4 GB RAM limit

[lfen]

It's not only lazyness
Why do we need javascript on website that just give you news ? You just need pure html+css+picture and that's it.
In 100 years you will need 100GB to just get some news .... but this is progress !

[Solra Bizna]

If web is too demanding on the ram front, switch to a more capable machine instead to force yourself into a weaker offering.

There are so many things I care more about than a smooth, "rich" (giant air quotes) Web experience.

[MrTester]

Might I suggest a simple soultion to filter out webcontent.
I have been using a user agent switcher on Firefox on my PB to direct me to lighter websites that are already designed to run better on ARM processors.

Give it a shot, works for MOST websites, some behave badly.

[sorval]

Not speaking for the Sales/Dev team, I would suspect we would see a SBC with a new SoC launch first. Since the PBP based of the Rock64 proven production first.

PBP as an ARM solution laptop, 4g is mighty decent. Not intended to run your Solidworks modeling or latest FPS game.

To look at another major SoC manufacture, RPi4 using Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz only has up to 4GB LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM.

If you crave for top notch specs, get a decent laptop. The Pinebook Pro isn't addressing the kind of needs you have, don't be silly. If you were expecting a $1999 ultrabook for $199, you got your math wrong.

Why be abrasive about the question?  Thats not helpful.  Affordability is not the only important marketspec to consider here.   Web browsing takes a lot of memory.  Memory questions are extremely legitimate, and for many of us, 299 or 399 are the same as 199.  I'd happily buy a slightly more expensive version for 16 gb of ram.

[Arwen]

...
Web browsing takes a lot of memory.  Memory questions are extremely legitimate, and for many of us, 299 or 399 are the same as 199.  I'd happily buy a slightly more expensive version for 16 gb of ram.

I too would have paid more for 8GB, 12GB or 16GBs of memory. But, in the open source ARM 64 world, there are just not that many options. I found that the Kirin970 SoC does support at least 6GB of memory. However, finding details if that SoC supports more memory than 6GBs are not easy to find.

One odd thing I have noted is that ARM 64 Linux distros seem to use less memory than a AMD 64 type. It's possible that the ARM 64 instruction set is simply more compact that AMD 64.

[fams]

This should be odd, because a reduced instruction set means more code needed for the same algorithm.
Pretty logic and that is what I learnt decades ago and kept in mind.
But I don't know if the actual ARM designs are really RISC compared to the ancient ones...

[icecream95]

This should be odd, because a reduced instruction set means more code needed for the same algorithm.
Pretty logic and that is what I learnt decades ago and kept in mind.
But I don't know if the actual ARM designs are really RISC compared to the ancient ones...

x86 instructions are often 5 bytes or more, while all ARM instructions are 4 bytes (except for Thumb mode where there are two-byte instructions). ARM also has more registers, so less instructions are needed to shuffle data to and from the stack.

I suspect that x86 compilers inline and unroll loops more aggressively because of the larger cache sizes, which would also make x86 code bigger.

[Der Geist der Maschine]

One odd thing I have noted is that ARM 64 Linux distros seem to use less memory than a AMD 64 type. It's possible that the ARM 64 instruction set is simply more compact that AMD 64.

In the past, you have been running the default Debian with its 32 bit userland. Are you comparing by any chance a 32 bit ARM userland with a 64 bit x86 userland?

[cthompson]

Aside from the RK35xx series that are still coming out, the current upgraded "RK3399 Pro" SoC has existing products with higher amounts of RAM. For example: https://www.seeedstudio.com/ROCK-PI-N10-...-4381.html

So yeah, more memory and a replacement mainboard in the future with a different SoC is feasible, if not part of the roadmap.

[evilbunny]

Aside from the RK35xx series that are still coming out, the current upgraded "RK3399 Pro" SoC has existing products with higher amounts of RAM. For example: https://www.seeedstudio.com/ROCK-PI-N10-...-4381.html

So yeah, more memory and a replacement mainboard in the future with a different SoC is feasible, if not part of the roadmap.

I skimmed the datasheet and it's 4GB for CPU/GPU and 4GB for NPU