A boxed number, such as this instance of Integer, is nice because it can be treated as an object and has useful methods. However:

• Integer takes twice as much storage as an int.

• Integer is immutable: since it is possible that multiple variables point to it, we cannot change it.

• Doing arithmetic (even ++) requires creation of a new box (allocation of new storage), often making the old box garbage.

• Boxes are somewhat expensive because they must be garbage collected.

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