Making 12GB RAM smartphones is the latest trend from Chinese OEMs

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

In the early days of Android, we had smartphones with 128MB of RAM. Since then, phones have continued to get more and more RAM. In 2018, that ceiling grew to a maximum of 10GB of RAM, most notably seen in the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition. 4GB of RAM is now widely seen as inadequate to handle the multitasking needs of users, as apps continue to take more and more a burden of system resources. 6GB and 8GB of RAM is currently seen as the sweet spot, but Chinese OEMs aren’t content to stop at 8GB or even 10GB. Over the last few months, smartphones packing a humongous 12GB of RAM have arrived in the rumors.

First, it was Lenovo with the Lenovo Z5 Pro GT. Then, it was Xiaomi with the Xiaomi Mi 9 Transparent Edition. (Samsung will also be launching a 12GB RAM/1TB storage Limited Edition of the Galaxy S10+.) Now, Vivo has released a teaser of the first iQOO phone, which will also have 12GB of RAM.

Last week, Vivo launched a new sub-brand called iQOO, following in its competitors’ footsteps. (Over the last year, OPPO and Xiaomi have launched the Realme, POCO, and Redmi sub-brands respectively.) The iQOO brand is a China-only brand that is intended to sell premium flagship phones. It was initially thought that the first iQOO phone would be a folding phone, but that rumor has been debunked by the company itself. iQOO’s first phone was shown on TV in China this week with triple rear cameras and a non-folding display.

The iQOO phone will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, making it a flagship offering. It will have 12GB of RAM and 256GB storage, matching the Xiaomi Mi 9 Transparent Edition. The battery is a 4,000mAh one, and it will support 44W fast charging. That’s almost twice as fast as Vivo’s current dual-engine 22.5W fast charging, which is used on phones such as the Vivo NEX series. The 44W charging specification is also higher than Huawei’s 40W SuperCharge 2.0 and OnePlus’ Warp Charge 30, but it falls below the 50W Super VOOC charging used by OPPO.

Charging on the iQOO phone will be done over the USB Type-C port, and it will incorporate NFC. The camera will have Vivo’s Super HDR mode, which isn’t new in itself. Finally, in another post, Vivo revealed that the phone would have a sixth-generation always-on in-display fingerprint sensor. The always-on nature of the sensor would be a major upgrade in itself, but its performance remains to be seen.

We expect the Vivo iQOO phone to be announced in the coming weeks. At first sight, its specifications look incredibly promising, but the China-only nature of the phone’s availability means that international users waiting to use 12GB RAM phones will have to wait for the Limited Edition Samsung Galaxy S10+.