[Captivate Android Development] mttfrog13:
I agree. I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of this or other roms though. I feel that android 2.2+ should have a minimum of 512mb of system memory. My phone

usually

has enough memory. I find that the biggest user of memory are the internet browsers. After browsing the internet for a couple of minutes your browser will easily be using 30 - 60mb, especially if you have to load a desktop version of a website instead of the mobile version.

This is the price we pay for the amazing 3d graphics on these galaxy s phones. The captivate is advertised to have 512mb of memory but a chunk of that is dedicated to graphics only leaving us with 340mb of system memory.

So basically, I completely believe stories about people struggling with memory issues. Like mikey said, unused memory is wasted memory. Android preloads apps into memory similar to superfetch used in windows vista and 7. Many apps will also auto-start to give a similar effect and I'm not referring to apps that would ever be needed to give alerts. Sometimes really random apps seem to want to auto-start for no benefit other than to load quicker. The problem just arises when android has to constantly trade out memory to be able to load the apps you are starting that weren't already prefetched. This takes time and slows things down. There needs to be a bit of free memory to "buffer" the space between the system dropping prefetched apps and loading the apps you are starting manually.

If you're struggling with memory, I would suggest:

-Remember to kill the browsers in the task manager after using them. Opera has a feature that will enable a "quit" option in the menu, ensuring that it will kill the task, which doesn't happen when you press the back button or press home.

-Not using the amazon market. I just loaded X Construction on my phone which started the amazon appstore in the background using another 13mb of memory on top of the 17mb that X Construction is using. I think it does this to verify purchases. The amazon appstore will continue to run in the background even after exiting X Construction.

-Don't use many widgets. A quick look in Watchdog task manager just revealed that beautiful widgets and the soundhound widget are using 30mb of memory in the background on my phone.

-Don't keep task manager apps like watchdog installed. I install watchdog every now and then or after installing a bunch of new apps. I just use it to check whether that app likes to run in the background, and if so, how much ram it is using. After that it is uninstalled, otherwise it will run in the background using about 20mb of memory. It is useful because it shows the "2nd level" background apps that are running in the background that can't be cancelled from the stock task manager. These new gingerbread roms no longer have the "2nd level" task kill like the older roms.

EDIT/UPDATE

-Don't use antivirus software. There aren't that many security threats to android that warrant them. Just make sure you only install apps from official sources like the android market, amazon appstore, or xda forums. Sometime malware slips through google and onto the android market but that is rare. The only other security threat are through text messages. I've heard of some malware/trojans/worms/whatevertheyrecalled autosending themselves to people's contacts through texts. Just be sure you trust the person before you open any MMS.