How future proof is 4GB of RAM?

[jtvang125]

With my LG G3 on it's last leg (just started having the common screen flickering and fade to black issue) I think it's time to upgrade my phone. This new one needs to hold me over for atleast another 2-3 years. I mostly just surf the net, occasional games, email, music and video, and picture taking. I really don't think I'm a heavy power user when it comes to phones (I have my desktop for that) but I do want it to still be able to keep up with future updates and apps.

 

[core2slow]

100% depends on the browser you're using, games you're playing, media apps that you're streaming, etc. So hard to say what's a power user and what isn't. Only the developers know what services are being run in the background and how much RAM it's supposed to be caching...all of which you can't control without adversely affecting the behaviour of said application.

Rule of thumb is that you can never have enough RAM with the amount of apps that are being developed/updated to meet today's demands. I find myself clearing the recent apps from memory a lot more frequent now and the amount of available RAM slowly decreasing with each passing update...

 

[sweenish]

I would say the flip-side to that is that Android has been improving its efficiency since 4.3, and more seriously from Marshmallow on. Increased RAM usage is usually the system taking advantage of free RAM. My Moto G3 with 1 GB does struggle if I install too many things, though. I also haven't rooted it or anything, since it is just supposed to be a backup phone.

My N7 2013 and N5 ran better on Marshmallow (official) than Lollipop, and Nougat (ROMs) also brought improvements. Both of those devices only have 2 GB and are still running pretty decently, hardware compromises for price points considered.

With that said, any modern mid-tier+ smartphone should be good for 2-3 years. If you cared about keeping it longer, I'd recommend getting the beastliest phone you could afford.