• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help How much RAM and onboard storage?

John Jason

Android Enthusiast
I'm probably the world's worst googler, but I can't find this information anywhere.

How much RAM does the SGSII have and how much built-in storage, not counting the SD card slot, which I assume can be up to 32 GB?
 
ram 1GB 833MB usable
internal memory 12GB available 11.50GB
App memory Above 1.8GB (installed a few apps i have that much free)
 
i must be a pro at google i typed in galaxy s2 specs and it showed ram and built in memory information on nearly every result on page 1

yay ^^
 
If memory [pun not intended] serves me correctly, although the RAM is 1GB I think there is 800MB left after load.
 
Hello. Can some of you tell me why there are dedicated App memory on the Android/Galaxy S2? why they dont make i so you can use all the 16gb of the memory to apps like on the iphone, instead of only 2gb that it is on the gs2.
 
Hello. Can some of you tell me why there are dedicated App memory on the Android/Galaxy S2? why they dont make i so you can use all the 16gb of the memory to apps like on the iphone, instead of only 2gb that it is on the gs2.

I believe most, if not all android phones use this system. I'm not sure why though.
 
Yes, i believe everyone got that. But can someone tellme why the android system is build that way? And for the sgs2 that have 16gb of storage. Why dedicate 2gb to app storage. When the total is 16gb. Then you dont have to move the apps to the sd or to integrated memory. Why not do it like on the iphone.
 
Most smartphones have dedicated internal memory space for OS/basic apps which is usually 1~2Gb. Even iPhone4 doesn't give you the whole 16Gb space for your stuffs. You typically get 1~3Gb less than physical memory size. That's still a lot of memory space for apps.
 
Most smartphones have dedicated internal memory space for OS/basic apps which is usually 1~2Gb. Even iPhone4 doesn't give you the whole 16Gb space for your stuffs. You typically get 1~3Gb less than physical memory size. That's still a lot of memory space for apps.

That's due to formatting, and as you say - the OS and core apps themselves.
 
Yes, i believe everyone got that. But can someone tellme why the android system is build that way? And for the sgs2 that have 16gb of storage. Why dedicate 2gb to app storage. When the total is 16gb. Then you dont have to move the apps to the sd or to integrated memory. Why not do it like on the iphone.

If I'm not mistaken, it's for copy protection of the apps. The dedicated app space is by design for this while the remainder is free space for you to move content to and from as you please. This would be different from iOS where they have a lockdown on the entire space. Apple limits the content you can load and you have to do it through iTunes. Pretty restrictive. The Android method is a small price to pay for being open. I'll take that over Apple's method. 2GB is plenty of space for apps.
 
If I'm not mistaken, it's for copy protection of the apps. The dedicated app space is by design for this while the remainder is free space for you to move content to and from as you please. This would be different from iOS where they have a lockdown on the entire space. Apple limits the content you can load and you have to do it through iTunes. Pretty restrictive. The Android method is a small price to pay for being open. I'll take that over Apple's method. 2GB is plenty of space for apps.

Ideally though, we'd have some space dedicated to start, then as you filled up the app space it would 'expand' to fill the rest of the memory as necessary. That would be good for people who for example didn't use music, etc and just downloaded apps.
 
You're not gonna use 2gb anyway though? And remember you have apps2sd option? If you manage to fill that memory I'll eat my S2.
 
That sounds like a challenge Lekky. If you want me, I'll be on the Android market downloading everything I can.
 
You're not gonna use 2gb anyway though? And remember you have apps2sd option? If you manage to fill that memory I'll eat my S2.

It's plausible, and what I'm suggesting would be fluid - i.e. if the phone detects that the application will use all of the internal memory it will automatically transfer it to the SD card, instead of forcing the user to transfer the applications through menu options (I'm talking about apps with internalOnly + CM). Obviously there would have to be exceptions, but it just makes everything slightly easier.

That sounds like a challenge Lekky. If you want me, I'll be on the Android market downloading everything I can.

Sounds like a plan ;)
 
Ideally though, we'd have some space dedicated to start, then as you filled up the app space it would 'expand' to fill the rest of the memory as necessary. That would be good for people who for example didn't use music, etc and just downloaded apps.

Perhaps, though the memory is partitioned and I don't know if that's possible to do on the fly. It would be like having a 250GB partition in your PC that would expand as needed, shrinking the remaining partition. That may be too complex or prone to allocation errors.

It's plausible, and what I'm suggesting would be fluid - i.e. if the phone detects that the application will use all of the internal memory it will automatically transfer it to the SD card, instead of forcing the user to transfer the applications through menu options (I'm talking about apps with internalOnly + CM). Obviously there would have to be exceptions, but it just makes everything slightly easier.

This is more likely, though step 1 would be making every application compatible with SD storage. Not all apps off the market can be transferred to SD so that's an obvious hurdle. I'd still like to choose which apps reside on the phone and which don't. There are some things that probably perform better in onboard memory, or if they're tied to active processes or widgets, they won't cause errors when the SD is unmounted. Other things don't matter. How would Android know?
 
Oh you guys :p

I stand by my point tho, you won't get close so it's not an issue! Talking theoretically is fine, but it's not a real life issue...
 
Oh you guys :p

I stand by my point tho, you won't get close so it's not an issue! Talking theoretically is fine, but it's not a real life issue...

What if you had a device with only 256MB ROM? Then this issue would come into place ;).
 
well when I got my GS2 thinking I had 16g of internal memory and that would be for apps. I have 1.8g left after only a few apps so I hope I dont run out of memory becasue I hated that on my Desire. It was a real problem on the Desire and you had to root the phone to get past this. I am hopping that all new apps are made to go to SD card
 
well when I got my GS2 thinking I had 16g of internal memory and that would be for apps. I have 1.8g left after only a few apps so I hope I dont run out of memory becasue I hated that on my Desire. It was a real problem on the Desire and you had to root the phone to get past this. I am hopping that all new apps are made to go to SD card
Fear not... The differences in App storage between the Desire and Galaxy SII is massive.
A newly Factory Reset Desire will leave you with an available space of 141mb, whereas on the Galaxy SII as you have found this is 1.8GB

When you consider most Apps only consume around 3MB with some running to 15MB it still leaves ample room for dozens of Apps.

My Brother has a Desire and he is always struggling with space, whereas on my SGSII I don't even flinch when installing large sized Apps.
Also, don't forget when an App install is say 15MB for the main App and 500MB for Data files those data files are not stored in the 1.8GB area but on the internal SD Card which is as you know very, very large.
 
Back
Top Bottom