Develop Bugs

Google Android & Memory Management

Hello Android Gurus
I have bought Galaxy S (My first Android phone) 2 weeks ago and i have been experimenting with it since. I have noticed one thing regarding how android manages memory and its quite alarming.
When i start my phone I typically have around 160 Mb of RAM. As i load an application that requires 10 MB for example, the available RAM evidently drops to 150 MB but when I kill the application the RAM goes up but not to the previous level (e.g. goes up to 157).
little RAM is always lost as applications are opened and closed. This means that after a couple of hours of using the phone, the RAM goes down to 40 MB and the phone becomes REALLY laggy and you have to restart
The above behavior is typical of windows mobile, and that is exactly why i shifted to Android thinking it is better.
My questions to the android experts out there are the following:
1- Why is memory leaking like this. Such a behavior results in a phone with very bad user experience
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
3- Is this due to TouchWiz by Samsung, if yes then i will wait for subsequent updates to see if this problem could be resolved by Samsung
4- Will the 2.2 Froyo update resolve this issue ?
I used to have an iphone 3gs before this one, and no matter how much you open or close applications, the UI is always smooth and responsive. The thing that made me really hate Apple and its products is their "Closed OS" that does not enable you to do much with your phone. That is why i moved to Galaxy S thinking it would give me a better experience
Thanks for your thoughts.

FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA

Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's an awesome video! I never knew the games looked so nice. I'm on a download spree because of that video now

Strange
Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is quite strange, the less RAM you have the more non-responsive the phone is and laggy.
Enough RAM has to be maintained to guarantee a smooth user experience.
If the phone requires 100Mb of RAM to run smoothly, then this much has to be maintained.
from my experience with the Galaxy S, there has to be atleaset 80 to 100 MB to maintain a somewhat smmoth interface.
Edit:
I also understand from your input that this is a Samsung problem, not an android problem, and that no matter how low the RAM is, the interface will always be smooth ??????

Mate, just one word - google.
There are about a billion articles online on android memory management, how to impoove it etc.

Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont understand how this shows anything? You are manually exiting each one of the games, forcing it to quit anyways. A better test is just to hit the home button, and continually load up the next game.

andy2na said:
i dont understand how this shows anything? You are manually exiting each one of the games, forcing it to quit anyways. A better test is just to hit the home button, and continually load up the next game.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This means that after a couple of hours of using the phone, the RAM goes down to 40 MB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+red baloon on vid which says phone was used for >day, so "free" ram was <50MB, becouse browser etc. reserve some MBs for quick comming back.
And still was no problem to run anything I choose.

Dont quite understand..care to explain more? I'm getting puzzled abt this shortage of ram thingy. Some suggest to use task killer to free up rams while you say dont. But looking at your videos its fast..please explain. Thanks
Sent from my GT-I9000

Android handles the memory management itself. The moment it runs below certain amount of free memory it will start the kill apps. There is no need to run an app killer. Altho the default settings are not enough to provide a smooth experience. Check out the freememmanager app in the market to change the settings. As long as min 45 mb is free everything will run smooth.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

RADLOUNI said:
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is typical Android behavior. See ya later.
Really though, if you're killing tasks, then you're already taking horrible advice from people who haven't an inkling of an idea on how Android manages memory.

Keep in mind that your phone is only using 256MB of its total 512MB of memory. Once a newer kernel is released with himem the phone will use all 512MB.
Android's garbage collection can be set to be more aggressive which would sort of fix your issue by killing more background applications. However, you might as well wait for the newer kernel which will fix your problem anyway.

Though it was more 320 out of 512
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

RADLOUNI said:
The above behavior is typical of windows mobile, and that is exactly why i shifted to Android thinking it is better.
My questions to the android experts out there are the following:
1- Why is memory leaking like this. Such a behavior results in a phone with very bad user experience
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
3- Is this due to TouchWiz by Samsung, if yes then i will wait for subsequent updates to see if this problem could be resolved by Samsung
4- Will the 2.2 Froyo update resolve this issue ?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has to do a lot with Android's garbage collector. The reason task-killers are not the best way to go, is because when you kill tasks a lot of the memory is not recovered (garbage collector does not work as it should). Android by default won't start killing apps until you get between 20-30MB of memory. For some reason, in the SGS, as you said, when ram drops below 70MB, the phone starts to feel pretty laggy; the best way to remedy this is to use applications like autokiller or minfreemanager, which require you to be rooted.
For a more in-depth explanation of how android kills processes see this http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details (from the developer of Autokiller).
I would like to know why the phone feels so laggy when ram drops below 70MB, from what I understand, this shouldn't be the case...

2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
--> No, this is not typical behavior of Android, i use my HTC Magic before Galaxy S, no lagging problem even the memory is lower than 15MB.

The galaxy S defaults are too low for when it starts removing apps from RAM, you need to root it and then install minfree manager or autokiller (which is not a task killer don't be deceived by the name)

Brantyr said:
The galaxy S defaults are too low for when it starts removing apps from RAM, you need to root it and then install minfree manager or autokiller (which is not a task killer don't be deceived by the name)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
doesn't solve the mystery because this is a non-issue on other android phones.
why do i need to keep 50-70mb free to get a smooth running phone where others can handle 30mb free without problems.

Goshh..thanks for simplified. Now ive removed the task killer..and stand firm by the android golden rules...cheers..
Sent from my GT-I9000

I noticed this same low ram behavior on my galaxy s. After boot the phone shows like 180 mb of ram free after a couple days the phone will drop down to 30 mb of ram all the while I'm killing apps running in the background with task killer.
The phone slows down significantly even after I kill everything.i thought android was supposed to circumvent these kind of low ram Issues.

inurb said:
I noticed this same low ram behavior on my galaxy s. After boot the phone shows like 180 mb of ram free after a couple days the phone will drop down to 30 mb of ram all the while I'm killing apps running in the background with task killer.
The phone slows down significantly even after I kill everything.i thought android was supposed to circumvent these kind of low ram Issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is.
And you're supposed to not be messing with how Android manages things cuz taskkilling screws it up.

reuthermonkey said:
It is.
And you're supposed to not be messing with how Android manages things cuz taskkilling screws it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you suggest that I not force close any apps using taskkiller and just let android 2.1 do it's thing with memory management?
When I had the phone for the first week without taskkiller installed, the device ran very slow after the first couple days of use. Your saying that the slowness will go away as android dishes out memory effectively?
I'll uninstall taskkiller and let the device run longer than a week and see if it ever speeds up. thanks

Galaxy S gaming performance

I thought SGX540 that's superior than iphone4 would run new games without any lags but for new games such as 9mm and let's golf 3 i've face many stutter on those games. I'd like to ask others that you have problem like me or not ? or maybe next time i'd go back to ios or waiting ice cream sandwich. Those games are smooth in iphone4 but not in galaxy s that has superior GPU.

I didn't play to 9mm and I just tested Lets Golf3, but yeah... it's not strange to have some small lags sometimes.
If gaming on the phone is very important for you I suggest to use samsung roms and not cm7 or miui.
And yeah, maybe you should have buy an iPhone, Android still can beat iOS when it comes to games

im currently on JVT.firmware
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I notice the lags too. I strongly believe that the lags are caused primarily by low ram. On Froyo, I never had lags in games, and they were all super smooth. But on gingerbread, after a few hours of usage, the ram drops below 100mb, and the games will lag. The games don't lag on a fresh boot. Hence, the problem is not with the gpu, but with the fact that 512mb of ram is just not enough for gingerbread. If you want to remove the lags in games as well as in the phone interface, I recommend that you flash a 2.2.1 rom. ZSJPK was one of the best roms I've ever used.

Yeah, sgx540 is better than the 535 use in iphone 4, but it's all about drivers and optimisations. And we can't deny that Apple is doing a wonderfull job with iOS.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda premium

disclaimernotice said:
I notice the lags too. I strongly believe that the lags are caused primarily by low ram. On Froyo, I never had lags in games, and they were all super smooth. But on gingerbread, after a few hours of usage, the ram drops below 100mb, and the games will lag. The games don't lag on a fresh boot. Hence, the problem is not with the gpu, but with the fact that 512mb of ram is just not enough for gingerbread. If you want to remove the lags in games as well as in the phone interface, I recommend that you flash a 2.2.1 rom. ZSJPK was one of the best roms I've ever used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
indeed, i also think the lags are caused by lack of ram...
when you move the camera around in the game it sometimes hangs and when the textures are in RAM, you can continue playing without fps drops or lag
a tip before you start playing:
- root your phone and install "autostarts" to disable all crap which boots up with android
- reboot phone
- after booting go to task manager and cleanup ram
- go to settings => applications => active services and kill unnecessary processes. (for example, when you close the facebook app, it still keeps running as a service, sometimes almost using 50MB ram)
i reduced lag in 9mm alot with the method above...

Is there a custom rom that has a very low ram consumption? that would fix this issues

Simplicitiy is very good!

alwo1303 said:
Simplicitiy is very good!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how many ram does system take with that rom?

For games playing, 2.2.1(JSD) is a Must!

titooo7 said:
I didn't play to 9mm and I just tested Lets Golf3, but yeah... it's not strange to have some small lags sometimes.
If gaming on the phone is very important for you I suggest to use samsung roms and not cm7 or miui.
And yeah, maybe you should have buy an iPhone, Android still can beat iOS when it comes to games
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
... what? You're suggesting Samsung over CM7/MIUI when you want more performance? Are you trying to troll or something?
_breez_ said:
indeed, i also think the lags are caused by lack of ram...
when you move the camera around in the game it sometimes hangs and when the textures are in RAM, you can continue playing without fps drops or lag
a tip before you start playing:
- root your phone and install "autostarts" to disable all crap which boots up with android
- reboot phone
- after booting go to task manager and cleanup ram
- go to settings => applications => active services and kill unnecessary processes. (for example, when you close the facebook app, it still keeps running as a service, sometimes almost using 50MB ram)
i reduced lag in 9mm alot with the method above...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Reboot my phone. Clear memory with task manager. Kill active services... just to game? Why not just close some apps? Common sense, people. It's a brilliant thing.
lpalvaro said:
Is there a custom rom that has a very low ram consumption? that would fix this issues
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's called V6 Supercharger Script. It's like a ROM, but it's actually just a script... and you can run that script on whatever ROM you want. What it does, is it lets you pick a number. That number decides how much free RAM you'll have. Then, like magic, you just have it.
There hasn't been a single piece of good advice in this thread...

upichie said:
Yes, it's called V6 Supercharger Script. It's like a ROM, but it's actually just a script... and you can run that script on whatever ROM you want. What it does, is it lets you pick a number. That number decides how much free RAM you'll have. Then, like magic, you just have it.
There hasn't been a single piece of good advice in this thread...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't use supercharger with semaphore kernel, and CF bigmem settings (98 mb) doesn't solve the performance issue.

lpalvaro said:
Is there a custom rom that has a very low ram consumption? that would fix this issues
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, custom roms, even so called simple and bare ones, use more ram than stock roms. I recommend ZSJPK 2.2.1, which has about 180mb of ram on boot, and an average of 120-140mb or ram after two days' usage.

lpalvaro said:
I can't use supercharger with semaphore kernel, and CF bigmem settings (98 mb) doesn't solve the performance issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then you do it without the script. What's the problem here? I have over 2,000 games on my phone. And no, that wasn't a typo. None of them lag.

upichie said:
Reboot my phone. Clear memory with task manager. Kill active services... just to game? Why not just close some apps? Common sense, people. It's a brilliant thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
because android automatically closes apps when RAM is low and services always keep running in the background, whether you need them or not.
why would you let a service use your ram when you don't even need it? THAT is common sense.

bigmem kernel may help? its what i use

upichie said:
... what? You're suggesting Samsung over CM7/MIUI when you want more performance? Are you trying to troll or something?
Reboot my phone. Clear memory with task manager. Kill active services... just to game? Why not just close some apps? Common sense, people. It's a brilliant thing.
Yes, it's called V6 Supercharger Script. It's like a ROM, but it's actually just a script... and you can run that script on whatever ROM you want. What it does, is it lets you pick a number. That number decides how much free RAM you'll have. Then, like magic, you just have it.
There hasn't been a single piece of good advice in this thread...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Learn some manners, people here are just trying to help. Have you actually tried the two games mentioned in op, you tell us you have 200 games installed is 9mm and lets golf included in these?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I've rolled back to froyo and now without apps in the background i0ve about 140mb of ram used, and now 9mm goes smooth. I'm not moving from froyo any more.
Also, now the battery lasts in 6 hours of screen usage, and with jvt only 4 hours

_breez_ said:
because android automatically closes apps when RAM is low and services always keep running in the background, whether you need them or not.
why would you let a service use your ram when you don't even need it? THAT is common sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you even use an Android phone?
leroys said:
Learn some manners, people here are just trying to help. Have you actually tried the two games mentioned in op, you tell us you have 200 games installed is 9mm and lets golf included in these?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are they though? When I help someone out, I tell them correct information. If I don't know the correct information, I don't tell them anything. Why? Because incorrect information is worse than not helping at all. Few people in this thread have given remotely acceptable advice. No one needs to do a 3-step process, including rebooting your phone, just to play games; likewise, no one needs to downgrade to Froyo in order to game either.
I have Let's Golf! 3D installed currently, but I don't have the most recent revision of 9MM—although I have played it in the past. I have my phone's CPU and GPU overclocked, like I'm sure many of us do here, and I can play both without noticeable lag. I didn't have to reboot my phone to play them. I didn't have to uninstall apps to play them. I didn't have to flash an entirely new ROM to play them. And I certainly didn't need to stand on one leg with the phone above my head to play them.
Bad advice is just bad.

upichie said:
Do you even use an Android phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I posted what helped reducing lag in 9mm on my phone.
if you don't need the help i posted, that's too ****ing bad. the fact this topic was started shows people are facing the same problem with lack of usable ram memory for 9mm.
looks like you have some sort of magic phone with unlimited amounts of ram memory that never lags
the reason why i told him to reboot his phone is because ram usage is much less in most cases, right after booting up.
and btw, next time do some more effort instead of posting one line if my information is not correct

RAM usage after eating ICS

honestly, its become smoother and much responsive than in gingerbread
but the available RAM has also noticeably reduced, in fact, a LOT!
in 2.3, it was somewhere between 300-350M after average use (not boot up)
now, in 4.0, it can reach as low as 180M, usually 230M i think
please advise if sort of memory freeing app is necessary
thanks a lot

beveve said:
honestly, its become smoother and much responsive than in gingerbread
but the available RAM has also noticeably reduced, in fact, a LOT!
in 2.3, it was somewhere between 300-350M after average use (not boot up)
now, in 4.0, it can reach as low as 180M, usually 230M i think
please advise if sort of memory freeing app is necessary
thanks a lot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I advice against task killers. You could install the init.d support and run some scripts to help optimize your resources.

beveve said:
honestly, its become smoother and much responsive than in gingerbread
but the available RAM has also noticeably reduced, in fact, a LOT!
in 2.3, it was somewhere between 300-350M after average use (not boot up)
now, in 4.0, it can reach as low as 180M, usually 230M i think
please advise if sort of memory freeing app is necessary
thanks a lot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sony did said ics took more ram than GB long time ago. You dont need to freeze any app, the system will automatically free up unused app ram once it requires more ram from current app
Sent from my LT28i using xda premium

Yep. This is typical of ICS. Do not worry. Enjoy the fluidity.
Sent from my LT28at

thank u all comments have been helpful
no more concerns then:good:

Of course more ram is needed for smoother transitions and so on, once you notice the phone lagging and having most of its ram used then its a problem. GB is smooth for me right now knock on wood
Sent from my LT28at using xda premium

i've been on ICS for 5 days and checked pretty regularly. Only rebooted the phone once since i flashed it. This morning i have 360Mb in use...GB i seemed to always hover around 300Mb in use. So so far the ICS hit doesn't seem too large on my end.
There are about 20 odd apps i haven't reinstalled though since the flash; mostly games and a few things i ended up using less than i thought i would. I have 3 home screens stuffed full of widgets for data toggles, weather, music, etc. The main home screen being relatively empty, and the other just straight up app icons.
It swings a lot though. the ICS browser, with lots of windows running, will eat it all up...causing it to take a second or two for everything to pop up on the home screens when i quit out. This is my first android device, so i'm still learning the ins and outs...but i disabled every AT&T app i could, and they are no longer showing up in my process tree...Navigator used to eat 40Mb of memory despite me never once opening it..that'll do until i get around to digging deeper and removing them entirely.

RAM usage

I'm still pretty new to Android so I don't know what is normal, but why does the system use so much RAM when it is supposedly doing nothing? On my 2GB model, after a reboot it says that 1.2GB are free, but this soon drops to 900MB and continues to drop to 500 or 600MB, even if all apps are closed. Is this something I should just ignore and trust that tge Android system knows best and uses RAM appropriately?

kanagawaben said:
I'm still pretty new to Android so I don't know what is normal, but why does the system use so much RAM when it is supposedly doing nothing? On my 2GB model, after a reboot it says that 1.2GB are free, but this soon drops to 900MB and continues to drop to 500 or 600MB, even if all apps are closed. Is this something I should just ignore and trust that tge Android system knows best and uses RAM appropriately?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This must be the well-publicised Android 5.0.x memory leak.

DanielKennethRego said:
This must be the well-publicised Android 5.0.x memory leak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly, but my Memo Pad 7 seems much the same, and that's still on 4.4.2

If there is free memory then Android will let the apps sit in memory invisibly even after you have closed them - this way they will load faster next time you launch them. If the amount of free memory gets low Android will close some of those invisible apps. So that is normal, unless the amount of free RAM keeps decreasing while you do nothing with it - in that case there must be some bad memory leak.

In android, unused memory is kind of waste so system will allocate usage in a high percentage for efficiency.

DanielKennethRego said:
This must be the well-publicised Android 5.0.x memory leak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
graphO said:
If there is free memory then Android will let the apps sit in memory invisibly even after you have closed them - this way they will load faster next time you launch them. If the amount of free memory gets low Android will close some of those invisible apps. So that is normal, unless the amount of free RAM keeps decreasing while you do nothing with it - in that case there must be some bad memory leak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
xda_husky said:
In android, unused memory is kind of waste so system will allocate usage in a high percentage for efficiency.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kanagawaben said:
Possibly, but my Memo Pad 7 seems much the same, and that's still on 4.4.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not a memory leak. All devices which are on papers 2GB are actually less than that. Take memory for example. My Nexus says 32GB but I get around 27GB. Same goes on with USB flash drivers/ pen drives.
Secondly, On Windows, you want to keep as much RAM available as you can so that programs have enough room to operate. When RAM fills up, Windows is forced to start using hard drive space as virtual RAM and hard drives are much slower than physical RAM.
This is not true for Android.
Android’s operating system has its own native handler for assigning RAM to apps and making sure that all of it is being used in the most optimal way. In fact, Android purposely tries to keep apps loaded into RAM for better performance. RAM is fast, remember? On mobile devices, every bit of speed is critical for a good user experience, so keeping apps in RAM is actually a good thing. So regardless how much your RAM is shown, it wouldn't affect your user experience unless the apps installed in your phone are more than RAM can handle at a time which means either update your phone with more RAM or uninstall your apps that you do not use!

Hnk1 said:
It is not a memory leak. All devices which are on papers 2GB are actually less than that. Take memory for example. My Nexus says 32GB but I get around 27GB. Same goes on with USB flash drivers/ pen drives.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not what OP is saying, at all.

DanielKennethRego said:
That is not what OP is saying, at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OP says that the memory decreases over time. If you read my post again, i simply said as you more applications are loaded over time, the memory starts to decrease! This is what causes the memory to decrease and if you could use a bit of logic, you could have easily come to the conclusion

Hnk1 said:
The OP says that the memory decreases over time. If you read my post again, i simply said as you more applications are loaded over time, the memory starts to decrease! This is what causes the memory to decrease and if you could use a bit of logic, you could have easily come to the conclusion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...And that is not what I quoted in my reply, is it?

DanielKennethRego said:
...And that is not what I quoted in my reply, is it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sometimes it's good to swallow some pride and in that there's more dignity. I explained everything from bits and pieces and I'm sure OP can conclude it unlike you.
Do not hesitate to quote me for any query. Always welcomed

Hnk1 said:
It is not a memory leak. All devices which are on papers 2GB are actually less than that. Take memory for example. My Nexus says 32GB but I get around 27GB. Same goes on with USB flash drivers/ pen drives.
Secondly, On Windows, you want to keep as much RAM available as you can so that programs have enough room to operate. When RAM fills up, Windows is forced to start using hard drive space as virtual RAM and hard drives are much slower than physical RAM.
This is not true for Android.
Android’s operating system has its own native handler for assigning RAM to apps and making sure that all of it is being used in the most optimal way. In fact, Android purposely tries to keep apps loaded into RAM for better performance. RAM is fast, remember? On mobile devices, every bit of speed is critical for a good user experience, so keeping apps in RAM is actually a good thing. So regardless how much your RAM is shown, it wouldn't affect your user experience unless the apps installed in your phone are more than RAM can handle at a time which means either update your phone with more RAM or uninstall your apps that you do not use!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must say, although most of what you say is true, having less free ram absolutely does have a negative effect on user experience. My browser tends to crash, non-intensive games face lag spikes and the general UI stutters. Is this due to Android or Asus' tweaks to Android doing a poor job at managing ram? I don't doubt that in a perfect scenario with a perfect OS, what you said holds true.

I've not had good experience with the RAM so far. My browser tabs fall out of memory more than my cheap 1GB phone. It's rather disappointing. Even just switching between 2 or 3 tabs and going back to a tab after a few seconds and it's already fallen out.

aloy99 said:
I must say, although most of what you say is true, having less free ram absolutely does have a negative effect on user experience. My browser tends to crash, non-intensive games face lag spikes and the general UI stutters. Is this due to Android or Asus' tweaks to Android doing a poor job at managing ram? I don't doubt that in a perfect scenario with a perfect OS, what you said holds true.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
damian5000 said:
I've not had good experience with the RAM so far. My browser tabs fall out of memory more than my cheap 1GB phone. It's rather disappointing. Even just switching between 2 or 3 tabs and going back to a tab after a few seconds and it's already fallen out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes as I mentioned before, if the apps which are preloaded are more than RAM can handle, you'd surely see a lag but killing background apps wouldn't be of much help either unless your RAM memory has too many preloaded apps already which is affecting performance of your phone. If you are rooted, apps like greenify / titanium can hibernate / freeze apps which take up memory and usually this helps in better user interface but again many other argue the opposite.
Are you using Asus Browser ? If yes, I'd suggest to use chrome as your default browser because Asus Browser is not only slow but also it drains a lot of battery. This has been proven extensively and even reviewed on different websites including gsmarena.
Basically Nexus provides pure Android interface which every manufacturer tweaks a bit according to their own needs. Usually this tweaking means more memory usage(Ram) by system UI. This is one reason that Samsung's touch wiz lags a lot on lower end phones but the same hardware runs smooth without touchwiz. The reason is Samsung has lots of tweaks in system UI .
Some browsers conserve memory by only keeping the tab used in memory and rest are loaded when you switch them. They aren't preloaded but usually this option is available in settings to preload pages which would use more memory.
I have preordered the device with 4gb so I'm afraid I can't compare your device with mine in this regard.
Kindly tell me which browsers are you using so I can comment further

Hnk1 said:
Yes as I mentioned before, if the apps which are preloaded are more than RAM can handle, you'd surely see a lag but killing background apps wouldn't be of much help either unless your RAM memory has too many preloaded apps already which is affecting performance of your phone. If you are rooted, apps like greenify / titanium can hibernate / freeze apps which take up memory and usually this helps in better user interface but again many other argue the opposite.
Are you using Asus Browser ? If yes, I'd suggest to use chrome as your default browser because Asus Browser is not only slow but also it drains a lot of battery. This has been proven extensively and even reviewed on different websites including gsmarena.
Basically Nexus provides pure Android interface which every manufacturer tweaks a bit according to their own needs. Usually this tweaking means more memory usage(Ram) by system UI. This is one reason that Samsung's touch wiz lags a lot on lower end phones but the same hardware runs smooth without touchwiz. The reason is Samsung has lots of tweaks in system UI .
Some browsers conserve memory by only keeping the tab used in memory and rest are loaded when you switch them. They aren't preloaded but usually this option is available in settings to preload pages which would use more memory.
I have preordered the device with 4gb so I'm afraid I can't compare your device with mine in this regard.
Kindly tell me which browsers are you using so I can comment further
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using Chrome. That's the whole point of having more memory, so they don't have to be reloaded when switching.
If I had 10 tabs open and switching back and forth over a long period of time, this is understandable. Not 2 or 3 tabs and switching between two tabs within 10 seconds. Defeats the entire purpose of having 2GB of RAM. The same thing happens switching between apps. Many of them fall out of memory within just a few seconds of switching back and forth. My 1GB phone does better than this. Something to do with whatever memory management Asus has set up.

damian5000 said:
Using Chrome. That's the whole point of having more memory, so they don't have to be reloaded when switching.
If I had 10 tabs open and switching back and forth over a long period of time, this is understandable. Not 2 or 3 tabs and switching between two tabs within 10 seconds. Defeats the entire purpose of having 2GB of RAM. The same thing happens switching between apps. Many of them fall out of memory within just a few seconds of switching back and forth. My 1GB phone does better than this. Something to do with whatever memory management Asus has set up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand your frustrations and it could be Asus related buy I think this is how chrome operates generally so it's the browser in my opinion. I suggest you use dolphin browser (not mini version) because it usually preloads pages on my devices and it is fast as well but I usually use it for flash support only. I prefer opera classic (now opera) on my phone with chrome . On my tab, I use chrome only. It always works for me and it's Asus made. Tell me what you think of it after using it a bit . I like chrome for its sync support which is very simple and helpful.

Hnk1 said:
Yes as I mentioned before, if the apps which are preloaded are more than RAM can handle, you'd surely see a lag but killing background apps wouldn't be of much help either unless your RAM memory has too many preloaded apps already which is affecting performance of your phone. If you are rooted, apps like greenify / titanium can hibernate / freeze apps which take up memory and usually this helps in better user interface but again many other argue the opposite.
Are you using Asus Browser ? If yes, I'd suggest to use chrome as your default browser because Asus Browser is not only slow but also it drains a lot of battery. This has been proven extensively and even reviewed on different websites including gsmarena.
Basically Nexus provides pure Android interface which every manufacturer tweaks a bit according to their own needs. Usually this tweaking means more memory usage(Ram) by system UI. This is one reason that Samsung's touch wiz lags a lot on lower end phones but the same hardware runs smooth without touchwiz. The reason is Samsung has lots of tweaks in system UI .
Some browsers conserve memory by only keeping the tab used in memory and rest are loaded when you switch them. They aren't preloaded but usually this option is available in settings to preload pages which would use more memory.
I have preordered the device with 4gb so I'm afraid I can't compare your device with mine in this regard.
Kindly tell me which browsers are you using so I can comment further
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using Firefox, I read about the stock browser issues before getting the phone.
Clearing ram using the built in booster appears to help with performance, although it could be a placebo, and it's certainly less pronounced than on my previous phone with only 1GB of ram.
I have greenify'd/frozen a lot of apps, including some of the Asus bloatware. No comment on improved performance though.
Overall, I'm happy with the performance but low ram still seems to bother me, although such scenarios are rare.

aloy99 said:
Using Firefox, I read about the stock browser issues before getting the phone.
Clearing ram using the built in booster appears to help with performance, although it could be a placebo, and it's certainly less pronounced than on my previous phone with only 1GB of ram.
I have greenify'd/frozen a lot of apps, including some of the Asus bloatware. No comment on improved performance though.
Overall, I'm happy with the performance but low ram still seems to bother me, although such scenarios are rare.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you are more worried about RAM that is left in your memory rather than actual performance. This can happen especially if you had very high expectations from this phone. According to ASUS, this is a midrange phone on their website. Not a flagship if you are hoping!
I suggest check the performance by installing some heavy graphic games and see if it lags or not. I am sure that would be the best way to find out!
Good Luck!

The browser pages redrawing is almost certainly the lollipop memory leak. I don't have a zenfone 2 yet, but my nexus 7 had this problem up until the release of 5.1, so hopefully Asus updates to that soon.

i notice when i uninstalled clean master..my ram always on 1 gb free unlike before it stays at 650..700 free...notice my phone is even faster now

TOT_tomdora said:
The browser pages redrawing is almost certainly the lollipop memory leak. I don't have a zenfone 2 yet, but my nexus 7 had this problem up until the release of 5.1, so hopefully Asus updates to that soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct, thank you for finally making that point clear as it's the main reason, which clearly isn't Asus' fault.
pato2015 said:
i notice when i uninstalled clean master..my ram always on 1 gb free unlike before it stays at 650..700 free...notice my phone is even faster now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An ironic, yet awesome find pato!:thumbup: Be sure to relay this to the other places on the net that you're involved with that pertains to the Zenfone 2.
Sent from the Ace's MB865 using Tapatalk

how are you people getting such low ram usage?

it seems like no matter what my zenphone uses about 1.5 Gb but i know people have gotten it under 1GB. how? im currently using superzen and i tried cynogen mod as well. same story. i cant seem to free up more ram.

Let me ask you a question: Why do you want lower ram?

ZenobiaKael said:
it seems like no matter what my zenphone uses about 1.5 Gb but i know people have gotten it under 1GB. how? im currently using superzen and i tried cynogen mod as well. same story. i cant seem to free up more ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As long as it's smooth and good multi-tasking. You dont have to really care about the " number " of your free ram

I would go further and say that all the silly bloatware on ZF2 that tries to minimize RAM usage is the opposite of what you want. Killing apps to save RAM means the next time you use the app, it must be reloaded from flash and reinitialized, which uses battery. Leaving apps asleep in RAM uses no battery, assuming the app isn't doing something stupid, like loading ads in the background to try and siphon off money from google. If an app is wasting battery when you aren't using it, I recommend deleting it so the author gets the message that it's not acceptable to do that.

I got rid of my widgets and that made a difference