Samsung might fix Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge’s aggressive RAM management in future update
When it comes to Android devices, let’s be clear: RAM is meant to be used. What’s the point of having 3GB of DDR4 RAM if your phone keeps closing out apps the moment you leave them to do something else on the device? That’s the issue some people are reporting with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. Whether it’s buggy Lollipop code, or just Samsung’s new and “improved” TouchWiz user interface, it’s obvious something is up. You’ll find numerous reports of around various forums online, with a popular thread on XDA talking about the issue here.
In case you need a little more proof, PhoneBuff recently put together a Galaxy S6 vs One M9 speed test video where he timed himself opening a variety of the same apps across both devices. While the Galaxy S6 was definitely quicker at opening these apps, it was during the “second lap” that the HTC One M9 came out ahead thanks to the phone keeping these previous apps open in the background. The Samsung Galaxy S6 had to reload each and every app it once had open only moments before, costing it the win in the end. Check out that video below.
It’s obvious something is up, but whether this was an intentional move by Samsung or yet another software bug, it appears they could be working on a fix. A Samsung rep seemingly acknowledged the bug on their UK Facebook page, telling one user that “micro-updates” to address issues relating to performance and stability are already scheduled to rollout and to keep an eye out.
A specific time frame wasn’t given, or even confirmation that the RAM problem is, in fact, being addressed (it was just a Samsung social media manager after all), so we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s possible some of these issues could be patched up in the Android 5.1 update one lucky Edge user received a few days ago, but there’s no way to know for sure.
Software and hardware bugs are a common occurrence amongst early adopters. We’ve seen more than a few comments from Android fans who typically like to wait a few months after a smartphone’s launch before diving in, giving hardware manufacturers all the time they need to address bugs and other unforeseen issues. We’ll let you know if we hear anything else.