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cuzo

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 23, 2012
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Any concerns over the X-ray and 3gbs of memory going forward? I’m speaking update wise. I think I’m gonna jump on the xr and sell my s8 with fear s3 watch since I barely find a need for it.
 
I'm pretty sure iOS with 3GB will be noticeably worse to use than on a 4GB phone, EVENTUALLY, just like the 1GB iPhone 6 started feeling sluggish with iOS11 when it came to swapping apps and such. But, I don't think that day will come for the XR until 3 or 4 years down the line, and by then, I'll have updated to the next iPhone with at least 4GB of RAM.
 
The XR is s budget iPhone (whether you think it's overpriced or not) and 's budget products have never aged gracefully.
 
Considering the iPhone 8 was released a year ago with 2gb of ram, I’d say anything with 3gb will be fine for quite awhile..


Historically, iOS updates have never been limited to RAM. They've always been limited by SoC. For example, iOS 12 requires an A7 or newer device.



I agree, the iPhone XR is the first single rear camera iPhone spotting 3gb of ram. Also seeing that it only has to render at x 2(same as 4 to iphone 8) due to the lower resolution display that it has, it probably would last for a long time to come. The 3 x render on the plus size iphones that is also featured in the X,XS, XS Max do require more ram, more processing power, more energy, more heat dissipation etc.

To give an extreme illustration, on a old computer system, games that run perfectly well on a 640 x 480 screen, might struggle on a 800 x 600 screen, and be totally unplayable if it was hook up to a 1920 x 1080 screen.

When we think of longevity, amount of ram, while being an important factor, is but one out of many factors.

Arguably the iphone XR could be considered the iPhone with the greatest longevity at the moment, simply because it requires less resources to render images on it’s display and yet it is equipped with the most current chip, the A12 Bionic.

In short this is probably the best value we are going to get out of an upgrade in terms of longevity. Kind of like the iPhone 6S when it was just release, only better.
 
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If you’re concerned about 3GB of RAM, let’s look at phones with 2GB of RAM. The 6S is running great under iOS 12. Heck, the 9.7” iPad Pro also has 2GB of RAM.
 
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Ram is mainly sufficient memory retention with less crashes. 3GB is likely adequate, and even iPhones that have less, like the SE for Example, or form exceptionally well.
 
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