Smart First 6 question - size of internal memory.

[keithbrown53]

Hi,

Can any smart first 6 owners please confirm the size of their internal memory?

Mine has 2 GB, but the specs (http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/pay-as-you-go/vodafone-smart-first-6-payg) seem to indicate this should be 4GB!

Regards,

Keith.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @keithbrown53

This is a well known specs site I use and they too confirm 4Gb. 

http://m.gsmarena.com/vodafone_smart_first_6-7231.php

Can you screen shot your settings which show the 2Gb storage figure and post it here ? 

If in doubt a Vodafone Highstreet store coukd check it and help. 

[Nabs]

Chances are it's the Android OS that's using up 2GB of the internal storage, thus leaving you with the remaining 2GB. 

There are no hard and fast rules on how much storage Android itself needs as the requirements change for each device. 

In addition to the OS there is also likely to be bloatware (preinstalled apps) on the phone  that will be taking up some space though on a device like this they are likely to be minimal.

[keithbrown53]

Hi Chaps,

Thanks for the replies.

I'll post a screenshot tonight, when I have access to the phone again.

The Android OS is indeed taking up plenty of the available space, but I believe it's resident in the 2GB internal memory, meaning that even after removing absolutely everything I can, and moving everything to the SD card, right after a hard reset, I have around 600MB available.....which fills up quickly, with a 10 year old in charge of the device.

Regards,

Keith.

[BandOfBrothers]

You're very welcome. 

Unfortunately that amount of free space is restrictive to say the least. 

Even 16Gb is now the low end of storage capacity. One of my bug bears is that on the box and in specs it for example states 16gb on an iPhone but after iOS etc the end user gets just under 12Gb which then can be taken up with future updates as well as what the user wants to download. 

At least you have a SD Card to help.

I use Dropbox on my iPhone. 

[Nabs]

There should certainly be more than 600MB free on a 4GB phone!

A screenshot would be ideal @keithbrown53! If you are able to post that tonight we should be able to use that to gain a better understanding of what's going on and if needed it's good evidence which Vodafone can use to identify a potential faulty device. 

@BandOfBrothers interesting bit of info for you; Vodafone won't sell any Android device that has less that a 4GB ROM. This policy was instigated after several high profile issues with low end Samsung devices coming with only a few MB of usable space out the box.

[hrym]

A while back I had some time with a Vodafone Smart device with only 4GB of storage and set myself the task of breaking it.   I installed all my normal apps (nothign especially huge and no games) and was impressed by how it handled itself.  I also gave it a small (2gb) SD card, which it made use of all by itself.   It wasn't quite the same as Android Marshmallow adopted storage, but it did put a lot of app data there, even if the apps themselves were on internal storage.   I was able to set the default location for the camera and downloads to the card too from the main Settings menu.

I never got it to run out of space or slow down appreciably, and certainly not the the point of being unusable.  Obviously it might be necessary to move apps manually but, apart from that, if you weren't checking the available storage, are you noticing any problems?  The device I got seemed to be aware of its limitations and working round them rather well.

[keithbrown53]

Hi Hrym,

Yes, I have problems with it in terms of space. With only 600MB available, only a few games / apps will fill it up.

Even with a largely empty 8GB SD card installed, and with the 'store on SD card' property set to yes, all new apps / games go straingt to the internal memory, which is already full!

Performance is in line with the price of the phone, so no problems there.

Cheers,

Keith.

[Nabs]

@keithbrown53 It's down to the app developer to specify where the app installs by default. Some apps will allow you to move them to the SD card but some are restricted to only internal memory.

[hrym]

Just to clarify where the OS is stored, the files themselves will be in storage rather than RAM.   The latter is used by the working parts when you run it.  You should be able to see a breakdown under Settings|Storage.

When I was doing my test, I wasn't using particularly large apps (and no games) or anything that's likely to create large working files.   Your best option, assuming you haven't, is to move as many apps as you can to the SD card so that there's room for new ones, which in turn will need to be moved. It may also be necessary to do some housekeeping and remove anything that's not currently being used, ie games that have fallen out of favour.   I think you mentioned a 10 year old and they may not understand that?

With regard to bloatware, everything (even Facebook!) was uninstallable on the device I had.