Android TV RAM requirements are taking a dip

Top-of-the-line issues in regards to the new Google TV Streamer is how a lot reminiscence it has. With 4GB of RAM at its disposal, the Google TV Streamer is among the higher performing media streaming gadgets on the market even when it doesn’t have a very quick processor. Nevertheless, it’s an outlier when it comes to reminiscence capability, because the overwhelming majority of media streamers working Android have 1.5 to 2GB of RAM. Android doesn’t want quite a lot of reminiscence to work, particularly once you solely must run one app at a time like on TVs, nevertheless it nonetheless wants a minimal quantity to ship an appropriate consumer expertise. Google believes that minimal is 1GB of RAM for some new TVs launching with Android TV 14.

Android TV 14 is the newest model of the TV-optimized model of the Android OS. Like its identify implies, it’s primarily based on Android 14, however quite a lot of the options in Android 14 for cellular gadgets aren’t relevant to Android 14 for TVs. TVs are a completely totally different kind issue with totally totally different consumer expectations than handheld {hardware} like telephones and tablets, in any case.

Google accounts for these variations by imposing totally different software program and {hardware} necessities for TVs versus cellular gear. Handheld gadgets, for instance, should have a minimum of 2GB of RAM to be able to be licensed by Google to run Android. 2GB of RAM in a cellphone probably isn’t enough for most people, which is why it’s the naked minimal that passes certification and solely does so if the cellphone runs Android Go Edition. Whereas that seems to be staying put, it appears the naked minimal quantity of reminiscence {that a} new Android TV gadget must cross certification is now solely 1GB.

Beforehand, 1080p TVs needed to have a minimum of 1.5GB of RAM whereas 4K TVs needed to have a minimum of 2GB of RAM to be able to be licensed by Google to run Android TV. Now, 1080p TVs solely must ship 1GB of RAM and 4K TVs solely must ship 1.5GB of RAM to cross Android TV certification, although in the event that they do, they must declare themselves as low reminiscence gadgets to be able to reap the benefits of Android’s numerous low RAM optimizations. We discovered about these new {hardware} necessities from a trusted supply, who additionally informed us that Google is engaged on additional optimizations to make Android TV work higher on TVs with solely 1GB of RAM.

Though Android TV’s {hardware} necessities aren’t documented publicly, a not too long ago merged code change we noticed within the AOSP Gerrit mainly confirms the knowledge we acquired. The code change lowers the minimal quantity of RAM that may be allotted to TV emulator builds in Android Studio. Particularly, the minRam has been lowered to 1GB for Android TV builds, however apparently it’s set to 2GB for Google TV builds. This implies that Google TV has barely extra stringent {hardware} necessities, which is sensible since Google desires to offer a extra constant consumer expertise.

Apparently, the window for OEMs to launch new gadgets with Android TV 12 has simply closed, which means these new {hardware} necessities will largely apply to new gadgets launching with Android TV 14. We don’t know of any upcoming Android TV gadgets that can truly launch with solely 1GB of RAM, however the truth that Google is now permitting it means that there is likely to be some. Stated gadgets will doubtless be extremely reasonably priced 1080p dongles bought in rising markets, which ought to solely assist broaden the worldwide attain of Android TV OS, already on tons of of thousands and thousands of gadgets.