HOW MUCH MEMORY DOES YOUR SMARTPHONE REALLY OFFER?

HOW MUCH MEMORY DOES YOUR SMARTPHONE REALLY OFFER?

Smartphones come with many nice features, and as time goes on, the software that’s loaded onto these devices continues to grow in size. We used to have storage bumps nearly every year, but more recently it seems as though 16GB has become the standard. Luckily, it seems we’re finally graduating to 32GB being the norm, but many folks still have a phone with a measly 16GB of storage. How much of that 16GB is actually available to you? Well, it depends on the device.

When it comes to Android phones, the Nexus 5 has a healthy lead with 12.28GB of available space thanks to stock Android and a lack of bloatware. Sony’s skin is surprisingly light, as the Xperia Z1 offers 11.43GB out of the box. And as you expected, Samsung did the worst by a healthy margin, offering just 8.56GB of space out of the box, which is a little more than half of what is built in. Of course, you do get a microSD slot, but that’s still insane.

The phones used in this chart are only 16GB phones, which is why you don’t see the HTC One or Samsung Galaxy Note 3 included. We’re starting to see more devices mimic the One and Note 3 by coming to market with 32GB of storage built-in, but manufacturer skins and formatting still take up a good chunk of that space. Now that you see how different manufacturers stack up to each other in terms of storage and bloat, what do you think?