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RAM OR ROM?
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I am in the majority here. I would take it 8/64 for all the same reasons as noted here.
If I were buying today, I would take the ROM. Ask me in 6 months and that may be different. But what some have said is right. Software just isn't optimized very well (i.e. see windows OS), and throwing more hardware at it seems to now be the norm. Googles apps alone are becoming heavy and resource intense. Facebook, WhatsApp, Amazon, 3 TERRIBLEY written apps. We wouldn't need 8GB if software was written well. I want more space for 4K video (on top of the SD card option and Google Photos).
But really, why not just make a 6/64 and an 8/128 option and call it a day?
I know I'm in the minority on this one, but for my uses 4GB of RAM is sufficient. Beyond that point, the returns diminish quickly. The diminishing returns on additional storage space, by contrast, don't start for me until you reach 256GB, and I would be happy to have up to 1TB.
There are definitely wrong surveys. ROM is read-only memory and phones don't need that except for the first few milliseconds of booting. Maybe the question was supposed to be asking about volatile RAM versus storage?
The amount of volatile RAM needed is pretty much determined by the OS and current application designs. Unfortunately, Android is a young OS and more doesn't help. You want to have enough RAM to make the phone usable until the other components are worn out or obsolete. If a phone came out right now, it should have 4GB to 6GB. Phones designed for augmented reality or intensive 3D rendering should have at least 6GB.
The amount of onboard storage is also determined mostly by the way current applications and the OS are designed. 64GB to 128GB would be plenty for a phone released right now. Power users need a microSD slot for special uses (videos, maps, music, transporting documents, etc.)
Unfortunately, with the sheer amount of devices that Android has to support, it has become much like Windows, where RAM really becomes your bottleneck for productivity.
My current workstation has 24GB of RAM but only a 160 GiB HDD, which is almost minuscule for even a laptop nowadays.
As a power user of a mobile device, I'd much rather have 4GB of RAM and only 32GB of ROM than 2GB of RAM and 64GB of ROM. Android is very RAM hungry.
Unfortunately, many OEMs don't take the time and effort to optimize Android for each device they offer, especially if it's a budget phone where the profit margins just aren't there.
As much as I hate Apple PCs, their mobile devices and iOS are really well integrated and optimized since they control both the hardware and software.
Even though that kind of optimization may not be possible for Android, I'd like to see some effort put in towards that.
This doesn't seem like a very technical question. Does Android manage memory by consuming as much available RAM as possible? If so, I guess more RAM is nice.
Considering I've never exhausted more than 4GB on a full workstation I wouldn't think these high RAM counts are necessary.
All RAM does is compensate for crappy code that doesn't clean up after itself.
I'm more interested in the chips than storage, personally. CPU, GPU and radios are most important but probably the more expensive pieces of a phone. So, really, storage and memory are cheap to the manufacturer and just marketing hype.
Just if the phone has micro SD support and 3.5mm jack
As long as external sd storage can be used.
With the price of microSD card, the ROM capacity is not very important
a good balance of both.. Ram over ROM.. since you can expand on most devices now..