1 GB vs 2GB RAM

[msrb21]

With the 8.1 Dev Preview, my Lumia 1020 runs faster. The animation and everything is faster and smoother too. Will it be the same for a Lumia 920?

 

[xandros9]

With the 8.1 Dev Preview, my Lumia 1020 runs faster. The animation and everything is faster and smoother too. Will it be the same for a Lumia 920?

Theoretically yes, with the small exception being that the 920 has less breathing room. (1 GB of RAM vs 2)
However, everyone's mileage will vary.

 

[a5cent]

Theoretically yes, with the small exception being that the 920 has less breathing room. (1 GB of RAM vs 2).

Nope. Exact same amount of breathing room (see explanations above).

Depending on what people choose to take as their measuring stick, some will say WP8.1 is faster while others will say it is slower (Judging by Xbox music it is slower. Judging by animation speed it is faster, etc. etc. etc). Anyway, none of that has anything to do with the amount of RAM in the Lumia 1020. It's just a result of the changes made in WP8.1 that are apparent on any WP device.

Let's keep this on topic.

 

[Ignotum666]

Any big difference between the 920 with 1020? Not only camera and ram. I'm very tempted to pick up this or wait 1520 prices drop down

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

 

[xandros9]

Any big difference between the 920 with 1020? Not only camera and ram. I'm very tempted to pick up this or wait 1520 prices drop down

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

Well, I believe the 1020 has a lanyard loop and a different type of display...

 

[Moiz Mian]

The 1020 is not faster than the 920 in any noticeable way. If you run any benchmark, the 920 actually scores better by a few points. Marginal difference. Also, I've loaded 8.1 on my 1020, and I definitely think the transitions are faster, but there are some jerky motions too, and I'll chalk that up to it being a developer preview. But in any case, I think the 920 would feel faster on 8.1 just like the 1020

 

[Moiz Mian]

Any big difference between the 920 with 1020? Not only camera and ram. I'm very tempted to pick up this or wait 1520 prices drop down ��

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

I recently upgraded from 920 to 1020, but I'll tell you that i don't think it's worth paying for the upgrade. You lose wireless charging and you get an AMOLED screen which is worse than LCD in my opinion. When you look at the screen in the dark you can see imperfections on any AMOLED and when you tilt the screen, you start to get blue tint. Alsoo low light images are worse and darker (I've heard this is because of the lower F-stop) and the camera is altogether much slower. So...if you think the ability to see more when zoomed all the way into pictures is worth all the hassle, go for it, otherwise I'd say wait for the 930 or 1030 whenever it comes

 

[slyronit]

I recently upgraded from 920 to 1020, but I'll tell you that i don't think it's worth paying for the upgrade. You lose wireless charging and you get an AMOLED screen which is worse than LCD in my opinion. When you look at the screen in the dark you can see imperfections on any AMOLED and when you tilt the screen, you start to get blue tint. Alsoo low light images are worse and darker (I've heard this is because of the lower F-stop) and the camera is altogether much slower. So...if you think the ability to see more when zoomed all the way into pictures is worth all the hassle, go for it, otherwise I'd say wait for the 930 or 1030 whenever it comes

Alsoo low light images are worse and darker (I've heard this is because of the lower F-stop)

- Bollocks! A lower F-Stop means wider aperture. This lets more light in which lets the camera use faster shutter speeds and/or lower ISO, so pictures will be inherently better.

Whoever you heard this from knows nothing about optics.

 

[hprvez]

That's not the reason but it's true, pictures are darker, also the OIS is not as effective on 1020.

 

[DalekSnare]

WP8.1 no longer uses a quota based system. WP8.1 employs a far more sophisticated memory management system than what WP8.0 had, making it even harder to explain. It definitely would require a lot more text than what I'm willing to write here. If enough people are interested however, we could maybe open a separate thread on the issue.

You said that WP 8 doesn't let apps use the other GB; does 8.1, since you say it's changed memory management? There are other Lumias with 2 GB like the 1520; would the OS really keep wasting half the RAM on these devices?

 

[a5cent]

You said that WP 8 doesn't let apps use the other GB; does 8.1, since you say it's changed memory management? There are other Lumias with 2 GB like the 1520; would the OS really keep wasting half the RAM on these devices?

No. My explanation in this thread was specific to the 1020 and only the 1020. Also note that the 1020 isn't wasting memory. It just reserves and uses 1GB for one specific task (processing very high resolution images), leaving the OS with the other 1GB.

On all other devices, the full memory capacity is available to the OS, because none of it is reserved for camera duty.

Make sure to read all my posts in this thread if you haven't already.

 

[JamesPTao]

41 mp image processing let alone in raw while creating an oversampled jpeg is one hell of a task for a smartphone. It needs the ram dedicated to it to function.

 

[DalekSnare]

Okay, so it's just how they implemented the 1020 then. I suppose that since it's a discontinued, older device, even if it were possible to adopt a better policy, they probably won't go through all the trouble and complexity it would take to support that. By better policy, I mean it would be nice if it could use the 2 GB for apps, but dump them out of memory as soon as you took a picture (so taking a picture would be equivalent in terms of memory to opening a really big app). That way it would sometimes keep more things in memory when you weren't using the camera. It would never be worse, since the cached memory things the camera would kick out of memory would be things that wouldn't have been there anyway in the 1 GB implementation.

 

[a5cent]

By better policy, I mean it would be nice if it could use the 2 GB for apps, but dump them out of memory as soon as you took a picture (so taking a picture would be equivalent in terms of memory to opening a really big app). That way it would sometimes keep more things in memory when you weren't using the camera. It would never be worse, since the cached memory things the camera would kick out of memory would be things that wouldn't have been there anyway in the 1 GB implementation.

The people engineering this stuff certainly thought of that. It's just not that simple. For one, "dumping an app out of memory" takes time. Many apps must save their state before exiting (the picture you just ran a filter on, the app's current frame a.k.a. navigation history, etc). That is often a substantial part of the delay we witness when we see the "resuming" message. That delay often includes not just the time it takes to launch the next app, but also the time it takes to tombstone a previously used one.
If you need to go through those motions not just for one app, but for potentially up to five apps which could all reside in that extra GB of memory, then you'd be forcing 1020 owners to wait even longer than they already are, just to take that first shot. I suspect many 1020 owners wouldn't appreciate your policy. Most would probably think you're making their device worse.
I understand what you'd like to optimize, but you're not seeing the drawbacks and likely drastically overestimating the benefits. With that extra 1GB of RAM the only difference you'd notice is seeing the "resuming" message somewhat less frequently. Many people (i.e. those who close apps) would be hard pressed to notice any difference at all. If you're really hell bent on that extra GB of RAM anyway, it would probably be better for MS to design a new device and make it 3GB from the outset.