Should I get the new iPhone 13 (Pro)? Chips and RAM
Apple announced its latest array of products a few weeks ago. The event was captivating, had smooth transitions, and featured delightful scenes of the new iPhone 13, 13 Pro, iPad mini, and more. But in line with recent years’ Apple announcements, the updates were impressive but incremental. Remember how innovative touch ID was in 2013 when it was introduced.
Is the iPhone 13 or 13 Pro worth the switch? The answer depends on your situation. One of my favorite YouTubers, MKBHD, answers this question in one of his captivating phone reviews:
iPhone 13 Review: Lowkey Great!
As I delegate that specific question to MKBHD, I want to tackle Chips and RAM. If you’re curious whether I’m going to get the iPhone 13, the answer is No because of the first 60 seconds of MKBHD’s video.
Chips: A15 Chips and how to be efficient
Apple upgraded last year’s A13 chips to the A15’s which are up to 50% faster than the leading competition. It is available on all iPhone 13 variations, and the iPad Mini. You can learn more about how many CPU and GPU cores these chips have here, but I want to dive into Apple’s clever efficiency hack.
Why do these new chips perform better? There are a variety of reasons. The improvement I am interested in is the variable (or varying) refresh rate. The refresh rate is how many times per second a screen is able to draw a new image. Many phones, including older iPhone models (like iPhone 12) have a fixed refresh rate of 60Hz. On the other hand, A15 chips provide a 120Hz (max) refresh rate that seems twice as good but is even better.
The A15 chip is efficient. You don’t need a high refresh rate all the time. During periods of high usage, like when you are playing Epic’s Fortnite, you want a really high refresh rate. But in most other instances, you can save battery when your refresh rate dips even below 60Hz. This is exactly what A15 does.
So these new chips save battery by cleverly picking where to expend energy (by increasing the refresh rate) based on the benefit the iPhone user gets. Where should you conserve your own energy?
In my last article, I wrote about one of my favorite newsletters: James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter, which is as wise as it is brief. From one of his newsletters, here are 3 questions about the cost of expending energy.
What's the cost of doing a poor job?
What's the cost of doing a mediocre job?
What's the cost of doing an exceptional job?
RAM: why you SHOULD leave your clothes lying around
There is a degree of messiness in efficiency. Computer Engineers build computers to be efficient, especially as regards information storage. To understand how engineers design computer memory efficiently at a high level, all you need to understand is the efficient way to store/keep clothes and similar items. This is why you should leave your clothes lying around and on the floor -- computer engineers do it too.
There is a tradeoff between storage size and speed of access. It’s not really possible to access all your clothes (including winter and summer wear) very easily and equally. If nothing else, you are limited by your bedroom or wardrobe size.
Usually, you have something like 3 levels of storage. The largest storage size is some sort of closet, but it is hard to reach, so you have a low speed of access. In information storage, this is the cloud. You can store petabytes of information on remote servers, but they’re not as quick to access as files on your computer.
Level 2 is your wardrobe which you might access more easily but it can’t store as much as your storage unit. The computer equivalent of this is your internal storage (disk) on your device. The iPhone 13 comes with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB internal memory, while the 13 Pro also has a 1TB (1024GB) option. These capacities are much smaller than popular 2TB cloud storage plans but more speedily accessed.
But in Level 3, RAM has an even smaller capacity but is the most accessible level. RAM stands for Random Access Memory, which reflects your ability to access any specific location in RAM equally easily. With internal storage, you usually have to do some iteration, just like browsing through the clothes in your wardrobe to find that Cerulean jacket.
The clothing equivalent is to leave your clothes lying around. It is more efficient. When searching for that Cerulean jacket, if it was on a chair in your room, you would see it instantly — speed of access.
Two things make this efficient. Firstly, RAM usually has the most recently used information or applications. This is a good proxy for what will most likely be needed. If I switch from Google Docs to queue a song on Spotify, I am most likely to return to the Google doc and continue typing. Similarly, if you didn’t put your clothes in your laundry basket or wardrobe, you’re likely to use them very soon.
Secondly, remember that this doesn’t work when your RAM is too large. iPhone 13 has only 4GB of RAM and the 13 Pro has 6GB (the max internal storage is 1024GB). If most of your clothes are lying around, this is actually worse because you clutter your room without any of the speed benefits.
As I mentioned, there is a tradeoff between storage size and speed of access. You can’t get both without huge costs. You can have a colossal wardrobe that fits all your clothes but that is expensive and takes a lot of space.
This tradeoff between storage size and speed of access seems like a fundamental truth of nature. This is why, to be efficient, you should leave some clothes unorganized!
What else do you need to leave lying around for a faster speed of access?
Maybe move some of your disposable masks from your closet (internal memory) to your table (RAM)
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