The Galaxy S line's once huge lead over the iPhone with this feature has been sharply reduced
Samsung is increasing the capacity of RAM memory that it will equip the Galaxy S26 series with.
Remember when most top-tier Android phones had 4GB of RAM? These days, 12GB of memory is the minimum you want to see on your Android handset. The Galaxy S25 line featured 12GB of RAM although there was a 16GB variant of the top-of-the-line Galaxy S25 Ultra, but it was limited to Korean sales only. Macquarie Research believes that Sammy will hike the amount of memory on the Galaxy S26 series which is expected to be released in February 2026.
Based on Macquarie's research, tipster @Jukanlosreve posted a tweet that cites the research firm's conclusion by saying that the RAM capacity of the Galaxy S series will rise to 16GB in 2026. This will help Samsung's flagship series take on its rivals from China who are willing to equip their top shelf models with the best hardware available. We used to write about how a higher capacity of RAM would improve a phone's ability to multitask.
Macquarie expects that the RAM capacity of the Galaxy S series will increase to 16GB in 2026.
— Jukan Choi (@Jukanlosreve) June 23, 2025
Meanwhile, the iPhone's RAM is expected to rise to 12GB in 2025, but remain at 12GB in 2026 as well. pic.twitter.com/bz26rbTYQR
These days, a higher amount of RAM is required for phones that are AI-centric. For example, Apple made sure that the iPhone 16e budget model carried no less than 8GB of RAM because that is the minimum required to run Apple Intelligence. While Sammy is hiking the amount of RAM on its upcoming flagship line, Apple will stick with 12GB for the iPhone 17 series later this year (actually, about two and a half months from now). There is a possibility that the base iPhone 17 gets only 8GB of RAM which will be enough for it to support Apple Intelligence.
TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, a living legend among Apple analysts, expects all iPhone 18 models to receive 12GB of RAM next year. One thing that you might have noticed over the last few years is that Apple seriously closed the RAM gap between the iPhone and the Galaxy S series. At the peak, there was 10GB of difference between the 16GB of RAM available for the 512GB Galaxy S20 Ultra and the 6GB of RAM deployed on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. That gap will be reduced to 4GB early next year with the 16GB of RAM on the Galaxy S26 series and the 12GB of RAM expected on all iPhone 17 series models this coming September.
Maybe you think that Apple Intelligence has been underwhelming and you barely use any of the AI features. But one thing for sure is that AI has forced Apple to take its RAM game to new heights. A decade ago iPhone fans would simply say that iOS didn't need as much RAM as Android did to explain the difference in the amount of RAM used on the rival platforms. Now it appears that users of both platforms would prefer to have as much RAM as they can get on their phones.
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