How future-proof are 512MB RAM Lumias?

[stratoc]

As I mentioned, hardware is not the issue. My only concern is new features and updates. Today I bought Lumia 720 for my gf and we like it very much. It's fast enough, very good looking, good materials. And I'm very much leaning towards buying one for myself. Mainly because the battery on 720 is much much better.

You and some other users mentioned a very good point in this discussion - 512MB RAM WP phones are very popular among WP users. So it would make a lot of sense for MS and Nokia to not leave us without any major updates and features in the future. That kind of calms me down

You can only answer the question from the 1G v 512MB perspective given your questions criteria.

By that count, 1GB (with faster CPU) will run everything released for a while - all games etc. So 820 is better.

Looking at hardware, I'd honestly consider the 720 over the 820 because it has a longer battery life, arguably better camera (FFC for sure), and with so many 512MB phones on the market, games will be made to run on a 512MB device eventually, if not on day 1.

 

[lippidp]

I would always buy the phone with the most RAM you can afford. No device is ever truly future proof, as stated, carriers could squash a perfectly good 8.1 upgrade down the line.

Having said that, did Microsoft guarantee full upgrades for 36 mos, or 'Support' for 36 mos. I've been down that road before, granted it was on Android, and why I'm a WP8 guy now, but Support simply means they'll release any security patches deemed severe enough to warrant a fix.

There are no true guarantees about upgrades. I owned a Moto Photon, which was promised an upgrade to ICS. That was later cancelled leaving us in a lurch.

Now, you might say, well, that was Android...but...hasn't this already been done with WP7 devices?

Buy the device you love now, and be optimistic about upgrades, but also know that upgrades are not a sure thing.

This says it all. Assume whatever phone you buy will never get an update no matter what anyone says. Using this logic there is no such thing as future proof. Get either of them.

 

[xandros9]

Because even ios devices with 256 ram get all updates,so does some of android devices

As someone who used to use a 4th generation iPod touch boasting 256 MB of RAM from iOS 4 all the way to 6, when it stopped seeing updates, and I can tell you the experience on 256 MB isn't as good as one would hope (not expect). They get a couple updates, but they lose features for various reasons. iPhone 4 (512 MB RAM) got an upgrade to iOS 5, right? But no Siri, even though its perfectly capable, when it got an upgrade to iOS 6, it and the iPod touch 4 didn't get the 3D capability in Apple Maps, even though I've used a jailbreak tweak and it was usable on my iPt4.

 

[nez99]

Awesome discussion guys! Thanks so much for all the advice. Great to know the OS RAM footprint in phone8 and the app RAM limitations. It sounds like a 512mb device will be pretty safe and a great point about how there are now more 512 devices active than 1gb ones so they'd be crazy to not do their best to support 512MB devices as much as possible. My wife is thinking of upgrading her Radar 4G 7.5 to a Phone8 device but doesnt want a massive screen or one with comparitve hardware to her current phone which basically only leaves the 720. Arguably the 720 has the best form factor of all the Lumias and isn't too big so I think this is probably the smartest choice. My only other concern would be whether Nokia Pro Cam is likely to arrive on the 720 any time soon?

 

[TechFreak1]

Also most of the major games I've noticed release a 512 mb compatible version after the initial launch i.e. 512mb version of Halo was released today.

Pro cam is for 92x devices unless you want to use the proxy (http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/236940-install-any-manufacturers-app-one-place.html)and download the pro cam app.

 

[SanjitVignesh]

Awesome discussion guys! Thanks so much for all the advice. Great to know the OS RAM footprint in phone8 and the app RAM limitations. It sounds like a 512mb device will be pretty safe and a great point about how there are now more 512 devices active than 1gb ones so they'd be crazy to not do their best to support 512MB devices as much as possible. My wife is thinking of upgrading her Radar 4G 7.5 to a Phone8 device but doesnt want a massive screen or one with comparitve hardware to her current phone which basically only leaves the 720. Arguably the 720 has the best form factor of all the Lumias and isn't too big so I think this is probably the smartest choice. My only other concern would be whether Nokia Pro Cam is likely to arrive on the 720 any time soon?

Refer this thread or this thread.
I've installed Pro Cam on my 620, although I am still waiting for the Amber update to check if it works.