We have all heard about the fake ram fitted to the Android head units. Or would that be ram not fitted to an Android headunit, but the software has been hacked to report an incorrect and falsely inflated amount of RAM Memory?
Common Trick
It is a common way to increase sales of old stock, obsolete equipment, or just plain old dishonest sales techniques to increase profit or undercut the competition. Saying the product is something that it is not. These selling tricks are not restricted to Android; you get them from all walks of life. The seller makes false claims about a product; you don’t find out until it is too late to do anything about it.
Misrepresentations
Misrepresentation of the specifications, particularly the amount of RAM in an Android head unit, is not limited to the headunits. All cheaply produced Android devices can suffer from the fake RAM scam.
The trick is simple but can be operated at different levels of deception. But they all end up with the same result. That being, paying for and expecting one product and receiving something different, of a lower specification than expected.
The Deception
From the most basic deception of the outer box or sales listing showing the wrong amount of RAM fitted. For example, The product may have 2 GB RAM fitted in the factory, but the outer packaging box and the sales pitch say it has 4 GB RAM. The production cost-saving is some RAM chips, but the impact on the user is a slow and laggy device.
This simple trick could be down to putting the device in the wrong packaging or a mistake with the copy and paste from a different product or an optional extra, which could be a genuine mistake.
Quite often, the deception can be put down to dishonesty at the production stage. This is proved by a profound diagnosis of the actual RAM available to the system compared to the amount of RAM the Android operating system reports. The is a discrepancy when the Android software code is altered at the manufacturing stage to report back more RAM than is fitted.
The Test
It is made possible by a free app to show the proper level of available RAM to Android, and you can compare this with the advertised level of RAM (from the box, the sales page, or what Android reports back). The free app for checking the right RAM level in Android is the RAM Truth app, available on the play store for all Android devices.
RAM Truth
Install the RAM truth app, and you will get a warning;
RAM Truth
This app was built for an older Android verAndroidd may not work properly. Try checking for updates or contacting the developer. Check for update / OK
Just OK the warning.
This is nothing to worry about; no need to contact the developer. It is actually a design feature. Tap ‘OK’ to continue.
The app will make an in-depth assessment of the actual RAM. True to its name, ‘RAM Truth,’ the app drills down and gets to the bottom of the actual RAM fitted.
The two blue dot areas are your total RAM (system and user) added together, giving the total actual RAM. The app reports this figure, rounded to Gb at the top of the screen.
Reports
If the app reports back a lower RAM level than was advertised, you have fake RAM. You can’t use the fake bit; it doesn’t exist and may explain why some apps are laggy or won’t install when you know they should. Your recourse would be to complain and get a refund, and this can have difficulties when the vendor is in a foreign country and ignores your communications.
Common Fakery
A common fakery target is the 8227L_ALPS_DEMO-based android headunit. Obsolete hardware specifications can’t compete on sales as the buyers get more savvy, so the junk head unit is mis-sold as a higher spec than it is. Cheap Chinese-made Android tablets and some bottom-end Android phones also suffer from this fakery, and the RAM truth app can also help expose the deception in those devices.
Comments box
The RAM Truth app has a handy copy-and-paste feature; see the bottom of the screen in the app. Hold your finger on the lower section to copy the information from the app; You can then paste this non-identifying information in the comments box below to help others with the problem of which devices suffer from the fake RAM issue.
