Let's clear up the FUD about the 512MB RAM

[Guest KenBW2]

Every. Single. Review I see of this phone cites the 512MB of RAM as being a dealbreaker, yet noone is able to substantiate why this is such a limitation.

"It's not enough for ICS+"

I own a Blade running 4.2, and RAM certainly isn't a limitation. Processing power is.

My understanding of how Android will handle it is simply that apps will be killed off earlier when not in active use. On my Blade I seriously don't see this as being *too* early. As an ex-T-Mobile Pulse owner, with its 192MB of RAM, I know what not having enough RAM is like (try having music playing, then replying to a text and it kills your music).

Keeping apps open for longer would be nice, but so would quad core, a better camera, more resolution etc. It's a budget phone, we're not going to get a Nexus 4.

"Most phones now are 1GB+"

Another argument I see is that most phones these days are 1GB+. But they're also becoming quad core: again, this is a budget handset, you can't have it all.

The only two points where my Blade are crippled are looking up friends on Latitude and the task switcher taking a while to load. Both of these could easily be down to its meagre 600MHz CPU.

So instead of comparing with other phones, or the minimum requirements for Jelly Bean, or whatever other meaningless numbers we might see, what are the real-world, substantiated (ie not based on speculation) reasons why 512MB of RAM is a problem.

Edit: I asked the question on Reddit and got a really helpful answer

Edited April 15, 2013 by KenBW2

[Guest Magnets]

aaaaaaaaaaaaa

Edited March 6, 2017 by Magnets

[Guest KenBW2]

On my g300 even mid-range 2d games will eat up RAM and start pushing other cached apps out of memory, when you quit there is a noticeable delay while it reloads things. And I'm running GB.

View a large webpage or start multi tasking and there's a risk your launcher will get pushed.

You could probably get away with it, and from a blade it will be like night and day but it is still something to consider and not just FUD.

No I wasn't saying that the limitations was FUD, but that there's a lot of "zomg it only has 512MB? That's rubbish, the Nexus 4 has 2GB!!1one", with no actual justification for why 512MB would limit things.

I have noticed what you're saying about web pages (Gmail is one of them), so yea it's probably a consideration

[Guest hecatae]

If the GPU is utilized well, I see no reason for 512MB RAM to be an issue.

[Guest NeostarNeko]

I think it depends how many apps require a service to run continuously in the background

[Guest Voxpop2011]

@Ken. Thanks for the clarification about the 512 of ram. I am a light user of mobile phones: a few calls, a bit of texting/emailing and internet use as necessary when out and about, so I think the G510 will be more than adequate for my use. I placed an order via the website yesterday and am waiting for delivery. As an existing Vodafone customer, I am not so interested in any 'hacking' and intend to install a launcher and retrieve my Market apps.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Voxpop2011

[Guest MrPuddington]

The answer is very simple: 512MB is a pain for anything but the most modest use. Even normal web pages can eat most of the RAM, and certainly browsing with tabs will slow down the phone significantly. A few background processes like Facebook, Skype, Gmail, Google+ and Dropbox could also fill the RAM to the point that the phone is no longer nice to use.

Comparing this with quad cores is missing the point. A quad core can be at most twice as fast than a dual core, so it has a limited benefit. Twice the RAM can make a phone much faster, and it can prevent issues from happening that are very annoying. So I think RAM is more important than CPU power.

[Guest KenBW2]

The answer is very simple: 512MB is a pain for anything but the most modest use. Even normal web pages can eat most of the RAM, and certainly browsing with tabs will slow down the phone significantly. A few background processes like Facebook, Skype, Gmail, Google+ and Dropbox could also fill the RAM to the point that the phone is no longer nice to use.

Comparing this with quad cores is missing the point. A quad core can be at most twice as fast than a dual core, so it has a limited benefit. Twice the RAM can make a phone much faster, and it can prevent issues from happening that are very annoying. So I think RAM is more important than CPU power.

I think it's important to clarify in what way the speed is impacted. The reduced RAM will (and does) have zero effect on the immediate task you're performing. It has no issue doing what you want at the moment. The speed question comes in when switching apps.

• With 2GB of RAM you'll switch to recent apps and because they're still in memory they're straight there.
  
• With 512MB I'm finding that apps opened two or three apps ago are purged and are reloaded when you switch.
  

Being a dual core 1.2GHz, the reopening isn't too painful. It's just not instant.

This is my experience. I do feel like more RAM would be nice, but the processor's speed mitigates this a lot. As I said originally, it's £130 and something is going to compromised, in this case it's the RAM.

As MrPuddington says, large web pages (Gmail is one of them) can eat up RAM, and I'm sure if you do have a large amount of background services running, you're gonna feel it. I'm waiting on being able to play with the thresholds on when apps are killed off, zRAM and swap to mitigate these.

It's just important to remember that the task currently on your screen is fast and nippy, system components like the app switcher, app drawer, music playing etc are unaffected. Just don't be suprised when you launch an app and it has to spend a second restoring its saved state.

Edited April 22, 2013 by KenBW2

[Guest OneB1t]

i tryed to open all apps from my menu at same time and it still worked flawlessly android 4.1 is very clever with RAM control

also integrated memory chip is much faster than in older devices thats why its like having SSD in computer vs standart HDD

(tested on TouchMe Z 1.0 with nova launcher and only 1ghz CPU)

and procesing power have big impact on overall peformance much better than just RAM

look at ZTE blade for instance same amount of ram but much slower CPU results in slow system

Edited April 28, 2013 by OneB1t

[Guest ZolaIII]

The 512 Mb is not in of for comfortable work, bat its posable on some ROM builds to create partition for virtual memory ak. CM.

As good the Linux memory algorithm is it can't create RAM! The aps are growing & the HTML5 is eating a lot of memory! Whit the virtual memory aps are Keept unpacked in memory & the speed of new memory cards is good in of for the Web. Bat be aware that life cycle of nand is limited! The standard package apk or app is actually tar gaz package!

[Guest Simon O]

You know what is crazy? The Nexus S isn't too bad with 512MB and Jelly Bean. But all the Huawei bloat on this G510 makes it laggier than it should be. Such a shame.

[Guest ZolaIII]

The only Huawei blot is a emotion ui! Whit zeam & standard Android keyboard i em having around 170Mb of free memory that's about 60%! Instal OS monitor & you will see that most memory hungry aps are Crome & Google+ so it's actually Google's blot this round! It's amazing to see that the Crome is eating 2x more memory then Lightning that is only 7% slower in rendering & has a better htlm5 support then Crome! Really shocking is that the Lighting is 750Kb & have more futures then 55Mb Crome! For comfortable use of the Jelly Bean you need a 512-1024Mb of ram & a swap partition of 2Gb! It's posable to adjust android to really close aps as you leave them bat you will still need a swap partition! General conclusion is that the 512 Mb of ram is combined with swap partition of 2Gb good for overlay comfortable work & gaming under the Jelly Bean literation's of Android OS!

[Guest Simon O]

The only Huawei blot is a emotion ui! Whit zeam & standard Android keyboard i em having around 170Mb of free memory that's about 60%! Instal OS monitor & you will see that most memory hungry aps are Crome & Google+ so it's actually Google's blot this round! It's amazing to see that the Crome is eating 2x more memory then Lightning that is only 7% slower in rendering & has a better htlm5 support then Crome! Really shocking is that the Lighting is 750Kb & have more futures then 55Mb Crome! For comfortable use of the Jelly Bean you need a 512-1024Mb of ram & a swap partition of 2Gb! It's posable to adjust android to really close aps as you leave them bat you will still need a swap partition! General conclusion is that the 512 Mb of ram is combined with swap partition of 2Gb good for overlay comfortable work & gaming under the Jelly Bean literation's of Android OS!

Actually you'll find that you are mistaken. There are far more Huawei apps and services running on the phone that just the Emotion UI. And we don't need a swap file if we resolve the issues that are causing the high memory usage in the first place. A swap file would just hide the problems.. not a solution. Like I said already, the Nexus S manages fine with 512MB RAM and Jelly Bean so why can't the G510 which has a much better CPU?? Answer = bloat. It's nothing to do with Google. If you still don't believe me then disable Chrome and Google Plus and you'll notice that the phone still lags.

[Guest ZolaIII]

Actually you'll find that you are mistaken. There are far more Huawei apps and services running on the phone that just the Emotion UI. And we don't need a swap file if we resolve the issues that are causing the high memory usage in the first one place. A swap file would just hide the problems.. not a solution. Like I said already, the Nexus S manages fine with 512MB RAM and Jelly Bean so why can't the G510 which has a much better CPU?? Answer = bloat. It's nothing to do with Google. If you still don't believe me then disable Chrome and Google Plus and you'll notice that the phone still lags.

Well i em on a official 178 revision of firmware & i don't have blot problem only two other Huawei aps are backup and DLNA! Of course there are other essential Huawei aps as notes, calendar and FM radio... No lag at all & I em using a Swipe keyboard! It's normal that eni normal OS uses virtual memory! For variety of tasks it's needed and some of these are simple every day ones like cashing in a online video! Imagine other one's! Virtual memory partition for instance will help you when playing hd games to keep the textures unpacked & ready to use! I em using this example because even whit loot more faster phone's whit Gb of ram it happens that game terminates & troves you back to base screen! This happens when back Linux memory algorithm can't provide in of free memory for the game in the moment so the game abnormally terminates! The new AAA game titles wages up to 2 Gbs at the moment!

Finally the Linux memory algorithm whose never designed for loo memory usage bat to hold all initiated processes in memory with the multi priority based termination when there is no more room for new ones! Whit eni rooted Android device you can fix blot software problems in various ways bi uninstaling, freezing, editing start parameters.

[Guest Simon O]

Well i em on a official 178 revision of firmware & i don't have blot problem only two other Huawei aps are backup and DLNA! Of course there are other essential Huawei aps as notes, calendar and FM radio... No lag at all & I em using a Swipe keyboard! It's normal that eni normal OS uses virtual memory! For variety of tasks it's needed and some of these are simple every day ones like cashing in a online video! Imagine other one's! Virtual memory partition for instance will help you when playing hd games to keep the textures unpacked & ready to use! I em using this example because even whit loot more faster phone's whit Gb of ram it happens that game terminates & troves you back to base screen! This happens when back Linux memory algorithm can't provide in of free memory for the game in the moment so the game abnormally terminates! The new AAA game titles wages up to 2 Gbs at the moment!

Finally the Linux memory algorithm whose never designed for loo memory usage bat to hold all initiated processes in memory with the multi priority based termination when there is no more room for new ones! Whit eni rooted Android device you can fix blot software problems in various ways bi uninstaling, freezing, editing start parameters.

Aha, different firmware than what we have in the UK. It's possible that B178 fixes some of the issues that UK Vodafone customers are experiencing with B172.

[Guest ZolaIII]

There is a newer version 180 on file share just search Huawei G510!

& i em using Y300 eu model 100! Lag is cased bi emotion ui tray zeam or some other light launcher!

[Guest Simon O]

Tried flashing the G510-0200 ROMs and they don't flash. The Chinese G510-0100 ROMs don't have any Google apps included so they aren't much use to us.

[Guest ZolaIII]

Google apps are not a big problem to install!?

So Vodafone put blot in?

What is the revision of phone in UK? I mean G510 -???

[Guest Simon O]

Google apps are not a big problem to install!?

So Vodafone put blot in?

What is the revision of phone in UK? I mean G510 -???

You need root to be able to install anything like that. We have the G510-0100 in the UK.

[Guest ZolaIII]

The last revision i who's able to find on file crop is

Huawei Ascend G510-0200 Android 4.1 V100R001C85B177 and it's for G510 - 200 :'(

It's very dumb that you loose warranty if you unlock the boot loader!

If they limited it to losing software problems warranty it would be fair in of!

For instance the warranty turns can be exploited because there is a known problem whit blue tooth functionality under the Android 4.1.1 and it's Google's fault! It's easy li fixable bi the pach on xda! Bat in the locked state it's indeed functional problem. The other one is that morons set default sistem video encoding to H264 so the ⅔ of video post processing program's from market don't work! And video quality is bad because of this!

[Guest Simon O]

Only Huawei will know if the bootloader has been unlocked or not. The retailer probably won't know. So if your phone is dead, return it to the retailer for replacement or repair and you'll be fine.

[Guest ZolaIII]

Only Huawei will know if the bootloader has been unlocked or not. The retailer probably won't know. So if your phone is dead, return it to the retailer for replacement or repair and you'll be fine.

I am just telling you you can get a full refund by the warranty uela because of indicated neo function! B-)