People have taken for granted that smartphones are powerful and versatile. They also know that, unlike laptops, they will keep the hardware they purchased for as long as their phone lasts. Even data storage can no longer be expanded as OEMs gradually eliminate microSD card slots from higher-end phones. These same manufacturers are coming up with new ways to increase a phone’s RAM. Samsung quietly announced a new feature that adds 4GB RAM to a mid-range 6GB RAM phone.
It is not possible to add more RAM to your smartphone. It would help if you avoided any third-party apps that claim to do this. Some people might think that the RAM Plus feature appeared suddenly after Samsung released a firmware update for the Galaxy A52s 5G. Samsung is using a technique that is well-known on desktop operating systems. OPPO and Vivo, and ASUS are also using it. Soon, Xiaomi will be embracing it.
This RAM Plus feature is just another manufacturer-specific marketing name for what has long been called virtual RAM on older platforms. It allocates some internal storage for more RAM, which applications or the operating system can then use.
Samsung has added 4GB RAM to the Galaxy A52s 5G. This gives the phone a total of either 10GB or 12GB, depending on the model. This upgrade is very sweet and goes well with the slightly faster Snapdragon 778G processor, specifically designed for gaming. Even though UFS 3.1 internal storage is slower than LPDDR RAM in smartphones, you can expect performance drops when the expanded RAM is being used.
Virtual RAM must be integrated into the OS. It should be obvious that third-party apps that don’t have system-level access can’t provide such a feature. This is only the beginning of Samsung offering RAM Plus on all its smartphones. It would be even better if Android adopted this virtual RAM model to all OEMs.
