[Galaxy Note II General] BarryH_GEG:
I'm an idiot too because I didn't get your point. If it's that the extra GB of RAM has nothing to do with how well all the new resource intensive apps Samsung's loaded the N3 with run than I think [MENTION=4919548]Mashed_Potatoes[/MENTION]' point is more valid than yours.

To think that an 18 month old CPU and GPU is capable of the performance levels of Exynos 5420/Mali-T628 or S-600/Adreno 330 is pretty absurd. Knowing those were the minimum platforms the new functionality would be running on Samsung developed to that standard not taking in to account hobbling certain aspects of the apps so they could run on the N2's older and lesser h/w. They could have written the N3's apps to using a lower standard so they ran on older platforms too but that would have screwed customers buying their latest products to appease their existing customers. And for Samsung, who by the very existence of this thread, hasn't given away anything to include 3GB of RAM in the N3 along with making the 32GB version the Western-market standard tells you something about the h/w requirements of the N3's s/w platform.

90+% of N2's in people's hands are 16GB with "X" allocated to system use. If Samsung delivers an update it has to be able to operate in the same (or similar) footprint as previous ROMs so as not to encroach on storage already in use by owners for personal files. Some of the new versions of existing apps along with newly added apps are huge and wouldn't fit in the system space available. How would non-XDA owners (technical neophytes) feel if they got an OTA, tried to install it, and got a message "not enough memory, delete 3GB of existing files to install this upgrade?" As it is, quite a few features (SamsungLink, HD TTS voice support, KNOX, S Translator, SketchBook) aren't pre-installed and have to be downloaded by the user as "options." I'm guessing this is to support 16GB versions of the N3 and N10.1-14 that, because of larger system files for core functions like new S Note and enhanced multiview, make people voluntarily choose to use up huge amounts of personal storage in return for additional features. You can't do that on a device in someone's hands that's already configured. If people wanted the additional apps/functionality listed they'd get "insufficient memory" warnings which would serve to piss them off that in order to gain functionality they'd have to give up their storage space. So it's pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don't for Samsung and this time they chose damned if they don't. Even if Samsung shoe-horned the N3's s/w platform on to the N2 it would most likely lag like hell. People wouldn't be congratulating Samsung on keeping the N2 up-to-date there would be dozens of pages on the front-page about what a crappy update Samsung pushed out. You can't please all the people all the time.

I own a N10.1-14 and N3 and can tell you the enhanced features are resource intensive. I can only imagine how they'd run on the N2's dated CPU/GPU and 2GB of RAM. It's great that you guys have DN3 as an option but there are tons of performance comments in those threads and they aren't the fault of the developer. As they say, you can only get 5lbs of sh*t in a 5lb bag.

So Samsung not updating the N2 to the N3's level may be marketing driven to make people buy N3's but, even though my inferences about h/w limitations being part of the reason are unsubstantiated, I'd bet anyone here they play a role.