From android developer (Creating Lists and Cards):
<The RecyclerView widget is a more advanced and flexible version of ListView.
I think the main and biggest difference they have is that ListView
looks for the position of the item while creating or putting it, on the other hand RecyclerView
looks for the type of the item. if there is another item created with the same type RecyclerView
does not create it again. It asks first adapter and then asks to recycledpool, if recycled pool says "yeah I've created a type similar to it", then RecyclerView
doesn't try to create same type. ListView
doesn't have a this kind of pooling mechanism.