RAM: 2GB vs 3GB

[jtagcat]

On other phones, paying for 4GB vs 6GB or 6GB vs 8GB is not really worth it.

I'm not interested in desktop computing (giving the dock away to someone's storage), but I would be running quite significant tracking.

As the Pinephone probably isn't optimized as much as it could be. Would it be worth it on getting an extra GB of RAM for 60$? I don't have the biggest wallet, so it's somewhat of a significant amount, but simultaneously I don't want to have a phone I'm not going to use because it's constantly out of RAM and having to use swap.

[bcnaz]

Big Improvement for less than a years time !

[matosys]

On other phones, paying for 4GB vs 6GB or 6GB vs 8GB is not really worth it.

I'm not interested in desktop computing (giving the dock away to someone's storage), but I would be running quite significant tracking.

As the Pinephone probably isn't optimized as much as it could be. Would it be worth it on getting an extra GB of RAM for 60$? I don't have the biggest wallet, so it's somewhat of a significant amount, but simultaneously I don't want to have a phone I'm not going to use because it's constantly out of RAM and having to use swap.

keep in mind: eMMC is larger as well

[LinuxBrave]

On other phones, paying for 4GB vs 6GB or 6GB vs 8GB is not really worth it.

I'm not interested in desktop computing (giving the dock away to someone's storage), but I would be running quite significant tracking.

As the Pinephone probably isn't optimized as much as it could be. Would it be worth it on getting an extra GB of RAM for 60$? I don't have the biggest wallet, so it's somewhat of a significant amount, but simultaneously I don't want to have a phone I'm not going to use because it's constantly out of RAM and having to use swap.

keep in mind: eMMC is larger as well

I am of a similar mind. I would love to have a device that runs a bit smoother, especially with regards to using the Internet Browser. I have the UBPorts Version. Anyone think it would be worth purchasing a second Pinephone to obtain the 3GB of ram?

[Luke]

I'll be honest, I don't think the 1GB extra RAM will make a huge difference - if any at all - for most users on most OSes. Even if people will start docking their phones, then I don't think think anyone will do much more than write in LibreOffice, do some light browsing and write some code in terminal on the PinePhone. Is it nice to have the headroom? - yes. Is the 1GB extra a game-changer? - nope.

@LinuxBrave How smooth OSes run depends rather on RAM and GPU frequencies at this point in time. Particularly RAM frequencies make a huge difference on the PinePhone. Mobian has very conservative RAM frequencies while Manjaro (internal built I recently tested), wit h identical set-up UI-wise, has more aggressive frequencies - and the difference is quite pronounce. RAM amount isn't too relevant in this regard.

[gab]

I'll be honest, I don't think the 1GB extra RAM will make a huge difference - if any at all - for most users on most OSes. [...]

Well, that could allow using a RAM disk for most data & applications which could give a noticeable speed up (please correct me if I am wrong). That said I have no idea how much work that would be for the distro's maintainers. Also I notice that this solution's volatility problem (due to the RAM) is alleviated by the battery power (which makes it more interesting than on a desktop).

[bitnick]

The linux kernel is very good at caching file accesses, so a RAM disk would most likely make things slower by reducing the RAM available to the kernel. The kernel is in a unique position to make intelligent decisions about how to divide RAM between applications and disk cache at each and every moment.

Run 'free' in the terminal to see how much RAM is used for caching at the moment ("buff/cache" column). This RAM is used for disk caching and at the same time it is available for application use if necessary.