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Can someone tell me why we can't get a 32 or 64 gig phone?

^I agree.

And many apps can't cope with the idea that many phones now have internal storage that per Google (yeah - I know) takes the place of an sd card, and will only write there, even if you have an sd card. So even though adding storage via an sd card is cheaper, it's not the option that serves everyone.

So based on that - where are the 32 and 64 GB versions? How soon will they come?



I don't know who most people are or what they want.

I do know that many apps will use internal storage no matter what sd card you have plugged in, so I agree with you - larger is an important option.

Samsung agrees with us - that's why they announced larger storage versions.

Can't say I'm liking the price differences I'm reading about though.
I do not know who most people are or what they want either EarlyMon, I only said most people may not want simply to appease Mr. Ed. To avoid any negativity either back towards myself or the forum as a whole.

However, in reality ~ I work with a large number of medical staff who use their phones mostly for business.
Most of my co workers are like myself, surgeon's. We each have several medical apps installed on our phones and most have large data file requirements which can only be installed to the main storage space.

So based on my personal experiences the wording most people actually does apply.

Interestingly, last year I operated on a senior representative whom for obvious reasons I can not mention his/her name or business they came from.
During his/her stay in hospital we had a long chat on this problem. It was he/she who informed me the main problem with manufacturers and storage is simply costs.
I could not believe my ears when he/she informed me the larger storage devices at launch are sold to Wholesalers with extremely little profit. This is because expected sales numbers of larger storage devices are much lower and as such cost the manufacturer more to purchase themselves.
The main profit is where the manufacturer can buy or build in bulk or cut corners with the hardware, storage space being one of such.
It is only later when either expected predicted sales or demand for the larger storage devices are high enough for greater bulk purchase will the manufacturer commit to a world wide production pattern.

It seems quite unbelievable given the extortionate costs and differences in prices between a 16GB to a 32GB/64GB that they say it is not cost effective to sell the larger storage model, not until that is they can purchase/build bulk hardware.
You would think larger sales would drive prices down.....
 
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Flash memory chips are produced practically at capacity all of the time, leading to more fab startups so that offsets costs.

Samsung flash memory may possibly be the best there is, they've been on the cutting edge in smaller geometry/higher speeds for a few years now, so some higher cost there doesn't surprise me at all.

I didn't mean anything snarky about the most people thing, nor did I infer anything on your part, apologies if I came across that way. :)
 
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Flash memory chips are produced practically at capacity all of the time, leading to more fab startups so that offsets costs.

Samsung flash memory may possibly be the best there is, they've been on the cutting edge in smaller geometry/higher speeds for a few years now, so some higher cost there doesn't surprise me at all.

I didn't mean anything snarky about the most people thing, nor did I infer anything on your part, apologies if I came across that way. :)

None taken and no apology needed EarlyMon.
I just felt I needed to explain my post better that is all.

A pleasure in communicating with you. :)

Beards
 
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Samsung is and probably will be the world's largest supplier of NAND flash memory chips for the foreseeable future.

Just recently Samsung really "hit it out of the ballpark" with their new Samsung 840 Series SSD drives which includes the 840 and 840 Pro series SSDs. Both of them are smash hits in the tech world and getting rave reviews. I can imagine that most of the NAND flash memory that Samsung produces goes towards the manufacturing of those SSDs and whatever is left over is "given" to the wireless division. I can't imagine Samsung wanting to gut the profits from the SSD market just to satisfy some Galaxy S4 customers. The SSD market is already huge and it's only going to get larger. So that means that Samsung is either going to have to step up in the fabrication of more NAND flash memory or one of two things is going to happen: the price of the flash memory is going to go up OR Samsung is going to continue to limit the amount of higher capacity smart phones.

So yeah, I do think that the theory that Beards posted about carries a lot of weight.
 
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Probably because the NAND flash memory buried inside the phone is what is commonly known in the tech world as MLC (Multi-Level Cell, typically two layer) NAND Flash Memory. That stuff is expensive to make. That's why SSDs for computers have been traditionally a luxury item.

MicroSD cards more than likely use TLC (Triple-Level Cell) NAND Flash Memory. It's much cheaper to make but has less life expectancy than MLC NAND.

Up until very recently, all SSDs for computers have been MLC NAND but that changed with the Samsung 840 Series SSD which uses TLC NAND. They say that it has great write life but they have to do a lot of work in Digital Signal Processing to make that happen. And for cheap MicroSD cards, you can bet that "extra work" isn't going to go into those chips.
 
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I can imagine so. SSDs are hot items. The demand for SSDs is far more than the supply of NAND Flash Memory.

Glad I got the pair of Samsung 840 Series SSDs when I did. These things are truly amazing when you put them into a computer. Makes the thing take off like a rocket. Even older computers can really seem like a new computer all over again when you put an SSD into it.

So yes, I can really see why NAND Flash Memory is in such high demand. People want smart phones with lots of storage capacity along with SSDs. There's only so much NAND flash memory to go around.
 
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Well, maybe in the normal market there's not much of a demand for PCs but the enthusiast market is a completely different animal. The geeks, the hard core geeks, still want their PCs. And what do they want? SSDs.

Don't count the enthusiast market out. There's still a lot of people out there that feel that they'd have to have their PCs pried from their cold dead hands.

Myself, I have a smart phone (obviously) but I do have my PCs, two of them. A desktop and a notebook. If you ask me, contrary to popular belief, the PC isn't going anywhere!
 
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There are actually very few apps that require more than 1 gig of space when compared to the total number of apps available so it's not like this is the norm.

It depends on the type of apps you download, it's already been said a few times but there are loads of 3d games that take upto 2GB each.

Your space is gone in no time at all.
 
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If you are not a gamer, the 12GB free should be fine. If you are a gamer, 12GB by any stetch is not enough. That is unless you only play a few games and then app juggle. All of the newer Gameloft and EA games (as example) are over 1GB and then add at least 500mb of data. The average 3D game loads 400MB, and this is weighted due to a lot of older 3D games that were made before the newer chipsets became common.

Added:

You will not find many A level titles that are less than 750mb, if 3D.

BTW, the install total that the market shows is NOT the actual total on the device. Understated.
 
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If you are not a gamer, the 12GB free should be fine. If you are a gamer, 12GB by any stetch is not enough. That is unless you only play a few games and then app juggle. All of the newer Gameloft and EA games (as example) are over 1GB and then add at least 500mb of data. The average 3D game loads 400MB, and this is weighted due to a lot of older 3D games that were made before the newer chipsets became common.

Added:

You will not find many A level titles that are less than 750mb, if 3D.

BTW, the install total that the market shows is NOT the actual total on the device. Understated.
It's not even 12GB remaining.
It's 9.6GB remains after you first switch on.

It's also not just games that are effected either.
I have quite a few program's that have heavy data files.
I won't mention any of the medical Apps but I also have SkySafari Pro which requires a total of 850MB of storage.

As you correctly say in order to run these Apps I for one will have to juggle install/uninstall which is hardly what I would call to be asked of a Flag Ship device.
 
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Point being, an sd card is NOT the solution for app storage. More internal storage is. The "16GB" model is a bad choice for gamers and some other user categories. Launching with only the 16GB a year after having a 16GB and 32GB ready for launch seems pure nuts unless Samsung had no choice- earlier than planned launch a likely reason.
 
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Point being, an sd card is NOT the solution for app storage. More internal storage is. The "16GB" model is a bad choice for gamers and some other user categories. Launching with only the 16GB a year after having a 16GB and 32GB ready for launch seems pure nuts unless Samsung had no choice- earlier than planned launch a likely reason.

Totally Agree.
 
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We can ask Kexmonster to give us a snapshot of the storage use. I'll ask him.

It's not difficult, doesn't require root (just enter df into Terminal Emulator) - but the actual numbers will vary by region due to radio types.

For a point of reference - just a sneak peek for the idea iow - here's what my LTEvo looks like, 16 GB + 64 GB sd card, note that my internal sd is 9.9 GB but the tool displays it as 9. Taking that into account, the screenshot provided accounts for 15 of the 16 GB built-in, and cannot show the bootloader or recovery because they're below the operating system.


TL/DR -

Of the 16 GB, you have to allocate for the bootloader, recovery, radio firmware, and each Android filesystem - nothing comes without consuming storage.


Picture is NOT from an SGS4.
 

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9.6GB/16GB? I guessed 12GB/16GB based on format space, OS, stock apps and 500mb Android operational floor. Wonder what else is eating space?

If you have a look at androidcentrals review of the S4 and scroll down to the section marked 'Galaxy S4 Internal Hardware and Performance' you will notice they mention of the original 16GB only 9.62GB were remaining.
 
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We can ask Kexmonster to give us a snapshot of the storage use. I'll ask him.

It's not difficult, doesn't require root (just enter df into Terminal Emulator) - but the actual numbers will vary by region due to radio types.

For a point of reference - just a sneak peek for the idea iow - here's what my LTEvo looks like, 16 GB + 64 GB sd card, note that my internal sd is 9.9 GB but the tool displays it as 9. Taking that into account, the screenshot provided accounts for 15 of the 16 GB built-in, and cannot show the bootloader or recovery because they're below the operating system.


TL/DR -

Of the 16 GB, you have to allocate for the bootloader, recovery, radio firmware, and each Android filesystem - nothing comes without consuming storage.


Picture is NOT from an SGS4.

Here's the snapshot:


EDIT: This is from a SGS4. As you can see, this only has 7,65GB total storage. I don't know if that's because this is a demo-phone or what :S
 
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That by any stretch is excessive. Me thinks there could be many folks regretting their 16gb purchase. That is so disproportionate it seems like false advertisement calling them 16 or 32gb. Dang.

As I recall, in some countries they can't. I've seen localized web pages from manufacturers calling out only user-accessible storage from time to time.

This phone has a lot of features.

In our world, features means just one thing: apps.

Between the s-features, Jellybean, Touchwiz and room for updates, I'll be surprised if /system is less than a 2 GB allocation. (edit - ninja'd by Kexmonster, it's 2.69 GB on his sample)

Your SGS3 wasn't much different in this regard, this isn't a new thing.
 
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Here's the snapshot:


EDIT: This is from a SGS4. As you can see, this only has 7,65GB total storage. I don't know if that's because this is a demo-phone or what :S

Yep, odd indeed given other reports.

But this is why I only trust the df utility. Once marketing gets in there, defintions for actual storage leave the building.

So - maybe because it's a demo unit - or maybe because marketing decided to count /cache along with user storage.

Or - something regional - maybe.

edit and ps - df shows where the rest of the 16 GB is going on your copy nicely, I really appreciate the info! :)

This is also stock and before anyone tried to delete/remove the bloat and sample pics, videos and all that junk.

That only changes what's used - the filesystem allocations are fixed at the factory.
 
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