I see lots of phones in this business and I wanted to share some advice to prolong the usable life of your device. (this applies equally to tablets).
Whatever device you end-up buying be it Andorid, iOS, Windows Mobile, or some other Mobile OS it will have a set amount of “internal memory”. The internal memory is the flash memory soldered to the board and cannot be replaced. When this memory wears out (yes it wears out) your device will start to act erratically (like your Uncle Gonk after 6 beers too many) with random crashes, lockup, reboots and other problems.
*Flash memory in a nutshell*
– Flash memory uses a process to read & write data that eventually kills the memory (storage cell)
– Flash memory utilizes wear leveling to maximize the life on any individual storage cell – (good flash chips do this)
– Flash memory like traditional hard drives have memory they use to replace ones that die on the main storage.
– When the replacement cells run out Uncle Gonk comes out in his drunken glory and your device brings sadness to you and all you know.
I have seen plenty of 8 Gig iPhones running iOS 7 and they run walk horribly. They crash, are slow to start and freeze up. iOS 7 is takes most of that space and now the free memory wears even faster.
How do we mitigate this? Always buy a device with at least 1 step up on the memory scale. So, if they sell a 8GB, 16GB & 32GB models, get the 16GB at a minimum. This does several things for you.
1. Extra space – Who doesn’t need it?
2. Better resale value – Easier to sell when it comes time to replace it.
3. Extra Stability – Due to less memory wear/more spare sectors.
4. Extra Life – You have more options for larger apps/custom ROMs.
5. More Options – That 32GB phone you no longer use after switching carriers will make a much better music/video device for junior than the 8GB one you were going to get.
6. Faster – having free space on your phone does make it faster. This has diminishing returns however. Try for 10-15% unused space as a general rule.
Another way we can reduce memory wear is to use expandable storage if possible. Save photos, documents, media, and generally anything you create to the removable memory by default and use the internal memory for applications. Not all devices come with expansion slots for memory but it is an easy change to make if you have the option. Micro SD is the most common and for best performance get class 10 or better cards.
The cost difference between the bottom storage size and the next tends to be about $50.00. To me it is easily worth it. So skip on the extra case of beer for Gonk and get a better phone/tablet.
Liam –