Android 13 was recently released for Pixel devices, and with it, Google has also raised the minimum requirements for Android phones. In its latest blog post, Google announced that the minimum amount of RAM for Android Go, the low-end version of Android, is now 2GB. Whereas before, it was 1 GB. Google Product Specialist Jason Bayton also claims that the minimum storage requirements have been increased to 16GB, but Google doesn’t seem to have officially announced this anywhere.
The increase in system requirements means that any phone that does not meet the minimum specifications will not be able to update to Android 13. New phones launching with Android 13 will need to meet the minimum requirements to be eligible for a Play Store license, but they may still work for a while with an older version of Android (with lower requirements) to be launched. Technically, anyone can get the Android source code and build anything with it, but if you want to license Google apps and use Google’s trademark “Android”, you have to follow Google’s rules.
What is Android Go?
Android Go comes with a simplified version of Android with some of the more RAM-intensive features turned off, and a suite of custom-made, lightweight “Go” apps. Google’s requirements won’t affect the US market much, as even devices like the cheap $30 Walmart phone have 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Android Go’s requirements are mostly about aligning OEMs in the developing world, where it’s still possible to find devices with 1GB of RAM.
Google says more than 250 million people use Android Go today.
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