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On a computer, it's pretty easy to find out if the system is 32 or 64 bit.

I have a Nokia G21 and a Huawei P10 in front of me, and both tell me the various things: the model designation of the phone, the CPU, the Android version; but nothing tells me explicitly the architecture, i.e., whether it's a 32 or 64 bit device.

Microsoft Windows, on the other hand, tells me in no uncertain terms at Settings -> System -> Info which one it is. Linux is also pretty forthcoming with this information.

Is there any means from the on-board tools of Android to find this out? I.e., not asking the internet, not connecting to a PC and not installing any additional apps.

Dohn Joe
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    If you enable Developer options (usually tapping the build version in about phone enables it) on my device the first entry is about how much RAM is installed/available. If this entry shows more than 4GB then it has to be a 64 bit device. – Robert Feb 24 '23 at 10:57
  • Well, that's indirect and covers only a subset of cases, i.e., phones with more than 4 GB of RAM. If my phone reports 4 GB or less, then I am non the wiser. – Dohn Joe Feb 24 '23 at 11:24
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    On a terminal emulater app or ADB shell type uname -m. – Irfan Latif Feb 24 '23 at 11:26
  • @IrfanLatif there is a catch. OP mentioned the restraint: "not asking the internet, not connecting to a PC and not installing any additional apps". :) – Firelord Feb 24 '23 at 11:28
  • @Firelord noted. But many ROMs have a terminal emulater app built-in, usually disabled in developer options. It's a basic utility for any power user, not something additional :) – Irfan Latif Feb 24 '23 at 11:30
  • @IrfanLatif Of all the devices I have ever used (up to Android 10) none of them had terminal emulator builtin on vendor provided stock ROMs. On custom ROMs, I did find terminal app in Dev options. It could be that stock ROMs for Android 11 and above come with terminal app in Dev options so I can't comment on that. – Firelord Feb 24 '23 at 11:33
  • @Firelord you must be right. OEMs have a lot of their own bloatware to bundle with their devices. I had custom ROMs in mind. – Irfan Latif Feb 24 '23 at 11:37
  • This is a shot in the dark. Go into Developer options, bug report -> select "Full report" if a dialog comes up. Wait until you get a notification that bug report has been generated. Click on it to share it (save it into your file manager). Here's where things get uncertain. If the vendor provided or user installed file manager has Zip/Unzip support and text-view/text editor support than extract or view the bug report -> fs -> data -> tombstones or anr -> open any of the files in text editor. Among the first couple of lines would be "ABI". – Firelord Feb 24 '23 at 11:51
  • @Firelord You deserve a medal for this insanely convoluted way to determine the sought after data. Although, I haven't test this yet; this sounds weirdly plausible. – Dohn Joe Feb 24 '23 at 11:59
  • In my mind, smartphones are crummy computers. There are 32 and 64 bit ones, but it's not straightforward to find out, what they actually are. – Dohn Joe Feb 24 '23 at 12:00
  • @DohnJoe 32/64-bit is info which the target audience (which we are not a part of) of smartphone need not to know. The device ought to perform and apps ought to work nicely on them and get the job done for the user. The way Google's Play Store works, it removes the need to know anything about the device specs to get apps -- the one thing user would be depending upon mostly. – Firelord Feb 24 '23 at 12:03
  • The motivation for my question was me looking for an app outside of the PlayStore. There, the app was available for arm and arm64. So, my question isn't entirely academic. – Dohn Joe Feb 24 '23 at 12:05
  • that's trial & error with 50 % success. arm works on arm64 too. smartphone without internet and no connection to PC, how do you install the app? MicroSD card on PC? https://deviceinfohw.ru – alecxs Feb 24 '23 at 12:57
  • Yes, one can google this information. However, even the specs of the manufacturer are sometimes silent on the bitiness, e.g. here: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-g-21/specs?sku=719901183451 – Dohn Joe Feb 24 '23 at 15:07
  • Spreadtrum T606 comes with ARMv8.2-A Instruction set (64-bit) but the ROM may built as 32-bit. It really depends on ROM – alecxs Feb 25 '23 at 09:54
  • another funny method: calculate 2147483647 + 1 if the result is negative it's 32-bit signed integer echo $((2147483647+1)) – alecxs Feb 25 '23 at 10:16

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