Do I need 3gb RAM?

I've been searching for an answer to this and can't find a satisfactory answer. The OPPO Find 7 has 3gb and the Find 7a has 2gb. How much difference does that make?

I don't update to new phones often and I am coming from Windows Phone (Lumia 520 with 512gb RAM). I am currently a light user and love to have longer battery life over other things. I usually leave wifi, data off to keep phone lasting longer throughout the day.

The price difference is significant (~$50) but does Android do better with more RAM? I hear WP and iOS are more optimized for low RAM.

Thanks for the help

You only need 3GB ram if you swap between a lot of different apps or open a lot of tabs in your web browser. Or if you multi-task with more than one app on he screen, or the like (some Android phones allow this).

Otherwise, Android is serviceable on 1GB ram, and absolutely flies on 2GB.

Still running my Galaxy S4 2GB strong after 1.5 years, very rarely run into memory issues.

I usually keep 10-20 web tabs open, and my GF keeps over 50+ tabs open on hers. It's a lot slower for her to switch tabs, thus she would benefit from more ram.

Considering that the Iphone 5 had 1 gb of ram and is still doing rather well I might of said naw you don't need it, but how long shall you use it? How often do you upgrade? I have had my phone now for 3 years and still do not see a end to its use.

So conceptually future proofing by giving yourself more breathing room in memory may be wise. But if your upgrading next year anyway?.. then save your money.

Android uses a lot more RAM in general than iOS, based on some OS fundamentals, but beyond baseline usage, either one will bog down with a lot of browser tabs open - that's probably the most obvious use case to me where more RAM helps.

Find a ram monitor to check your usage. For me personally 2GB is not enough. When they released 3GB phones I was happy.

It is not enough. That's why new upcoming phones are coming out with 4GB RAM. The more apps you install, the higher chances you have those apps that are needed to run on standby. That and with multiple apps that are opening and are actively using at the same time is one hell of a RAM usage. I have 2GB RAM and are experiencing screen refresh and app starting up when I did not even close it.

Android phones, especially those stuck on LP 5.0.x (5.0.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2) piece of shit, require more than 2 GB of RAM to run smooth. LP 5.1 might have fixed that issue, but only few phones got the 5.1 update so far. Google fucked up the 5.0.x updates, and we suffer because OEMs and carriers aren't updating (in a timely manner)...

Apple and Microsoft are totally different in design and memory management, so they can use less.

Just wanted to add that iOS isn't immune from memory issues either. Open a bunch of tabs in safari and finger through them. You will notice that pages that were supposed to be loaded and stored in the ram have to reload from the web. Apple is aggressive with memory management and it's not a big deal for 99% of the people who use it, but if you know what to look for its kind of annoying having so little memory on a flagship, especially a flagship with a very expensive price tag.

The more RAM, the better! Especially if you're purchasing a mid-to-high end phone, 3gb of RAM I would consider a minimum, with some newer options even offering 4gb! However, I have to state that even my old Nexus 4 still runs pretty much everything well enough, so phones with 3gb or less aren't necessarily a horrid experience.

However, what CHANG3D said is true - your performance will depend significantly on the version of Android you're running. Android 5.0.x for instance had rather crappy performance and huge battery drain compared to 5.1.x. This goes even further in that your Android "distribution" will also affect performance; if your phone is using HTC/Samsung etc.. manufacturer built in apps, UI, or even a whole new OS variant (ie Oppo pushes their "ColorOS" which is based on old Android 4.4 if I recall) etc.. these are often more cumbersome and resource heavy than "Pure" Android such that Nexus devices use. Furthermore, if you run custom ROMs and kernels, these will likely increase your performance and battery life even more and make better use of what hardware you have.

Between the two Oppo phones you speak of, I'd definitely take the 3gb version. However, I'd also consider waiting just a bit longer if you don't need another phone this second and perhaps looking into other models (ie OnePlus Two etc.). If you purchase infrequently and have the funds to do so, I suggest looking for top-tier hardware so that it will "last" as long as possible, even if it means waiting for a "sweet spot" release of an upcoming project. If you have any interest in tweaking, running "rooted" or custom ROMs etc... at all, it also behooves you to look into the third party/community support for those devices. This can be important as many manufacturers will not update their devices swiftly or frequently as stock Android, so its good to have a thriving community of developers.