RAM costs more for phones, too - so how much do you actually need?

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ZDNET's key takeaways

Phones have more RAM than ever, while prices skyrocket.

Flagship phones have more RAM that most people need.

Most people only need 8GB or 12GB.

If you've ever pored over specs for new phones while shopping around, you've probably seen the high amounts of RAM among the list of highly-touted features. Phones are getting more and more amounts of random access memory (RAM), but how much does your phone really need?

There are two metrics advertised in GBs: RAM and storage. Storage refers to how much space you have to hold apps, photos, videos, documents. RAM, on the other hand, refers to short-term memory and represents how much the phone can do at once. In short, its performance.

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But there's only so much your phone can do, anyway. While more RAM is better in theory, a phone with a lot of comes with a price -- literally. Thanks largely to AI data centers scooping up nearly all the available RAM (it's estimated data centers will demand 70% of available memory chips in 2026), prices are more expensive than ever and continue to rise.

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