The way I see it the big win for memory is the fact that they've shaved off two ints from every String instance. Most Strings are small and probably never have

The way I see it the big win for memory is the fact that they've shaved off two ints from every String instance. Most Strings are small and probably never have .substring called on them, so I think memory use might even be lighter by always copying but using a smaller String instance in most typical cases.