How Much RAM Does Each iPad Have (And Does It Even Matter)?
Most people who buy iPads probably don't give a second thought to how much RAM their iPad comes with. It just works, after all. However, just as with any computer, RAM can have a significant impact on your experience, depending on how you use it.
How RAM Works
RAM or Random Access Memory is the fast temporary storage space that sits between your (relatively) slow SSD or HDD and the CPU of the system. The operating system, open applications, and data you're currently working with are all stored in RAM. The more RAM you have, the faster it is to switch between applications, the larger the files and data you can use smoothly, and the more applications you can run side-by-side without performance issues.
When a modern computer runs out of RAM, it uses a portion of the SSD (or HDD in older computers) as a "swap" space. This is usually a recipe for really poor performance, but modern SSDs are so fast that some types of operations, like loading a suspended app or a web browser tab into RAM, happen so quickly that a user doesn't notice. On the other hand, if there's not enough RAM to run your active apps, like a game or video editing application, then the system may slow to a crawl.
How Much RAM Do You Need in Your iPad?
On an iPad, the above is all generally true. However, Apple has designed the memory management system of the iPad operating system to be quite aggressive and efficient. Combined with hyper-fast integrated storage, your typical iPad can get away with much less RAM than a similar tier of Android device.
For example, my previous iPad Pro 12.9-inch model had 4GB of RAM, but I had no trouble at all smoothly editing 4K videos on it using LumaFusion. Likewise, I could never get it to bog down in applications like GarageBand. Video games ran better on that iPad than any other mobile device at the time, so although 4GB didn't sound like much, it never felt like a limitation.
But times have changed and iPads are now more versatile than ever. If you have an iPad
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