iPhone SE (2016) Will 3GB of memory still be enough in the next 2 to 3 years on the iPhone SE 2020

[freeagent]

My phone has 4gb. At any given time it is using about 3.5gb. On my 7 at any given time it is using about 1.2gb or so. So whoever is predicting the future, tell me.. what is the source to your secret?

 

[saber32au]

Do we know how much the ram the SE has? I haven’t seen it mentioned on any Youtube review videos yet (none that I’ve seen have done any Geekbench tests yet which shows how much ram is installed).

 

[mattopotamus]

Do we know how much the ram the SE has? I haven’t seen it mentioned on any Youtube review videos yet (none that I’ve seen have done any Geekbench tests yet which shows how much ram is installed).

I don't know if it has 100% been confirmed to be 3GB, but that seems to be the case. RAM hasn't been an issue on iPhones since the 512MB/1GB days, and I suspect 3 years from now it will still be a non-factor.

 

[Homme]

Let me tell you this

3GB, LPDDR4X speed but only for that tiny screen, that screen size and the amount of pixels on the screen Compared to the iPhone XR or even the iPad Air with its screen because they have the same ram and ram speed

its Far more than enough

 

[freeagent]

It should be snappy, modern soc with a puny screen resolution to drive. That’s the recipe from the original SE. I think it’ll be a good phone.

 

[Dave3641]

Confirmed 3gb on japanese website - https://www.itmedia.co.jp/mobile/articles/2004/22/news139_2.html

 

[pierino84]

More RAM means more power consumption.
Apps shall use RAM wisely: including more memory does not solve the issue of a badly written app. This is why Apple has strict guidelines for devs on RAM usage.
I am actually still on iPhone 6 (but preordered SE), it is quite slow (1GB RAM, and very poor GPU) but nonetheless it has kept its functions until now after about 6 years from the purchase. iPhone 6s, with its double amount of RAM and more capable GPU, it is way faster. Therefore I expect very good performances from the SE, also in the years to come.

 

[Homme]

More RAM means more power consumption.
Apps shall use RAM wisely: including more memory does not solve the issue of a badly written app. This is why Apple has strict guidelines for devs on RAM usage.
I am actually still on iPhone 6 (but preordered SE), it is quite slow (1GB RAM, and very poor GPU) but nonetheless it has kept its functions until now after about 6 years from the purchase. iPhone 6s, with its double amount of RAM and more capable GPU, it is way faster. Therefore I expect very good performances from the SE, also in the years to come.

you mean the type of RAM, not how much the RAM has (unless I’m wrong that more RAM does lead to more power consumption)

but yeah DDR4X improves in lower power consumption than DDR4, like DDR4 does to DDR3 etc

 

[reacher]

you mean the type of RAM, not how much the RAM

Actually both are correct. RAM is a memory when to preserve the state of what it is inside, you have to constantly powering it. Bigger RAM, more power consumption. Think about it like about computer. When you turn it off and on again, you have all of data from your SSD without any changes, but you have nothing you had loaded in RAM.

 

[ACG12]

I'm confident my Air 3 with the same amount of RAM and a less powerful processor will be just fine for the next 2-3 years with 3gb of RAM. No doubt the SE (which I've preordered) will be just fine in the same time frame.

 

[mi7chy]

More RAM means more power consumption.
Apps shall use RAM wisely: including more memory does not solve the issue of a badly written app. This is why Apple has strict guidelines for devs on RAM usage.
I am actually still on iPhone 6 (but preordered SE), it is quite slow (1GB RAM, and very poor GPU) but nonetheless it has kept its functions until now after about 6 years from the purchase. iPhone 6s, with its double amount of RAM and more capable GPU, it is way faster. Therefore I expect very good performances from the SE, also in the years to come.

That's not entirely true. DRAM ICs come in different capacities and width so it's possible to have the same DRAM size with fewer chip count or more DRAM with same chip count. For example, ever seen 4GB 8-chip SODIMM vs 4-chip SODIMM modules? From my experience iPhones and iPads have always run out of memory long before running out of SoC cycles since apps get more bloated over time along with web pages, OS updates, etc. That's not even taking into account that one day Apple might enable iPadOS features that require more DRAM on iPhones so it's better to be future proofed with DRAM than the device getting laggy over time from just enough DRAM at release but deficient over time. Plus, $250 devices like Moto G8 Power come with 4GB DRAM.

https://www.motorola.com/us/smartphones-moto-g-power/p

Apple knows that people will keep their devices longer and they end up selling fewer devices if they future proof DRAM.

 

[pierino84]

That's not entirely true. DRAM ICs come in different capacities and width so it's possible to have the same DRAM size with fewer chip count or more DRAM with same chip count. For example, ever seen 4GB 8-chip SODIMM vs 4-chip SODIMM modules?

The point you make is worth evaluating, but more density does not necessarily relate to the power consumption to remain the same.
Also, every DRAM cell has its capacitor that shall be charged and discharged, in a denser chip design the number of cells is greater and so are their capacitors, although with reduced capacity.
An increase in cells and parallelism increases memory latency as well, therefore there are performance drawbacks.
Think about server farms, almost half of the overall power is dedicated to volatile memory (which are always maxed out to the limit).

I suggest any interested on the topic to read this paper:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.07609.pdf

 

[Nozuka]

My X also has 3GB and i have never had any problems so far. Even though it has more pixels to drive and likely needs more resources.

Can't really complain about 3GB in an iPhone at that price. I'm suprised it got the A13.

 

[Freida]

This is why Apple doesn't advertise ram so people don't have silly ideas.
I have iPhone 6 (1GB ram) and it still works fine.
Chasing specs is fine but to a point. Tomorrow I will get SE and be super happy as I will be getting a beast that will again last 5 years easily.

Asking if Ram would be enough is truly (insert bad word here)
iOS optimisation etc. is way more important and Apple seems to do good job to support devices that work well.
Thats why I can't upgrade iPhone 6 to the latest iOS but I'm stuck on previous version but I don't complain because I know that the reason is to make sure I have good experience.
Its just THAT simple.

I personally think Apple should have put 4GB in the SE 2020 rather than 3GB here why.

This years iPhone 12 are rumoured to have 6GB of memory, next couple of years we could see that bumped upto 8 or even 10GB by 2023, the SE "if they don't update it every year" could still possibly be the only iPhone still being sold in 2023 with just 3GB which could potentially hinder performance on iOS 3 years from now.

If you look back to when the original iPhone SE was launched it came with 2GB same as the 6S, this same 2GB was used right upto the iPhone 8, today there has only been a 2GB bump upto the iPhone 11 series in 4 years this being one of the reasons why iOS 13 still runs great on the original iPhone SE.

In the old days Apple would have stuck with just 4GB for the next couple of iPhone releases before updating it again, but it now looks like they now gone on a yearly update cycle with memory it was 3GB 2018 with the XR & XS, 4GB last year with the 11 series & possibly 6GB this year with the 12 series it maybe 8GB with the 13 series & 10GB with the 14 series.

So if you look at it this way the 2020 SE might not have the same great longevity as the original iPhone SE has had, so those that like to keep their phone's longer than 2 years might start seeing a performance hit by iOS 16.

Which leads me to believe Apple could have purposely gimped the SE 2020, to get people to upgrade in the next couple of years to whatever new SE they have out by then which will more likely have either 4GB or more likely 6GB of memory.

Thoughts.

 

[Jayson A]

3GB RAM is more than enough.

And I cannot see Apple just throwing in more ram unless it is needed. Maybe the Pro models, but if they get that far ahead of the other devices they’ll probably have their own Pro OS separate from iOS.

There’s still no proof what the SE will have 100% until it’s opened up and inspected. Could be 3GB could be 4GB.

Apple don’t plan for a device to go obsolete just to make people buy a new one, the original SE is still fast, secure, reliable albeit with not the best battery life for most but that’s nothing to do with RAM, where it has no real struggles. It will also more than likely get iOS 14 to leave the device on a stable software update so it can continue to run fine. Even my old 5s recently got a security update and is running fine!

Apple advertises 3GB of RAM, so it has 3GB.

 

[oVerboost]

Apple advertises 3GB of RAM, so it has 3GB.

No, Apple do not advertise 3GB RAM. Apple never have specified RAM on any device. If that is the case, can you post a link to the info on Apple's website...

It's only the teardown's etc that reveal these details. I'm not saying it hasn't got that amount obviously, but my reply was from before people had even tested or reviewed the device thats all.

 

[Jayson A]

No, Apple do not advertise 3GB RAM. Apple never have specified RAM on any device. If that is the case, can you post a link to the info on Apple's website...

It's only the teardown's etc that reveal these details. I'm not saying it hasn't got that amount obviously, but my reply was from before people had even tested or reviewed the device thats all.

Sorry, I could've sworn I saw it in Apple's marketing material. Nevermind I guess. I think the reason Apple doesn't advertise RAM is because people shouldn't be buying their Phone based on specs because not every phone is as optimized as iPhone. You can't look at an android with 12GB of RAM and compare it to the iPhone because the memory management in iPhone is so much better, but based purely on numbers, one might think the android is better.

 

[mi7chy]

The point you make is worth evaluating, but more density does not necessarily relate to the power consumption to remain the same.

Higher DRAM tiers are built on newer smaller nodes or better binning. Plus, power consumption of DRAM is relatively tiny compared to other components such as display, SoC and a faction of storage controller+NAND so it's better to cache apps in DRAM than constantly loading from storage. If you're genuinely concerned about reducing power consumption you should be asking for smaller display and less excessive SoC. Better yet, demand for larger battery capacity since 1812mAh is anemic.

 

[JPack]

Actually both are correct. RAM is a memory when to preserve the state of what it is inside, you have to constantly powering it. Bigger RAM, more power consumption. Think about it like about computer. When you turn it off and on again, you have all of data from your SSD without any changes, but you have nothing you had loaded in RAM.

That hasn't been true since the introduction of LPDDR about two decades ago. Mobile DRAM has a power-saving feature, Partial Array Self-Refresh (PASR) that doesn't require keeping the entire array active if there's no data.

Apple including 3GB RAM is largely a cost issue. There isn't a big power penalty for including more memory. Given the SE2 will likely be discontinued by September 2022, it's likely Apple doesn't think 4GB is needed.

 

[reacher]

That hasn't been true since the introduction of LPDDR about two decades ago. Mobile DRAM has a power-saving feature, Partial Array Self-Refresh (PASR) that doesn't require keeping the entire array active if there's no data.

Yes, but Apple once forced developers to make apps that need low RAM usage. I do not know if this RAM limit per app is still present. Bigger RAM is for camera stuff. Since SE has single lens, needed RAM is not as big as in 11s.