Is Microsoft lying to us about RAM of 950 xl?

[Saad Rashid]

Hello all.
I downloaded few apps and all of them are showing that my lumia 950 xl has only 2gb RAM ????
Is Microsoft lying to us?
The phone does really seems slow sometimes which is making me doubt about the claim of 3gb RAM.
Has anybody else noticed it?

 

[mtf1380]

Hello all.
I downloaded few apps and all of them are showing that my lumia 950 xl has only 2gb RAM ????
Is Microsoft lying to us?
The phone does really seems slow sometimes which is making me doubt about the claim of 3gb RAM.
Has anybody else noticed it?

Under "About" it says 3 GB Installed. It would be a pretty stupid mistake for any company, let alone one like MSFT.

 

[PGrey]

It's possible that whatever you're using to check (the "apps") are showing free/available memory too, which is an entirely different thing than physical RAM.

 

[Rasool Shaik]

It has 3GB of RAM. Also with the latest build there will be 15 apps running in the background which were 7 previously.

 

[Saad Rashid]

Here are snapshot of two applications

 

[Saad Rashid]

 

[Saad Rashid]

It's possible that whatever you're using to check (the "apps") are showing free/available memory too, which is an entirely different thing than physical RAM.

Check my above posts

 

[Paul1266]

Mine has 3gb. Just stop and think about it for a moment...

 

[Saad Rashid]

Mine has 3gb. Just stop and think about it for a moment...

Can you install RAM status Applications and post a snapshot ?
I've used RAM optimizer and wintools to check.

 

[EricJennings]

Screenshot from aida64

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[PGrey]

Those apps look a little "off". The last one is even reporting the "weight" of the phone, hmm ;-]
I think what's happened here is that these are W8-8.1 mobile apps, using an API to make the calculation, and W10m has changed what it's returning, and the assumptions based on the previous API returns are leading to an incorrect calculation.

If you go to Settings->System->About->MoreInfo, you can see the RAM, as reported by the system. It's accurate.

 

[Rasool Shaik]

Those apps look a little "off". The last one is even reporting the "weight" of the phone, hmm ;-]
I think what's happened here is that these are W8-8.1 mobile apps, using an API to make the calculation, and W10m has changed what it's returning, and the assumptions based on the previous API returns are leading to an incorrect calculation.

If you go to Settings->System->About->MoreInfo, you can see the RAM, as reported by the system. It's accurate.

Exactly most apps in the store are not updated to support the latest HW / SW

 

[broar94]

https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...l-dual-sim%2Fspecifications%2F&token=4X9jULNa has as 3GB ram, you have absolutely nothing to worry about....

 

[mtf1380]

Is it possible that 1 GB has been allocated to the OS?

 

[xandros9]

Is it possible that 1 GB has been allocated to the OS?

And possibly other hardware bits too, absolutely.

 

[AaronGraham]

The app may be showing the available RAM. A certain amount of memory is used by the operating system and some is reserved for the GPU, but this is the case with every computing device on the planet.

Your phone does have 3GB total memory, but the total usable amount for apps is probably closer to 2GB by the time the operating system, essential services, and GPU memory is taken into account.

 

[JRDEMASKUS]

I am using an app called "Hardware Tests"
On the front page, the RAM entry is blank.
Under the Device tile it says "Available Memory 2097MB"

I assumed the app was incorrect, but seeing all this chatter, and the lack luster performance of the phone over my HTC M9, it does make me wonder... What the ... is wrong with this phone?
Production Build

 

[r2SN]

I am using an app called "Hardware Tests"
On the front page, the RAM entry is blank.
Under the Device tile it says "Available Memory 2097MB"

I assumed the app was incorrect, but seeing all this chatter, and the lack luster performance of the phone over my HTC M9, it does make me wonder... What the ... is wrong with this phone?
Production Build

The rest of memory is reserved for system/OS to run. The available memory is in which you can run your apps

 

[PGrey]

The app may be showing the available RAM. A certain amount of memory is used by the operating system and some is reserved for the GPU, but this is the case with every computing device on the planet.

Your phone does have 3GB total memory, but the total usable amount for apps is probably closer to 2GB by the time the operating system, essential services, and GPU memory is taken into account.

Sort of. Not to contradict, for the sake of it, but I build my PCs specifically with a (multi-core, at least 3GB DDR4) secondary GPU that has selfp-contained RAM. This means that the GPU doesn't have to go off-board (i.e. PCI or other BUS) to do *most* rendering.
Obviously our phones (there are ones with dedicated GPU RAM, but they're very rare) use a chunk of RAM for this. Depending on the rendering depth (a lower % value on our display), your phone can use more/less RAM, and a host of other GPU factors.
Devices (Bluetooth for example) also use a small chunk of dedicated RAM, while instantiated; you can tell I come from the device-test world, eh ;-]

 

[PGrey]

I am using an app called "Hardware Tests"
On the front page, the RAM entry is blank.
Under the Device tile it says "Available Memory 2097MB"

I assumed the app was incorrect, but seeing all this chatter, and the lack luster performance of the phone over my HTC M9, it does make me wonder... What the ... is wrong with this phone?
Production Build

You're just seeing build-build issues, while W10m goes through the process. Around build 318 (10586 release branch), things got quite a bit "quicker", and battery use went down dramatically. The two (obviously) have a direct correlation.
Most of these one-off apps will tell you odd stuff about your phone, no question.
A kind of cool hardware app is just called "Hardware Tests" by Amaze Pictures. If you want to see some cool info about your phone (they don't get the RAM right either, which really makes me wonder about that API implementation), check it out.