

@@hobbitpsi Unfortunately I got an 8GB S23U 🤦

While there are a few things I wish they would change, I think for the most part they've hit on a design that ticks all the boxes for what a fold "should" be, and pretty much all that's left is refinement. I mean almost every issue I've had with my fold 4 has been software related, and those aren't common. If I could wave a wand and magic away every issue I have with the physical build of it (compared to the leaked Fold 6 specs, and operating under the assumption that only things I think are actually possible can happen), my full laundry list of changes would be - remove the screen protector on the inside - make the inner screen more durable so a protector isn't needed - remove the brushes from the hinge - make the hinge IP68 so the brushes aren't necessary - make the device 8% taller like the S24 Ultra for a ~6.5x5 aspect ratio on the main screen - include the S Pen in the box, and have it attach to the back like the Tab line does - less crease I could come up with a total of 7 things if I could make the perfect fold built just for me. Remove the opinion-based one about the aspect ratio, boil down all the durability ones into "improve the durability", really there are 3 - improve the durability, less crease, and give us a Tab-like S Pen experience. If you want a wider aspect ratio, by all means pick a different fold. I think the aspect ratio Samsung landed on could be taller if anything though.

For 4 extra GB of ram. Interesting

It's not really needed. 12gb of RAM will work perfectly fine for the long run. The adding of 4gb more RAM I'm assuming is just to have a small bit more to play with.

Smart phones were intended to run as it's own server since smart phones were originally designed, it's the only way they were able to run on the network carriers data. Even more so now since Data is the main way devices run.

Older SoC

@@scaryifliteral so it's because it's running the G2? I'm willing to accept that as the reason. Do you think that is more of an "excuse" or is a legitimate reason?

@@JediSteele It's the legitimate reason. The G2 wasn't designed for it.

Where on earth would you have heard something like that?

@@scaryifliteral I mean he's not 100% wrong as LLM's are the Generative AI.

Probably

iOS is so much more RAM efficient, who knows

the base iPhone yes, 6 to 8, the pro no, given that the M4 starts at 8GB, but Apple LLMSs only taske around 4.5GB so it's manageable with 8GB and on iOS 8GB are more efficient than 8 on Android, probably more like 10GB

@@scaryifliteral I'd say let's wait and find out since this new LLM for Siri was built from the ground up. Now true it's been in the works for years back when it was codenamed "Siri-X", but we still need to see how it performs in the real world. My guess is Apple will bump that 8gb they did the the 15pros to at least 12gb eventually.

Is iOS more efficient though? It's easy to be when actively killing off tasks, ie Google Photos backups, not offering multitasking and no desktop mode at all. MsDOS needs less ram too by limitations of it's abilities similarly iOS. The AI Apple announcement has proven 6GB is no good.

It's just not that simple. Law of diminishing returns.

Notice how most the "Budget" phone brands have that feature. This is because when you use your storage as RAM, it literally slowly kills your storage. All dedicated storage in phones can be written for a LIMITED amount, when you use it as RAM you are constantly writing data to that storage. Unlike dedicated storage, RAM can be written to an unlimited number of times. Your dedicated storage was never meant to be written to so constantly, and there are many cases of budget phones dying early because their dedicated storage got too damaged from being used as RAM. Bigger phone brands need to be reliable or else their public perception turns bad, if they also started using dedicated storage as RAM, their phones would also start dying earlier, making them look bad. It's always better to have more real RAM, not using dedicated storage as RAM

Google does do that, but physical RAM will always be much faster and efficient as opposed to using storage.

It might help a little bit, but in general that feature is pretty lackluster. Actual ram is so much faster than your storage.

Because it's a business first and foremost. They want people to keep buying phones, not stay on one single device for years.

Geekbench agrees it's 16GB for the Pro XL

@@scaryifliteral 👍🏻

There's a reason Apple's value went through the roof when they showed off their AI stuff

Strongly disagree

@@scaryifliteral yeah but Google has been kind of confusing lately do I use ok Google or the other one?

@@jeremythompson829 Hey be happy they give us the choice. When iOS 18 rolls out, iphone users won't get a choice, not like they'll fight it considering current Siri sucks ass and has sucked for a decade.

Most likely

I mean sure, but Google makes that money back from Samsung anyway since Samsung has a closer deal with Google than anyone else, that's why Samsung gets Android updates way before the other brands.

@@hobbitpsi that has nothing to do with what I said lol

@@rsupremexx3971 Actually it does. As both are businesses and by blowing one away means they'll perform better and outsell the other. I just pointed out that it doesn't matter if Samsung sells more and blows google away, because Google gets their money back from Samsung and pretty much every other brand that runs Android.

If you think the idea that Google would launch a phone with a massive amount of RAM because they're going to have a large language model unpacked and running on that device 24/7 is bullshit, I genuinely have nothing else to say.

@scaryifliteral does this mean that any phone that has less than 16gb of RAM will not be able to run Googles LLM, effectively making the 8pro absolute because it only has 12gb RAM.

You act like the Tensor chip currently is Google's fault. Samsung has been only giving Google the Exynos variants to work with. Let's just hope the rumors are true and for the Pixel 10 they're finally ditching Samsung's Exynos.