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[Lord Shonus]

The problem is that a lot of them will seem good enough when you buy them - but tradeoffs that seemed reasonable then will be crippling in a fairly short amount of time. Storage is a big one here - what looks like plenty of room for low usage can easily turn into "I cannot install anything on this at all - there's not even room to upgrade the web browser" in a very short time because of auto-upgrading un-uninstallable bloatware. Short battery life migh seem like a "I'll just have to charge it more often!" situation, until you can't take it off the charge for more than two hours before it dies because the battery hit the first degradation level.


The absolute cheapest phones are cheap for a reason.

[wierd]

If it supports adoptable storage, the storage issue is moot; just throw in a big SD card, turn on adopted storage, and boom, all the space you could ever want. (especially if you have root access, and can use stuff like link2sd)

The issue is that many handset makers seem to hate the notion of adopted storage for reasons that escape me.

[Lord Shonus]

If it supports adoptable storage, the storage issue is moot; just throw in a big SD card, turn on adopted storage, and boom, all the space you could ever want.

For photos and such, this is true. For apps, not so. Older versions of the Android OS didn't force apps to be installable to SD, and (to make matters worse) it was often necessary to install to the phone and then move to SD - meaning that a phone with 25 megs internal storage and an empty 64 gig SD could not install any app larger than 25 megs - ever. A lot of low end phones still use those outdated OS cores.


This is from experience. My old HTC (and, before that, a Kyocera) behaved exactly like this until I got fed up and shot it.

[Yoink]

Oh yeah, that was a huge pain in the arse. Went to the trouble of buying an SD card for my old phone only to find I couldn't use it.
Fortunately more recent versions of Android made it possible to set the SD card as the default storage, or something along those lines. I think the version this started with was called "cookie" or some shit.   

[methylatedspirit]

I think the version this started with was called "cookie" or some shit.   

That would be Android Oreo.

[Yoink]

Huh, "Oreo" actually sprang to mind first but I thought "nah, surely they didn't use a brand name, I must be misremembering!"   

[wierd]

I actually MISS older android variants, as I could get root, and then change vold.fstab to mount and EXT3/4 partition on the SDCard as internal storage, and get around that bullshit straight up.

Google really does not want you to do that, because they are sycophantic ass lickers to the app makers, who want to keep the app's data "SUPER SECRET! USER NO TOUCHY!", which is why adopted storage is encrypted, and why the app developers *STILL* can demand that the app's private data hog the fuck out of internal storage. (Facebook, You are a whore about this. There is NO REASON for your demands. NONE. Especially when you want to gobble down 400mb of space JUST FOR YOURSELF.)

Throw into that how the handset makers always want to make the partitioning of the device's NAND/eMMC such that app storage is crippled on some damnably tiny 1gb volume, so they can claim "32gb of storage!!! WOW!!" on the /sdcard mounted area.  In reality, the users would likely be MUUUUUUUUUUCH happier with a 16gb/16gb split, especially if the SDCard can be adopted.


(But then they couldn't hawk how you *NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED* to update to the newest handset next christmas.)


Apps like Link2SD use root permissions to set up symbolic links (Since the internal storage partition the apps want to hog up is ext4 in nearly all phones, and support the feature) that point the app's private storage directory to another EXT4 volume (A special partition on the SDCard that gets mounted at boot). This lets the apps hog that space all they want, they only actually occupy 4kb (The EXT4 cluster allocation size) on the actual internal storage.

Google of course, did everything in its power to make that stop being easily done, and wont come out with some balls and tell the likes of Facebook to go pound sand, the user gets to specify where their goddamn app gets installed.

[methylatedspirit]

Huh, "Oreo" actually sprang to mind first but I thought "nah, surely they didn't use a brand name, I must be misremembering!"   

That wasn't the first time they've used a brand name, either.  Android 4.4.x KitKat was internally referred to as Key Lime Pie, but apparently key lime pies aren't well known enough.

With Android Q on the horizon, I wonder what that Q's gonna stand for. Quiche?

Especially when you want to gobble down 400mb of space JUST FOR YOURSELF.)

Is it bad that 400 MB doesn't sound that bad to me? Google Photos is worse, taking up 1.4 GB on my phone. Granted, my phone has 128 GB of storage, the majority of which I'm free to use, so I might be massively spoiled.

Either way, it's a damn shame that these app devs have to resort to making Android Go versions of their apps for entry-level smartphones, instead of optimizing their existing apps to run on said hardware.

Throw into that how the handset makers always want to make the partitioning of the device's NAND/eMMC such that app storage is crippled on some damnably tiny 1gb volume, so they can claim "32gb of storage!!! WOW!!" on the /sdcard mounted area.

I need some examples of this practice. Also, 32 GB? That's fairly small by 2019 standards.

[wierd]

It is VERY common on the low end devices, as Shonus rightly points out.

Take for instance, that 16gb alcatel I cited, I would expect the internal eMMC to be some damnably small 1gb horror.

(Thankfully though, there is full TWRP support, and root instructions for it.)

[dragdeler]

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[NJW2000]

I still miss my Nokia brick. With that, I didn't have to worry about stuff like inadvertent inputs, or taking my phone out my jeans before washing them.

[pisskop]

blackberry pearl was my baby.

I miss her

[dragdeler]

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[TamerVirus]

[Mephisto]

*Cries in Windows Phone*

My 950 XL is still in a box somewhere. Amazing hardware. Sort of buggy OS. Software support was lacking. I'd probably still use it for light browsing but the installed browser was horrendously shitty. I guess I'm keeping it for sentimental reasons and the phenomenal camera.

Additional WTF. Over a year ago, MS gave me a $5 coupon for use on ebooks. Bought one, because why not. Didn't read it. Fast forward to today, they send an email telling me that they refunded the full amount to my attached card. I knew full well they were going to be discontinuing the ebook thing but I'm kind of surprised they refunded coupon money.