Android @lemdro.id Kyoyeou (Ki jəʊ juː) @slrpnk.net 2y ago

[Rant] Cloud service is not a reason to have phones with only 128 GB

I am in the process of looking between repairing my phone or switching to a new one. And the no brainer evolution to the OnePlus 7 Pro I have is a Pixel phone. Pixel Phones are definitely not perfect, I know that the battery would fall faster than other phones but hey, that's ok, google chip in it, possibility to go GrapheneOs, all good.

But the A versions only having 128 GB, and needing to pay 100 extra Euro on the Normal and Pro phone for 256GB is ridiculous, and not allowing me to add a SD card for that! Is insane I restarted my phone in December fresh from zero, and in the last 9 months I used 163 GB of memory. 48GB of it is my music on Deezer, for which I pay to be able to download "HIFI" files which I am not willing to trade for using less space on my phone, I work in a place with no 4G, I've got a few playlist I switch between. The rest is 25 GB of Pictures, 7GB of games. 44GB of apps.

Now the answer to this is "Well now with your Pixel phone you can use the Google Cloud, Google Docs blablabla". Something insights by Google offering 3 month of Google one and 3 month of YouTube premium when you buy a Pixel phone. So much cloud that's soo cool! And you can just redownload things when you need it. Well I don't want to redownload my musics everyday when I listen to them, I don't want to trade and limit what I would call normal use. I know not everyone will resonate with this, but the carbon impact on bandwidth used from cloud in 4G is important.

Normalise SD cards, Normalise not using the Cloud as a solution for everything

Update 2 Days later

Hey, writting here because this post has brought a lot of people to talk about storage of data on phone, which is quite nice. I am writting here just because a lot of comments are repeating certain points and It wouldn't be useful answering to all of them if after their will be more comments saying the same thing.

I am not saying Cloud = Bad. It's great we have a place out there where we can Store Data in case anything happens. I simply wish either brand gave us more choice on data capacity, seeing a Pixel 7a only at 128 gb ain't cool, let me make a choice. Seing a Pixel & with 128gb or having to pay an extra 100€ for 256gb when a sd card is 30€ is not cool.

A personal server is in my plans, and it's one of the projects I'm the most impatient to have.

I understand that I have a different use of phones then the average, I simply want to be able to adapt the tools I use to my different use.

I have taken the step to take a look at the storage in my phone by curiosity and to look with a different eye my consomption of Storage, and have deleted 3gb of games, and 3gb of apps that where useless. I've also started looking into my photos and took out 3gb of photos I had which where useless. And I think there is more photos I'll delete, I am not done on that of course

My signal discussion are important to me, I am in a Long Distance Relationship, and discussions I have with my SO on Signal are the major part of my relationship, and I cherish them. I have set up signal so that it makes when charging at night a copy of my discussions, and when I have Sincthing, it loads the conv to a HDD Drive on my PC. That being said, in the floders I found bugged temp file from saves that did not end, for a total of 20 gb of Signal discussions (oof lol) which where deleted too. How ridiculus was it? Well in Storage>Files the weight of total files dropped from 20,68gb to 0,68gb

Anyway, I am now at 132gb :D! I'm not writting this because I am feeling attacked or to defend myself, just as a small update and because these are reocuring comment that's all, i'm still anwering here and there if you arrive a bit latter to the post, it's impressive from lemmy I feel to still be receiving comments and have a discussion that continues 2 day after a post. Usually on Reddit posts would die in 6 hours, and their where no dick's in the chat. I've read every single message, and answers other people did

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224 comments

Normalise SD cards

I never stopped. Any phone I buy must have an SD slot. Problem solved.
- Same here, I don't understand people buying phones without SD card and than complaining about it.
  
  They sent a message to manufacturer that they don't want SD cart slot and of course in the next year evel less phones will have it.
  
  People call this "voting with your money"
Reward Sony, they have low, mid, and high end phones that still have SD cards and headphone jacks.
- While I respect them for their hardware, they need to up their software game. They've been left in the dust on update lifespan by Samsung and Google. I'm also miffed that they don't have much care for specification accuracy (or at least didn't when I got my US Xperia III).
  
  Agreed, I wish they had longer update timelines and were easily available in the US. But they are easily among the best overall phones with a headphone jack and expandable storage.
- As much as I'd love to, they're simply too expensive, by far. Amd I've had several Sony's compact models before that have each left me with a malfunctioning screen after about a year.
- I bought the Xeperia 1iii for exactly this reason...and it was the worst phone I've ever owned.
  
  The camera sucks, the phone froze all the time, many apps were incompatible.
  
  It was a nightmare. I wanted so badly to love it and I tried and tried for 9mo, and the traded it in for a Pixel 7 pro.
  
  IDK if I can trust Sony again, but I really want the SD card and headphone jack.
  
  After the rootkit shenanigans, no trust is warranted
  
  Have the 1 III and now 1 V (that case for the 1 III wasn't as strong as I hoped, lol)
  
  It's a significant improvement, no more heat issues, the camera is legit great without messing with settings now (the previous generations were much too far oriented to people used to editing RAW), it's what the 1 III should've been
  
  Since the original PlayStation in the 90s, I have never owned a Sony product that didn't disappoint, or just outright fail.
  My wife had a Sony video camera. It broke in a little under 2 years. My Sony car CD player just one day decided to refuse to eject a CD. A place I worked at had Sony Viao laptops as standard, and were forever replacing PSUs and screens. I looked at buying a Sony smart TV, but looked at their forums first, and decided the firmware/software was so full of bugs which were never going to be fixed, that I'd be better off with a CRT display and a VHS machine than whatever they were selling. My brother had a Sony digital camera, which one day, decided it just didn't want to power on.
  I wouldn't buy anything Sony if I expected it to last longer than a month.
It sounds like you have a very specific set of requirements that requires a specific type of premium phone. Not everybody needs 128 GB of storage eon their phone (mine only has 64). I agree that a lot of storage and SD-card slots are good features to have on phones, but the truth is that not everyone needs those. Each feature will add cost and require more resources to build, and for a lot of people not having them will work just fine.
- I don't get the arguments either way.
  
  Buy the 512GB phone if you need it?
  
  I think the problem is that those 512GB cost more than a 512GB SD card.
- My mum is constantly complaining about not having enough storage on her phone but won't switch away from an iPhone to and Android with an SD slot.
  
  Some people just like to removed about a problem not fix it.
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't sd card slots cheaper than 128GB of storage? Give me a phone with 32GB, allow me to pay for a 1TB SD card if i need it. Seems like a win-win. Hell, they can sell the phone with their own sd card in it already if they really want.
  
  Are sd card slots cheaper than 128 GB of flash storage chips? I'm not sure, but yes, probably. You would also need to factor in the additional complexity of allowing physical access to the slot, which would take some additional designing and a few more components. The sd card itself will probably be a more expensive and slower than integrated flash storage. By contrast, it is probably extremely easy to just shove some flash storage chips in a phone. Still, I agree that it sounds like a worthwhile tradeoff for me.
Mid tier phones have sd card support, 3.5mm jack replaceable battery.

You only have to know where to look.

removable battery

sd card

3.5mm jack
- Ok, now which ones have all three, plus a metal frame?
  
  I would throw so much money at such a phone. If you add "usable software/hardware", i can maybe find 3 of the 5.
  
  Or a decent camera.
- Thanka for sharing the knowledge!
A lot of comments in this thread defending OEMs from customer's benefits, which is disheartening to me, but I'm sure joyous for shareholders. I see comments saying you should buy premium phones that have SD cards, but there aren't many options. The only one is a $1400 Xperia I V. I would love nothing more to have the SD card on only the "ultra" variants, if costs are too much of an issue for those who don't use the feature, but there's not much "ultra" in the "Ultra" variant besides an extra camera or two.

For those who are baffled by what we hoard on our devices, why does it matter? Do we ask what you do on your phone when there doesn't seem to be anything on them? "I barely use 50GB on my device" and "128GB is more than enough for me" seem to be the prevailing notion here, and it's frustrating since your demographic is already highly represented on the market. It's similar to those who wish there wasn't a selfie cam because they never used it, ignoring all the video calls millions use on a daily basis.

But maybe an answer might stop the "curiosity" of the sparse data hoarders, and they might understand our plight. On my 1TB SD Card, I currently have:

220GB Audiobooks 18GB Music 34GB Pictures 330GB Videos, Movies, and TV Shows 10GB Work and Project Files 12GB Podcasts 14GB Games

As someone who is frequently in low-signal areas, especially while driving, streaming is not an option. My media has entertained me during flights, public transit commutes, working out, jury duty, and the DMV. I also don't want to transfer my media in and out of my device (I do back up my data wirelessly to my own server), nor do I want to bring an adapter when the technology is already embedded inside.

So OP, I feel you, and I'm hoping SD cards comeback.
- It's the same with people asking me why I don't buy bluetooth headsets and insist on having wired headphones. I don't want to buy something extra when I already have a pair of VERY GOOD headphones and audio signal is always better on wire - even with lossless audio on bluetooth (which is not yet supported by (m)any devices).
  
  Exactly! I literally don't know what to do with my SD card if I succumb to OEM's wishes and get a phone without the memory expansion. Nor do I want to spend +$150 per phone to get the 1TB option if they even offer one. I already bought my SD card once, so why would I want to do it again and again and again?
  
  Yeah, If Android Dap where good enough at a correct price I'd go with maybe pixel 7a and an Android Dap to use with my Dusks and sell my Qudelix, this would be an alternative Id like
- And I am not writing this at all to say it's bad to have only 64gb If you need 64gb, I simply want a solution that is not Cloud and that helps me get the amount of Storage I need. I'm also working in a low signal area. I've tried to listen to other songs and they just cut all of the time so I keep to the playlist I make
  
  Yup. How much would it hurt you if your phone had a small space for a SD card slot? If you don't use it, who cares. It's not affecting you a single iota. The only people benefiting are the OEM's, because god knows your phone hasn't gotten any cheaper since they began removing hardware features.
- premium phones that have SD cards, but there aren't many options. The only one is a $1400 Xperia I V
  
  There are other options too, like the fairphone or Galaxy A-series mentioned by others in this thread. They never disappeared, they just became less common because there is less customer demand.
  
  If you need a phone with a lot of storage or extensible storage, you can get one. There will be a cost associated with that need, but it is not necessary to pay $1400 either. It is hardly anti-consumer to say that a lot of people don't need this option.
  
  What you do with your phone is your choice, and if you want to store 1 TB of pictures, audiobooks, or even porn, you should go ahead and do that. All I'm saying is that this is not a typical use case, and you can't expect any random phone to support it. But there are phones that do, and you should get one.
  
  In what way are any of those phones "premium?" You're literally listing the two phones I can get to access an SD card. The $1400 Sony or low to mid-range ones. So I have to compromise my choice in my diminishing feature set so that the common man can have yet another Galaxy, Pixel, or even an iPhone that doesn't distinguish themselves beyond their OS/skin, camera count, and folding screens? Pick any one of these phones in the last 3 years and tell me what makes them unique and more practical than my Note 20 Ultra.
  
  Plus, at least in the US, the common man is going for an iPhone. Apple just got nearly 60% of the market share here, so no, there isn't a plethora of choices, and Android OEMs aren't exactly fighting tooth and nail to provide exceptions in their products. So if I want a phone with actual "premium" features - such as cameras that eat up storage - and includes an SD card slot, it's down to Sony and Sony alone.
- I agree with what you are saying, but 220GB in audiobooks? Isn't that like ~1000 audiobooks? I admire the dedication, but damn 😂
  
  I love audiobooks, haha. There's also some by a studio called Graphic Audio, which is a dramatized version of audiobooks filled with a full cast of voice actors, music, and sound effects! It's pretty cool, but each audiobook is like 4x the size of a normal book. I also read books that are part of a series. Each one is usually 5+ books long.
- Can I ask what phone you are using and what SD card you have? Did you get a fast writing SD card?
  
  Still on my Note 20 Ultra, since it's the last real "Ultra" phone that Samsung has released, except for the headphone jack, but I've learned to adapt with this compromise. I think my SD Card was a SanDisk? I don't remember, since I bought it years ago, and it has lasted me since I got this phone on release day. I didn't really care about read-write speed, because everything I'm accessing doesn't really require blazing fast transfers.
Imagine if we had this - physically tiny - and established standard how we could let the user add extra storage space to their small electronic devices.

I don't know, maybe SanDisk could develop something like this, some Micro format storage device. That's not a bad name, is it? Something with Micro, and SanDisk? Yeah, someone should create that!
- well it'd obviously have to be digital, and it would be nice if it were secure as well
  
  maybe down the line we could get a high capacity version, or even xtreme capacity
- A Floppy disk?
It does sound like they are selling 128G of flash storage at a weirdly high cost.

I think "44GB of apps" might be part of your problem though. There's no legit reason for them to be that big, they're all just shipping their own 4k prerendered buttons, full copies of React Native and half of the Node package ecosystem, and the same fifty tracking SDKs. 128G was a perfectly reasonable size for a pocket computer, until people decide you need to ship like a whole OS in every app and you need an app for like every store you go to and your messenger needs motion graphics for every emoji in Unicode.

I guess you could try offloading photos to another computer for archival storage? Keeping every photo you ever took on the camera is going to use a lot of space.
- The Heaviest one being Signal (8gb) because I have all my discussions of the last 9 Months, after they are around 1gb and lower, since i posted my messag, i've deleted 5gb of app too. I also need to check those photo, I have to move some to my drives, and I have I am certain a lot of them that can be destroyed
- weirdly high cost
  
  Price is completely independent of cost. Products are almost always segmented into three tiers. The lowest tier enables breadth and is sometimes sold at a loss. Middle tier is where most money is made, by having vastly higher margins. High tier is mostly to capitalize on people with money to spare, and to provide a psychological boost to the middle tier so those people think they’re making a balanced choice.
  
  This is how all consumer electronics are priced.
  
  Is it that hard to get into making consumer electronics that this manages to persist?
There's no excuse for a lack of expandable storage, theres no excuse for a lack of a 3.5mm port. Phones have been stagnant for the last 3/4 years.
- The new iPhones are coming out soon, and since they've likely replaced the silencer switch with an Bixby button, that'll surely shake up and revolutionize the market with it's yet another 150€ base price increase
- Not putting a hole in the device envelope is an excuse; no holes makes it easier to waterproof. Somebody out there is going for the hermetically sealed wireless charging only speaker in the screen no holes phone that you can take to the bottom of the ocean and is immune to pocket lint.
  
  But if it's got holes in it it really ought to have these.
  
  Theres plenty of IP68 rated phones with headphone ports and they are not even ridiculously priced flagships.
  
  A headphone jack isn't a hole it's a closed port with electrical contacts inside of it just like your charging port. The back of the port doesn't open up into the rest of the phone internals.
They hype 4k/8k recording capabilities but the average buyer is unlikely to realise exactly how fast this eats storage.

I had to buy a new phone when my last one broke. Needed S Pen & external SD so I opted for a used Note 20 Ultra in conjunction with the same SD card ive used since I first bought a smart phone.

I self host my own Nextcloud but cloud isnt the answer. Even in this day & age in a big city or driving, streaming is not available all the time. I insist that everything important is available offline: maps, notes, all media be it music, podcasts, audio books ...even movies/TV shows seeing as these phones can easily be connected to a TV for use with Kodi or similar. Another thing is recording footage of holidays etc for editing. It all takes up space.

I'm of the opinion the external SD was only removed for profiteering reasons.
- For Christmas I accidentally restarted my phone, and saw my nephews for the first time. Wanted to make some videos of them. Turns out for some reason the phone was in 4k 6fps (yay)
25gb of pictures... I mean... So you need all of that stored locally so it's accessible wherever you need it while you're in the middle of nowhere in the woods or a desert?

44gb of non games apps? 🤔

You realise you might be a power user that just bought the wrong device?
- The problem is, there aren't many "not wrong" devices that address the issue. And simply wanting storage because of poor network a lot of the time is a fine reason that doesn't make someone a power user.
  
  I'm finding plenty of phones with either 256gb or expandable storage though, I don't think it's much of an issue, it's just a person that didn't take their needs into consideration when buying their device...
- Yeah, this seems like a really weird complaint to me. My Pixel 6 Pro has 128 GB, and I've only just barely passed 100 GB used like a month ago, after having this phone for a couple years now.
  
  I get that there will be niche use cases, but I feel like if you know you've got a niche use case, then you should probably be taking that into consideration when purchasing your device in the first place. For the average user, though, I feel like 128 GB is more than plenty.
  
  "it's not a problem for me so obviously everyone else is just weird. Anyone who does anything differently is doing something wrong."
  
  Ok.
  
  4k video fills storage up quick. Why slap 17 camera sensors on a phone if there's nowhere to store the data? I personally throw movies/tv on mine when traveling for me and my kid. 100GB is about 7 or 8 movies in 1080p.
  
  This is like claiming you've never needed a truck to haul things so you can't understand why anyone else would need one and anyone who does must be some fringe weirdo.
  
  my laptop at home has 64gb emmc, and nearly half of that is basically windows, firefox and vlc (lan playback).
  
  it's a consumption device. not a storage device.
- On the photo side I definitely need to work on it I'm certain there is so much I could delete and things I could move to my drives I fully agree on that
  
  Since making my post I've also deleted 5gb of apps
- I don't think anyone builds a device for power users these days despite the astronomical prices of current smartphones.
- The “power user” phones don’t have SD slots either though.
SD cards are irreplaceable to me because my phone does its backups into it. If my phone dies, I still can pull it out and have everything I need. And I'm not going to give my personal data to someone elses computer in a datacenter.
- If the phone is lost/stolen/damaged, your SD card could be inaccessible too. Your backups are your business, but you are opening yourself up to all kinds data loss if your only backups are stored within the device in question.
  
  of course. I do copy my files once in a while, but my phone does app backups to the card every few days.
- You might like something called Syncthing. It's a FOSS data replication thing that doesn't store stuff on other people's servers but if you have a computer or some other place you want to throw files, it can keep things synchronised with your phone, without any cloud storage crap ^.
  
  I highly recommend syncthing
  
  Irs free.
  
  You gotta set it up on all devices that sync anything but its very set and forget
128GB as the baseline is rubbish. Even 256GB is average considering the amount of high quality media we deal with nowadays. The amount of money these companies pull in from "upgrading" your storage is amazing, it costs dollars to upgrade from 128 to 256 but they'll charge you a $100 premium for the privilege
- Nah it's fine for those of us who don't live our whole lives inside the smartphone world. My desktop PCs, servers, and laptops are where I keep my important files, not on a phone.
You are intending to buy a phone from a cloud company whose phone making business is an afterthought.

Get a phone from a phone making company whose cloud is an aftertaught.
- But the camera :( and GrapheneOs
I do a lot of torrenting on my phone, I'm very frustrated with the current market of flagships. I have to constantly purge my downloads

I used to store music locally and I can't have 100gb of music any more because my phone is only 128. I used to download entire TV shows at once, and now I have to do it one season at a time and delete it as I watch.

Obviously it's not a big deal because I've just settled for doing it, but ffs SD card slots are cheap as shit and most of these phone manufacturers also make lower end phones with SD card slots.
- I used to download the top of the month musics only, to get a cool panel of music's I liked only for when I'll need them. Well in lossless they took after a year more than 110GB of storage. I stopped when seeing it so large
- Why do you need 100GB of music? Get a Plex server and stream from that. You can still download stuff from your phone if you need to. But there's no way you're away from an internet connection for 100GB of music worth of time.
  
  It's a management problem, not a storage problem.
  
  At the time I worked offshore, so yeah I was away from an internet connection pretty consistently.
  
  Also stop recommending Plex, it's going downhill. Jellyfin is better.
  
  Also, this implies that I both own a spare computer and have both unlimited data and unlimited wifi.
Everyone in this thread talking about phones more expensive than my car.

Speaking as a person with a $120 phone, I honestly don't have an issue with 128GB for a mobile device. I don't film on this thing daily, and the largest apps I have are Sonic Forces and Mario Kart, so I'm pretty much never going to have to worry about using the space up.
- That is fine, and it's your choice. All we want is to also have choice instead of phone manufacturers either refusing to make models with large storage, or outright ripping us off for the privilege.
I think for the majority of people 128 is plenty. If you need more than that you need to buy a phone with an SD slot. I've never had a phone without one personally.
- What decent phones come with SD slots?
  
  I currently have a Fairphone, and of course it includes a micro-SD slot. You're supposed to use it for 5+ years, it'd be daft if you cannot expand it.
  
  I'm writing this on a Samsung A54, 256gb version, with an additional microSD slot. I fail to understand how people need more complex and expensive phones than this. Besides maybe wireless charging (which can be argued as a gimmick on its own), this phone has everything.
My phone (redmi note 10) has a memory card slot and dual sim slots. I recently bought a 128Gb memory card for around 10$. I'll always go for a phone with a microSD slot.
Cloud service is the reason to homelab
- I know I am moving in 1 month :( Than in 1 year, than a bit later again. And fianlly when I'll be settled it's one of my first goals!
I am totally fine with 64 GB if I have a fucking SD card slot!!!
- But what about those stupid apps that refuse to use the sd card?
  
  It's silly :-(
  
  I don't have a SD card anymore but I don't think I ran into those before, probably best to find a alternative or make use of the 64GB which is more than enough for a few silly outliars! ;)
Remember that Stock Android (or at least Pixel's android) doesn't even have a local backup. That's honestly ridiculous. I don't want to use your god damn cloud service Google. Especially coming from an iPhone, where you could backup your phone to a computer. Android not having it in AOSP/Stock is frankly ridiculous.
- It does have it. But you have to invoke it with ADB.
  
  From what I heard. That's going away very soon.
I don't really have that problem myself, but I fully agree anyway. It does not matter what your use case is. It is 2023, flash storage is cheap and we can get much more storage for any other device for a fraction of the cost. $100 is ridiculously overpriced.

Honestly by now I would have expected 1 TB to be the default, but somehow we got stuck with low internal storage for the past 10 years.
Well, I do get ur point but for 99% of the world out there, 128Gigs is honestly enough. Eg. I have around 70+ gigs free atm with a small music collection of 10-12 Gigs (all flacs) and some apps.
- I seriously don't understand how people fill up 256GB+ on their phones. There's really no reason to carry all that stuff on your phone and if you need movies and TV shows, just download the ones you want before going on a trip and delete them as you watch.
  
  Yup. Most of my media lives at my home.
  
  I kinda hate watching any good movie/Tv show on phone. Ruins the experience. So mostly only Music is there with some YT Videos that I may need/like.
Google wants you to use their services. You don't want to use them, so you aren't the target market. That's ok, get something else.
- Suprisingly, Pixel phones are actually some of the best for flashing ROMs on, in fact, many people get pixels to flash roms like GrapheneOS
  
  It's not surprising, started with the Nexus devices really.
The only reason I haven't switch from my current phone(Huawei) to a Pixel with Graphene OS. How the fuck am I supposed to migrate the 190 Gb of used date to it when it only has 128 Gb and I can't use my SD-Card any longer.

I can live with loosing the headphone jack or the fingerprint on the back(even if that is pretty nice) but why would they need to takey storage options. ('Cause more money for them when I have to pay for there cloud)
- Not to diminish the serious issue of lack of freedom of choice in phones, but what the fuck do you need 190GB of data on hand at all times for?
  
  Right? I'm a fucking data hoarder with 30+TB of shit at home and my phone has less than 30 gigs of apps/photo/videos/etc at any point in time lmao.
You are an extreme outlier. Most people don't have that much stuff on their phone.

I agree it would be nice if phones started at 256gb, but honestly the average person won't come close to that in 2 years, even if they don't know about Google photos.
- Not that extreme. Recording alone on a newer phone uses 1GB in 8 minutes and that's not even 4k.
  
  Then you have games. One of the most popular games in the world is Genshin Impact and its been downloaded 50,000,000+ times from Google play. It also currently needs 20GB of space.
  
  Sure, most people don't need over 128GB, but ones that do are far from extreme outliers. Personally I travel a lot and don't usually have consistent data when I do, so I keep a couple hundred gigs of TV shows and movies on my phone to watch, along with games.
- That depends a lot.
  
  Photos takr up more and more space. Videos too (will vary on settings)
  
  Same with apps (especially games)
How tf do you get 44GB of apps?
- I have 62GB used for apps only. Most are from games. Others from web browsers 3-4GB. I have Prime, netflix, which takes 4.5GB combined. Apps like play services, youtube, ytmusic, and photos take 300-500MB, which all add up.
- 8 of them is Signal discussions for me (I've converted all the people I talk to the most, which I might say yay!) then it's 2.6 gb WeChat, 1.5 TikTok, 1.2 Reddit, 1.1 Google then all are under 1gb Since I've made my pot I've deleted 5gb in apps too
- Diablo Immortal is 18GB.
I totally feel you OP. I have a 500+ GB music collection I refuse to give up for streaming apps (which don't have all that music anyway). But I also acknowledge the vast majority of people install a couple apps, take a couple pics and videos, and that's about it, so I get why 128 is the default.

My solution was to cough up money for a DAP (specifically the Fiio M11S). I know it's outside the budget of most people and definitely a super niche purchase, but boy do I feel relieved knowing I can plug my 1 TB SD card in in it and have all my music whenever I want to (plus other neat features like an actual audio jack and no audio resampling). And it also means I'm no longer restricted in my phone choices which is wonderful.

Maybe it's something for you to consider over a NAS or other local server solutions that require more upkeep.
- I have definitly looked too at a DAPS. My budget is still limited but it's something I am heavily looking at. I am using Deezer HIFI for my music, but have been wanting to buy the albums I love on Qobuz from ShakaPonk Stupéflip and Rammstein too. Today form my 48gb of music Downloaded I still iften want to listen to other playlist I have that are not loaded right now I took the time to go try some DAPS at a music store, I tried a 300€ one running android from Sony, which was nice, and the sound quality was also a bit better than my Qudelix. But It was a bit slow, and didn't have PEQ like the Qudelix. I also tried for the laught the the M11 hand Holly Hell is it good
  
  There is definitly a future in 5 to 10 years where I am rocking a Android DAP that can do DAC for PC aswell, and a midrange phone. And there is a definit possibility that the DAP will be more used than the phone itself heh
  
  For Android DAPs you definitely want to look into the 500€+ range simply because cheaper ones use very low end SoCs (usually the snapdragon 4xx series) which is why you had that experience with the Sony one. Only look at devices with a snapdragon 6xx and above to be honest. Also note most will never get an OS update so what you get is what you will have forever.
  
  I also tried a cheaper DAP at first too (the Hiby R5 I believe) but although the audio was fine the laggy app experience left a lot to be desired, so I'm very happy I paid an extra 200 to have a DAP that's not slow/laggy when navigating the interface.
  
  For future reference you can bookmark this page that gets updated with newer DAP releases every once in a while.
That's one reason why Samsung A phones are still in demand.
Yeah, I agree. My current smartphone has 128GB of internal storage. My previous one had 32GB of internal, which was a struggle. I downloaded a few large games and did less micro management on this one. But, I still needed an sdcard(128GB) for media. In the future, I will consider upgrading to a smartphone with 256GB of internal storage(and/or buy a high capacity sdcard)
25gb of pictures

Either you don't have a backup of those because you don't care, in which case you should delete them to make room, or you don't have a backup of those and would be devastated if you lost them, which means you should back them up to the cloud, then delete them to make room. An SD card slot would be nice, you're right there, but you're not exactly cornered with no options here. You're just dismissing good options because they're not an SD card.
- I have like 71gb of pictures on my phone (50k pics) and I like it that way, why would I delete them? For them to sit on my PC or in the cloud never to be looked at again?
  
  I often go through photos on my phone, it's like a history of the last few years and I find myself scrolling back to find a picture at least once a week.
  
  I could use the cloud service but it'd take so long loading the thumbnails that it's completely pointless.
  
  "why do you put these photos on the wall? You'd be devastated if someone stole them, you should rather keep them in a box under your bed" that's a dumb take.
  
  You're gonna lose them all one day.
If you were in the US I'd recommend you pick up a used Note 20 Ultra that comes with 128GB and an expansion slot for up to another 1TB.

I keep tons of pictures, movies, Netflix downloads, and TV shows on my phone and never touch cloud storage.

Only issue is that outside the US is mostly exynos chips instead of snapdragon and they weren't nearly as good. Can you import? Would your carrier work with a snapdragon variant?
"Only 128GB" - oh my, the self entitlement...
- Yeah I fully know a lot of people are on 64gb. My colleges at work are on 64gb, I am not writing this to trash at all on people with 64gb. It's just that storage price go down with time. We can buy 1tb for SSD for 77€, I know you've got miniaturization but 100€ for 124 extra gb seems a lot
  
  Or 32, there are probably phones still for sale with 16. It hasn't been that long since phones with 8 total (and an empty sdcard slot) were considered entry level.
- Do they even make phones with less than 128gb now?
  
  I guess budget phones. I don't remember seeing a 64GB elsewhere
Personally I have set up my own Nextcloud with wireguard to be able to see my files worldwide. Also, I bought a USB flash drive of 256gb from Samsung which is extremely small and I have also my data there, on my keys (encrypted with veracrypt).

The real problem about Android is that we have an extremely limited support for mounting encrypted devices. Veracrypt volumes for example can be mounted from a specific application and they are difficult to use.

SD cards on Android with encryption is almost useless, as you cannot easily mount the android encrypted SDs in your PC. If your device dies, you lose your data from your SD.. (if you are rootless).
- This is definitely something that I want to do, I just need to stop moving. I'm moving In one month and in one year, and in 3 years then I'll be able to do this project!
  
  All it takes is a raspberry pi (or equivalent) and a usb hadddrive. I’ve moved 3 times (once across the Atlantic) with my homelab setup (couple of Pi’s and drives) without issues. It’s literally a days work and that’s all, super easy.
You guys have 128gb? I have 64 on mine lol
- I have 64 internal and a 512GB SD
  
  My previous Galaxy S5 device had just 32 internal, and capped out at a 128GB SD 😭
- I have 32 GB and don't need more. I use Xaomi Mi A1 from 2017. No Internet on 3G or 4G data plan. But I have Wifi and a NAS. I don't take much pictures. Maybe 10 per year.
Yep, i agree that it's ludicrous that manufacturers literally removed features over time and simultaneously raised prices.

I like to have music, pics, etc., local, too. However I'm not going to take a subpar device just to have SD, so I compromise.

I rotate my music selection. I offload older camera media to my NAS at home, etc. Since where I am, I get WiFi almost every where I go, I can remote connect to my NAS. I rarely do because I have to deactivate my protective VPN to use my personal VPN for my link (safety first). So I'm effectively in the same situation.

When Google first announced that external cards were "evil", I knew instantly that was because they want us to store our data in their cloud. Various articles, marketing flat out pushed that solution.
- But can you use a usb stick for storage here instead of a nas? Connect to phone.
  
  That is inconvenient, but one could use a USB stick. It only makes sense if you're sitting in a table and you have a fairly High charge on your phone. Any mobility and you could damage your port and the stick.
  
  It's also easy to lose a USB stick, and I don't think you can have an encrypted one in this scenario.
Bit of a side note; when I've had users with low storage and too many apps, I've had some success moving them to PWA's. Social media apps in particular seem to be storage hogs.
The base level of storage and cost of upgrading to higher storage should be cheaper, but micro SD cards are garbage, especially on android. I had nothing but problems with them on mine, leading to me ignoring the slot on my last few phones that had one.
I've realised I quite like my note9 with a headphone jack and sd card. I've decided I need to fix the battery and display. Use that for reading, audiobooks, and browsing. And then get a modern phone iphone/android flagship for calls and messaging.
It is and it isn’t. Let me preface this by saying flash storage should not be as expensive as it is. That being said, you may think 128gb is low, but most people aren’t going to want to be forced into paying more for a device that starts with 256, especially when plenty of people get on fine with 128. Not when the price will reflect the larger storage. If you think they are going to up the storage and not the price, you’re dreaming.

Especially on an iPhone, since it only has one partition and isn’t using extra space to fill a B partition with another OS.

If you’re just a casual user, who just uses a few apps and needs portable access to the internet, 128gb is plenty.

Cloud storage isn’t really a solution to augment your storage capacity, since you don’t actually own it. If you stop paying your cloud subscription, all of your data goes bye bye.

TL;DR stop crying and pony up for more local storage. I’m paying an extra 400 or so for 1TB.
I had a problem with my last phone, the lenovo p2, that I tried to keep as long as possible due to its excellent battery life. It was 32 gb, and that got annoying at the end due to app space. Which also couldn't go on the sd drive, because, dunno.

I am very careful with downloading apps nowadays though and rather use browser if possible.
I think they expect you to connect all external devices through the USB port. Since there's only one port on most phones, you'll need a USB-C hub if you want to connect headphones and a flash drive at the same time.

I wonder if there are USB-C hubs that connect external devices to the phone and also charge the phone at the same time. That'd be neat.
- Sure! https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/06bf4a0c-3d45-4ef9-933f-d54ebbecd3ce_1.4852b4aee31d6489ca7687824d58cda9.jpeg
- I've got a small Bluetooth Dac called a Qudelix 5k that goes with my IEMs but thanks!
@Kyoyeou It's okay to have 128 GB on a phone. At least for me. I got away even with 16 GB until last year, and I could still easily get away with 32 GB if I try hard enough.

What is not okay is to make such phones and not provide an SD card slot on it.
What makes up the 44GB of non-game apps?
- No it's 44gb of apps! 8 of them is Signal discussions for me (I've converted all the people I talk to the most) then it's 2.6 gb WeChat, 1.5 TikTok, 1.2 Reddit, 1.1 Google then all are under 1gb
  
  8 GB of signal chats? You can clear some of that data up. Delete useless memes and years-old chats. That's not a storage space issue, it's a management issue.
You can get a small USB dongle for media if you want. Android supports USB for added storage for media.
- Ah yes, a flawless solution!
  
  just get an external ssd drive and some double-sided tape to stick it to the back of your phone. If you want to increase your battery life you can also stick a powerbank on there as well.
  
  You're meming but do you really need access to an entire 50GB music library at all times? Do you need 45GB of other media?
  
  I mean, I know I do, but I paid the €80 premium to get a 256GB phone variant instead.
theres not a reason to blame cloud when you're too broke for more storage
- Mate. I'm up to buy 248 gb of storage. Now the difference is a SD Card is like 45 €. 100 Euro more on a 400€ phone for a total of 500 € is different
  
  Still not a reason to blame cloud, also internal storage is faster than sd card
- Oh yeah just pay hundreds of dollars for a product that costs dollars. This isn't the mentality of someone with enough money to call others broke.

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