What is RAM Plus?
RAM Plus is a software feature that converts some of your smartphone storage into Virtual RAM.
This is pretty much the same thing Windows has been doing for several years now where you can allocate a certain amount of your disk storage to be used as a Virtual RAM if your physical RAM is insufficient.
Samsung gets rid of the iconic galaxy watch rotating bezel in the Galaxy Watch 5
What is Smartphone RAM?
Your smartphone RAM (Random Access Memory), is a short-term memory where the phone’s SoC stores ongoing operations to make them quickly accessible hence improving processing speed and performance.
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What is Virtual RAM?
Virtual RAM works by utilizing unused space on a device’s internal storage to provide a supplemental amount of RAM.
However, Virtual RAM is not as fast as Real RAM. But it can be used to store apps and data that would otherwise take up a lot of space in the real RAM. So whenever the operating system detects that all of the Real RAM has been filled up with many apps, it will start utilizing the virtual RAM if more RAM is needed.
The virtual RAM feature was previously only accessible through the rooting of smartphones, but now companies are providing it via custom software skins.
Why is more RAM important on your smartphone?
Having more RAM means more of your apps can keep on running in the background so that you can immediately switch between them, and continue from where you left, without any noticeable lag or load time.
That’s the reason why you can be playing music in the background while chatting on WhatsApp and quickly opening Instagram to check the latest feed all during which Facebook messenger still receives your message notifications.
The origin of RAM Plus
Samsung debuted the RAM Plus feature on the Galaxy A52s with One UI in 2021. At that time, you could only allocate a maximum of 4 GB of internal storage to be used as virtual RAM. But with the Arrival of One UI 4.1, RAM plus feature now has a few extra customization options.
Heavy users can now select whether to use 4GB, 6GB, or up to 8GB of internal storage as virtual memory. However, this feature as of now is limited only to a select list of Samsung Galaxy Smartphones.
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Which galaxy smartphones can really take advantage of RAM Plus?
For people who always open multiple apps at once on their smartphone (heavy users), Ram Plus can add an Extra Boost in RAM management.
But if you have a smartphone like the Galaxy S22 ultra with 12 GB RAM. Then RAM Plus is pretty useless for you. Remember that RAM Plus is essentially Virtual RAM.
And your operating system would only use virtual RAM if it runs out of real ream. The chances that anyone would run out of 12 GB of Real RAM on a smartphone are pretty slim.
Even galaxy smartphones with 8 GB RAM may not appreciate the effect of enabling RAM Plus. I use a galaxy S20 FE as my daily driver and I turned on RAM plus. But didn’t notice any major performance improvement
Therefore RAM Plus would only come in handy in galaxy smartphones with little RAM such as the Galaxy M21 and A32 with 4 GB or 6 GB RAM. So essentially, RAM Plus will be most beneficial to people using budget smartphones.
Since virtual RAM depends on internal storage free space if your smartphone gets over 90% full, there are chances that RAM Plus will not function well.
Which Samsung Galaxy devices support RAM Plus?
At the time of writing this blog post, the table below contains the list of Galaxy Smartphones that support Samsung’s RAM Plus feature.
- Galaxy A52s
- Galaxy A52 5G
- Galaxy Z Fold 3
- Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+, and Galaxy S22 Ultra
- Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+ and Galaxy S21 Ultra
- Galaxy A52
- Galaxy A72
- Galaxy M32
- Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra
- Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
- Galaxy Z Fold 2, Flip 5G and Flip 4G
- Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+
- Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+
- Galaxy Tab S7 FE [Source]
- Galaxy Tab S6 [Source]
- Galaxy Tab S7 & S7+
- Galaxy S20 FE LTE/5G [Source]
- Galaxy M12 – India [Source]
- Galaxy F62
- Galaxy A32
- Galaxy A42 5G
- Galaxy F23
- Galaxy M42
- Galaxy M31
- Galaxy M21
How to enable RAM Plus in your Galaxy Smartphone?
Go to Settings, Battery & Device Care, then click on Memory. The RAM Plus setting is right at the bottom of this menu. Tap on Ram Plus and a new menu opens with four Virtual Ram options 2GB, 4GB, 6GB, and 8GB below the following message.
“RAM Plus uses your phone’s storage space to provide virtual memory. Choose more virtual memory to allow more apps to stay open in the background. Choose less virtual memory to keep more storage free.”
After enabling Ram Plus, or changing your virtual Ram amount you will be prompted to restart your smartphone. Note that as of now, once enabled there’s no option to turn RAM Plus off.
