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Galaxy S6 exhibiting overzealous RAM management, report users

posted by Daniel P. / Apr 28, 2015, 3:48 AM

Galaxy S6 exhibiting overzealous RAM management, report users

The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge come with the latest cutthroat DDR4 RAM technology, and 3 GB of the good stuff at that, but when it comes to the actual RAM management, Samsung might have dropped the ball, judging from several forum threads and user reports.

In a nutshell, Galaxy S6 owners are reporting a very aggressive RAM management, to the point where apps get constantly shut down, and there's 200-400 MB of RAM left only at any given time. Granted, Android's RAM usage is made this way, and the system feels best when most of the available RAM is utilized, that is why task killers and RAM boosters are never a good idea, but still.

The users have already reported this issue to Samsung, and there might be a software update in the future to bring on a more efficient RAM management - we can only imagine the app sprawling that will be happening on phones with Lollipop and 4 GB of RAM, of which there are already a few out there.

source: XDA-Devs (1,2,3)

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9.3

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User Rating:

8.8

Based on 36 Reviews

Display 5.1" 1440 x 2560 pixels

Camera 16 MP / 5 MP front

Processor Samsung Exynos 7 Octa, Octa-core, 2100 MHz

Storage 128 GB

Battery 2600 mAh(26h talk time)

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101 Comments

1. johanbiff

Posts: 415; Member since: Mar 31, 2015

thanx for announcing my tip :)

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 3:51 AM 1

29. Nine1Sickness

Posts: 896; Member since: Jan 30, 2011

#lagdroid

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 5:12 AM 10

39. Tanujtiwari

Posts: 84; Member since: Mar 18, 2015

Can anyone please explain to me what in the universe is memory leak, is it fixed in android 5.1? Also, what is the real improvement in android from KitKat to lollipop other than material design?

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 5:51 AM 2

59. Cicero

Posts: 1137; Member since: Jan 22, 2014

On KK GSA4 had started from 600MB (toping 1GB) and with Lollipop begin with 1GB of RAM (toping 1.4GB) from 2GB installed. I remember Google telling us how Lollipop will smooth run on 512KB. Lollol

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 6:45 AM 1

71. vincelongman

Posts: 5724; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

That's Samsung's fault (unless you are talking about the memory leak in some builds of Lollipop, which is Google's fault, but also Samsung's for not noticing/fixing it) On my Nexus 5 (2GB ram) Lollipop uses about 300MB KitKat also used 300MB On my brother's 2013 Moto G (1GB ram) Lollipop uses about 200MB KitKat used 250MB Motorola's 5.0.2 build also didn't have any memory leaks

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 7:09 AM 0

76. JohnK

Posts: 117; Member since: Mar 03, 2015

On my Moto X 2013 - 2GB ram, KitKat uses 420MB ram on cold boot. And device is freshly formatted since i intend to sell it.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 7:48 AM 0

81. Shubham412302

Posts: 581; Member since: Nov 09, 2011

thats because more the ram more the os will cache apps

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 8:20 AM 0

63. rubyonrails3

Posts: 375; Member since: Oct 01, 2014

if you saying that S6 using a lot cuz of lollipop memory leakage than you wrong. I had Note 4 and it was running Kitkat and every app use a lot more RAM than any other smartphone. so its basically Samsung TW or its own RAM management. I think its happens cuz of multi window feature and other multi tasking features on Samsung devices.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 6:53 AM 3

90. wrm2013

Posts: 237; Member since: Mar 28, 2013

My note 4 usually has about 1.3 gigs of ram free at any given time. When I took back my s6 it usually only had 400 free. In all aspects note 4 is a better phone than the s6.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 10:39 AM 0

92. marorun

Posts: 5029; Member since: Mar 30, 2015

My HTC M9 can have easily 5 to 10 apps open at the same time and i switch between them with no loading at all everything is smooth as butter. Samcrap Touchwiz is the problem here.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 11:32 AM 0

69. vincelongman

Posts: 5724; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

A memory leak is when the memory is allocated somewhere and not eventually released afterwards So you have lots of memory being wasted Most the OEMs fixed the 5.0 memory leaks in their builds of 5.0 5.1 from Google also fixed the 5.0 memory leaks as well But Google introduced a new memory leak in 5.1 Some specific games cause system memory usage to increase by 100mb with each launch No word on 5.1.1 yet Will probably have 5.1's memory leak fix, since Google have found a fix for it according to their bug tracker But we don't know if there's any new memory leaks in 5.1.1

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 7:04 AM 0

70. bondosho

Posts: 14; Member since: Nov 07, 2011

Unfortunately, the memory leak didn't get fixed until 5.1.1. I'm running CyanogenMod 12.1 on my Nexus 5, and it's wonderful.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 7:07 AM 0

73. TylerGrunter

Posts: 1544; Member since: Feb 16, 2012

Memory leak: when a program keeps on using more and more memory and nevers frees it up. The memory usage keeps on growing for that program and finally you have to restart the device/program because it is hogging all the memory. The memory leak on 5.0.1 is in the stock launcher and should be solved in 5.1 (hopefully( There are several improvments in Lollipop, but as I don't know which ones interest you I let you the source:http://developer.android.com/about/versions/lollipop.html

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 7:21 AM 0

42. BobbyBuster

Posts: 854; Member since: Jan 13, 2015

That's what happens when vendors care more about benchmark scores than real UX. And Sammy is the king in that.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 6:04 AM 10

43. BobbyBuster

Posts: 854; Member since: Jan 13, 2015

Sammy will fix this sooner or later. But what bothers me is that the review sites don't bother running benchmarks again after such a major patching is done. And I'm absolutely sure that ALL Sammy's phones perform much worse once such bugs(ehhh..... features) are gone.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 6:11 AM 4

93. marorun

Posts: 5029; Member since: Mar 30, 2015

But they are quite fast to run benchmark again on the M9. Well M9 benchmark may be bad compared to S6 but at least on mine i can open many apps at the same time and switch between them with no loading or app been closed.. So as usual in real life performance the HTC is better but thanks to a much much better marketing Samsung will sell more.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 11:35 AM 1

45. ArtSim98

Posts: 3535; Member since: Dec 21, 2012

#lagSamsung. Real Android doesn't lag.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 6:17 AM 5

64. xperian

Posts: 420; Member since: Apr 10, 2014

no, it does. All OS lag

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 6:56 AM 3

75. shuaibhere

Posts: 1986; Member since: Jul 07, 2012

Really??? Stock Android lags... This from my own experience...

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 7:44 AM 0

83. Super3310

Posts: 91; Member since: May 06, 2014

samsung galaxy L series pls (lag)

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 8:34 AM 0

55. BLUEBLASTER

Posts: 941; Member since: Feb 23, 2014

Nice troll but droid dont lag :P

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 6:39 AM 3

79. jove39

Posts: 2147; Member since: Oct 18, 2011

Android based OS are distributed by over 100 oem each bloated with custom implementations. I have Oneplus One with Cyanogen OS 12 (5.0.2)...and it has no lag or memory leak issue. And then there is Oxygen OS (5.0.2) from Oneplus...even fast and smooth than Cyanogen OS 12. Common thing between these two OS is they don't have custom UI like touchwiz or sense. Samsung slows down android with their touchwiz for no reason...it's now time, people should ask samsung to ditch touchwiz and embrace stock android ui.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 8:07 AM 0

94. marorun

Posts: 5029; Member since: Mar 30, 2015

Or use a better optimised UI like the one on HTC M9 lol

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 11:36 AM 0

85. rd_nest

Posts: 1656; Member since: Jun 06, 2010

Did you read the source links? or are you a uneducated retard who just comment without even reading anything?

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 8:39 AM 0

88. muser793

Posts: 60; Member since: Aug 15, 2013

so ur telling me you've paid 1000$ for a duckin "smart" phone and u have 200mb of free ram and ur apps keep crashing? looks like it's a "smart" phone for "smart" people. i think it's time for some blind android fans to try other things like windowsphone. i'm using a 200$ lumia 920 for almost 2 years now n never experienced an app crash, bug, lag, random restart or these kind of sh!t. now talk to me about app gap, wow wp doesn't have 100000fart machine apps such a shame, but at least it can manage its resourses n runs smooth on a 200$ device....

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 9:12 AM 1

2. Mxyzptlk unregistered

Lollipop wkes strikes again. I think this is probably an issue with the actual os since this was a reported problem by numerous users.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 3:51 AM 2

7. galanoth

Posts: 428; Member since: Nov 26, 2011

If you read the android police comments on lollipop articles, every one is asking for a memory fix.

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 4:03 AM 1

12. vincelongman

Posts: 5724; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

Its basically fixed in 5.1 Most people on Android Police are complaining that 5.1 is being released too slowly (e.g. not released for the Nexus 4)\

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 4:06 AM 0

14. rd_nest

Posts: 1656; Member since: Jun 06, 2010

It's there for Nexus 4, i have it. But it's worthless. If anyone is on KK, no need to install 5.1 Apart from few cosmetic changes, nothing in there in 5.1 Camera is still worthless, batterylife is useless. It sucks 7% while I sleep at night with 2G (not even 3G).

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 4:23 AM 2

24. vincelongman

Posts: 5724; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

Your camera and battery issues are hardware related On my Nexus 5 Stock Lollipop battery life is the better than stock KitKat Stock Lollipop battery life is about on par with rooted/modded KitKat Stock Camera is the same since Google hasn't changed anything but aesthetics But third parties camera apps are much better because of Lollipop's Camera2 API I've heard most people with other phones, e.g. S5, M8, Nexus 6, have improved battery

posted on Apr 28, 2015, 5:01 AM 1

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