Smart 4 mini update

[kennethgarland]

I have a Smart 4 mini and you have recently been telling me you have software updates.  But when I press 'download' you tell me I have to have 1.40 Gb memory or an SD card.   As you know, there is only 512 Mb RAM and there is nowhere to fit an SD card.   Impasse.   What am I supposed to do?

[BandOfBrothers]

It's not the Ram that this is referring to.

Your phone has 4gb of Internal Memory.

It's that memory that is required to complete the firmware update. 

If their isn't enough memory spare then look to deleting rarely used apps , music, emails, videos and pictures for example to free up space. Or move data to any available as card. 

According the user manual for your phone -> 

http://www.vodafone.com/content/dam/group/devices/downloads/smart4mini/VF785_UM_Eng_GB_15_140303.pdf your phone accepts a Micro SD Card. 

[Annie_N]

Indeed it does have a micro SD card holder, under the battery, and adjacent to the SIM card holder. I seem to have used a 16GB card, and the phone info shows that the phone storage has total space 2.02GB with 0.89 GB available.

I have my phone set to write to the SD card by default. It downloaded and installed the update the other day without any apparent problems, 

[kennethgarland]

Thank you both for your replies.   I have spent a couple of hours deleting as much as I could (most of which was pre-loaded) but the remaining apps will not add up to the 500 Mb I still have to clear to get 1.4 Gb and in any case they are almost all system apps.   It took me further ages to find this forum, after continually working through the 'support pages' which only referred me to the user guide.

Life is too short to spend yet more hours trying to prise open the phone to get at the SD card location (it was bad enough trying to open it to fit the SIM card) and I really don't see why I should buy something additional so that I can download something essential.   Vodafone should allow for the size of the updates in its design of the memory.

I give up.   When the phone finally packs up, I shall just have to buy a new one - not Vodafone.

[Annie_N]

Most of the less expensive phones require you to supply some of the necessary memory, I'm afraid. I've had an assortment of phones, and getting SIM cards and SD cards in and out of them is a pretty user-unfriendly experience on all of them.

As and when you decide on an upgrade, I'd advise figuring out in advance how much memory you wish to add, buy an appropriate card at the same time, and instal everything in one go. Then you don't have to break your nails, find the little key that opens the holder, or whatever alternative the manufacturers have dreamt up, again, until such time as either SIM card or memory card develops a fault

[BandOfBrothers]

You're Welcome.

When I'm engaging with a person who is interested in a particular phone I always try to remember to highlight internal phone memory as a priority as smartphones soon fill up with apps etc and the OS Updates play a part too.

My opinion is at least 16gb of internal space which in the phone gives around 13gb'ish user available. Or as big as disposable income allows and a decent sized SD Card. (Handset Applicable)

I appreciate your thoughts on this and I wish you well.