ET EXPLAINER: Does Virtual RAM really make your smartphone more capable?
Virtual RAM has now become ubiquitous in smartphones. After being present in PCs for years, the technology is being used by smartphone brands to make their products, especially in the entry-level and budget segments, more compelling to customers who treat the amount of RAM as a key factor in making the purchase decision.
While most brands are restricted to offering as low as 3GB or 4GB RAM in smartphones priced under Rs 10,000, adding another 4GB of virtual RAM — effectively marketing the product as having “4GB+4GB RAM” — gives an impression that the handset is more capable than before. But adding 4GB virtual RAM over 4GB physical RAM is not the same as having 8GB RAM in a mobile phone.
At best, the marketing gimmick is good for keeping more apps running in the background, but has little impact in improving the overall performance of the phone or running heaving apps. Subhrojit Mallick explains why:
How does RAM work?
RAM, or random access memory, is a high-speed storage that stores data on a temporary basis, unlike the internal storage where data is stored permanently till its deleted or overwritten manually.
RAM is called volatile memory because of its temporary nature, but is much faster than other types of memory such as hard drives. RAM is used to store data that a computer is working on at time, including the operating system, open applications or the data that is being processed.
As a result, using too many applications and processes simultaneously overloads the RAM, leading to the handset slowing down or crashing.
What is virtual RAM?
Virtual RAM is a feature on some Android smartphones that uses a portion of the device’s internal storage to temporarily act as additional RAM. It refers to RAM that is not
