iPhone 64 GB is enough

iPhone 64 GB is enough

Overpay for a larger drive or save money?

PhoneArena has found out whether a 64 GB drive is optimal or whether smartphones with such memory need to be crammed. Tests conducted using the latest iPhone SE.

iphone, enough

First, remember that modern iOS eats about 11 GB of storage on any iPhone. As a result, the user of the basic smartphone gets access to 49.6 GB of memory. The journalists installed several important applications, games on the device and recorded dozens of videos and photos.

Essential applications. WhatsApp (69 MB), Zoom (58 MB), Snapchat (179 MB), Google Chrome (81 MB) and others. can easily fit onto a device with 64 GB memory. It is important to remember that applications also reserve part of the additional memory for their work. do not forget to clear the cache and from time to time and unload unused applications to the cloud.

Games weigh much more, but the user is unlikely to run several resource-intensive applications at the same time. In particular, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes about 2.1 GB, Max Payne Mobile. 1.8 GB, Fortnite. 256 MB.

Media found out that one minute of 4K video (30 fps) takes about 350 MB, and 130 MB is required to save a one-minute HD video with the same frequency. With the default settings, the SE will fill up almost 100% in about 6 hours and 25 minutes (most likely, the model will run out before you clog the memory). A standard iPhone storage will fit about 14,900 photos and about 6,900 tracks from Apple Music.

Conclusion. you can take a 64 GB model, its drive should be enough to save the most important applications, games, several hundred photos and dozens of videos. If you shoot very often or are not used to counting gigabytes, then purchase versions with 128 and 256 GB drives.

For your convenience, we’ve compiled all the great deals on iPhones with 64GB basic storage:

  • iPhone 6s. 12 850 rubles
  • iPhone SE. 11 400 rubles
  • iPhone 8. 30 850 rubles
  • iPhone 8 Plus. 38,150 rubles
  • iPhone X. 48 950 rubles
  • iPhone XS. 49 680 rubles
  • iPhone XR. 44,288 rubles
  • iPhone 11. 53 250 rubles
  • iPhone 11 Pro. 75 750 rubles
  • iPhone 11 Pro Max. 79 550 rubles

Buyer’s guide. How to choose the right amount of memory in your smartphone

Another conversation was with a friend, she bought a phone for her mother as a gift, asked for advice. She recommended the basic Galaxy A51, but she decided to get the 128GB model to “have enough storage for years to come.” Finally, a conversation with a friend who was choosing between the 128GB or 256GB iPhone 12 Pro Max. The topic comes up from time to time, and, therefore, it’s time to share some thoughts about this.

How much memory is in your smartphone, memory card

The cost of a mistake when choosing a particular version of an Android smartphone is not so great, since you can always use memory cards, most devices support them. Even if you miss initially, you can partially correct your mistake. But here you need to understand that not all applications allow you to save all files to a memory card, this does not always have a positive effect on the speed of work, so it is worth paying attention here. Some flagships on Android do not support memory cards, as well as in the iPhone, so the right choice here becomes even more important. True, for Android smartphones, as a rule, there is so much memory installed that there is enough for your eyes, and you will not notice any flaws.

The memory in a smartphone is needed not only so that you can store applications, photos, music and other content in it, but also for the operation of the system itself. Initially, the operating system takes up some amount of memory on your device, therefore, when buying a smartphone with 128 GB of memory, you cannot count on the fact that all of it will be free.

Neither Android nor iOS can take up the entire memory of the phone, as this will slow down the work, some functions will not work at all. The general rule of thumb is that 6-8 GB of free memory is ideal to avoid any problems. To clog the memory to the eyeballs is harmful, since you will get a lot of problems and you will definitely not be happy with your device. Most of those who complain about slow Android, as a rule, do just that. they empty out all the memory without a trace and do not understand what they are doing wrong.

In my opinion, in order to understand how much memory you need, you must first assess what you are doing on your smartphone, how much memory you have today. Go to the appropriate section and see how much you are busy with. If your device is 1-3 years old, and the amount of free memory is about half, then you are most likely a “light” user, mostly call, text in messengers, and occasionally take pictures. Using a smartphone as a phone and a means of communication, you do not load memory with applications, as a result, the choice is as simple as possible for you. the same amount of memory or more due to the fact that even in basic models the amount of built-in memory is constantly growing. A couple of years ago, the flagships had 64 GB of memory, today it is 128 GB (iPhone 12 is the only exception).

But let’s look at an ordinary person who does not differ in the craving for content consumption, watching movies on the phone, but occasionally takes pictures, records video. Oddly enough, my friend’s mom fits this description perfectly. She calls, communicates in instant messengers, watches something on the net or on YouTube. A woman of age, but with great pleasure, takes pictures of family holidays, walks and also shoots videos of significant events. Its memory consumption does not look linear, it does not fill up with something every day. It was a birthday, and part of the memory was taken away by photographs and videos. The process is gradual, not very fast. But here it is important to understand that she is not ready to delete photos and videos of the family, for her it is a value. And there is no other content. Alternatively, children can help upload all photos and videos to the cloud, but in the future it will not be free (the same Google Photo from June 2021 will take money for this, and this is the first swallow).

It is good if you are there when the phone memory is full, but what if not? Remotely explaining how to clear memory and what can be deleted is always problematic. Therefore, it is worth making it a rule to watch what is happening on such a device, and take care that the memory does not run out (including, perhaps, transferring files to a memory card or adding it).

In my opinion, in 2021 it is worth focusing on 64 GB of memory and keeping in mind the use of a memory card in the future for such users, it looks like a rational approach. At the same time, you can install a memory card of virtually any size (it costs 128 GB or more, here the choice is yours, but for older people, focus on the manufacturer and its quality, the speed of the card does not matter). Let’s conventionally call these users our grandmothers, they are people from 60 and older. For them, this amount of memory in most cases will be sufficient.

The average smartphone user in 2021

We are all unique, and the word “ordinary” cannot characterize a person, but a smartphone is a universal subject. Most smartphone users use their capabilities by a third, or even less. Although in words it turns out that everyone squeezes the maximum possible out of their device, requires maximum productivity, working time. after all, money has been paid for this. But if you discard your own often erroneous ideas about yourself, the picture will turn out to be quite simple. Most people constantly use a little more than a dozen applications, store their files on the phone (photos, videos, sometimes movies and TV shows).

Let’s try to imagine that you record a video occasionally. And here it all comes down to what quality you choose for this. For example, one minute of video in 4K resolution takes about 350-400 MB (H.264 codec, when using HEVC, almost half the size). For the same iPhone, this is the maximum resolution, which means that three minutes of recording will give you 1 GB of memory space. With this resolution, the maximum video recording time will be about three hours for the 64 GB model. Not very much, right? Therefore, any person who records video at least several times a year or suspects that he can do this should think about models with a memory capacity of 128 GB and higher (as an option, with support for memory cards).

Photos do not take up much memory, for example, I have about 4000 shots on my Z Fold2 in a few months, they took up almost 18 GB of space.

I am sure that most of the people do not photograph as much as it happens in my case. See how many photos you have in your gallery, how much space they take, how long it took you to take them. And conclusions can be drawn independently.

Having dealt with photos and videos, you need to focus on music and films, podcasts will also be attributed to music. Everything is quite simple here, if you watch movies and TV series on your phone, then expect that one season, consisting of 8-10 episodes, will take 5-8 GB of space in good quality. It is also worth keeping in mind such a rarity these days as a vacation trip, usually people download series for several weeks in advance (15-20 GB for this fly away with a bang). Music in normal quality (I’m not saying anything about uncompressed formats, that’s another story) will take you a couple of gigabytes, and if you want to keep your entire collection, then put 5-6 GB of space. But why do that if you have streaming? It is worth keeping only what you listen to more or less constantly.

My experience is that in 2021-2022, 128 GB of internal memory in a smartphone will be enough for most people, this is a sufficient amount. Most flagships have exactly this amount of memory. Interestingly, in 2020, sales of the iPhone 11 were indicative of the amount of memory buyers chose, let me remind you that for this model it is 64, 128 and 256 GB. The iPhone 11 128 GB was sold with a margin of 3 to 1, that is, people deliberately chose more memory and paid for it. Something similar happens in the market for Android smartphones and above, people choose 128GB of storage.

Those who like to play heavy games should look at 128 GB and above, but with one caveat. if there are a lot of such games. Gradually, memory requirements are growing, and after a couple of years the distribution of the game can weigh 20-30 GB, buying a device for growth, you need to remember this. On the other hand, usually those who play buy flagships, where the memory issue has already been resolved in favor of the maximum volume.

For the market in 2021, the golden mean is the volume of internal memory of 128 GB. Those who know that they record a lot of video, install applications with a large amount of data (cartography no longer applies to them) should look at devices with a large memory size. There were already 1 TB devices on the market, but they were not in great demand. over, studies have shown that such a volume is excessive, only a third of this volume remains occupied, and only a few manage to fill the memory with their photos and videos (nothing else).

The fact that you can install memory cards on Android, including fast and large ones, gives you the freedom to choose. But for those who are looking for really large amounts of storage, and are an advanced user, SSD drives that can be directly connected to a smartphone can be advised. I have such 2 TB SSDs, I store archives from phones on them. At the same time, I do not feel a lack of memory in the smartphones themselves, I always have enough space.

What conclusions can be drawn from this material? First and foremost: the choice of the amount of memory is always yours, you need to evaluate how you use your smartphone, how much memory is occupied today. And do not forget that all new features, such as 4K / 8K video, require a different amount of memory. The same about new applications, their size is gradually growing, given the growth of memory in mobile devices.

I don’t think it’s worth saving on memory. If possible, then buy today a volume of 128 GB, it is available for most modern models. But if you don’t want to save at all, then take 256 GB (as an option, 512 GB, but this volume is redundant for almost everyone).

Tell us in the Комментарии и мнения владельцев how much memory is in your device (main and memory card), how old it is and how much is occupied. Most importantly, how much storage space you need in your next device. Thank you.

Price difference

Today both models are sold in only two variants. 64 GB or 256 GB. The cost of different versions is:

  • Apple iPhone 8 64 GB. 699
  • iPhone 8 256GB 849
  • iPhone 8 Plus 64GB. 799
  • iPhone 8 Plus 256GB 949 dollars.

It follows that a model with a higher value costs 150 more than an analogue with a smaller volume.

How much memory to choose for iPhone 8/8 Plus

Many users who set themselves the goal of purchasing products from the American corporation Apple, first of all, pay attention to the cost of the device and its memory. Choosing the right amount of internal storage space is of paramount importance, since these smartphones do not have flash drives. Therefore, it is important to figure out whether 64 GB is enough for the iPhone 8. After all, the lack of this parameter can significantly spoil the impression of the device within a couple of weeks after purchase.

iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. a new line of smartphones in the assortment of the “apple” manufacturer. The devices have almost identical characteristics and are in the same price segment. The slight difference in price and specifications makes it a little difficult to choose between 64 GB and 256 GB.

iPhone 12: Is 64GB Storage Enough? How Much Storage Do You Need?

Who needs 64 GB of memory?

Note that earlier models did use the amount of internal space with a maximum value of 32 GB. Accordingly, the transition to the 64 GB model should have completely covered the appetites of users. But is it?

In fact, it all depends on how actively the volume is used. If you download a music library, which on average takes 5 GB, and also add several films, then the user will have about 30-40 GB at his disposal, which is quite a lot.

However, modern technologies do not stand still. With the advent of the new 4K video format, movies and videos have become simply gigantic, while occupying almost all the memory in devices.

The user can try to free up internal space by transferring files to the iCloud cloud service and using the new junk app cleaner.

In addition, remember that out of the declared 64 GB, part of the memory (about 4 GB) will be occupied by the pre-installed operating system.

It is difficult to imagine a modern user of a mobile device who would not have installed games or applications on his device. But they also take up a lot of memory. For example, programs for formatting and processing photos and videos require about 2 GB, only the necessary office applications will take another 1.3 GB. And this is just a small list of possible applications. Even more memory requirements are imposed by modern games. some of them can be more than 2 GB.

If you count 10 heavy programs and 10 games, then a considerable amount will be released in total. At the same time, it is important to remember about the constant updating of the cache of games and applications, which also requires some memory consumption.

This means that there is not much space left for video recording. Especially when you consider that the 8 Series models can shoot video at the highest resolution in iPhone history. At the same time, the frame rate reaches 60 FPS. Thus, one minute of video recording will take up 400 “meters” of memory. There is an opportunity to change the quality of shooting to standard 1080p, but this is not at all interesting.

As for music, it is less memory-demanding. The average track takes about 9 MB. This means that the size of the Playlist has practically no effect on the total amount of memory.

Who is the 256 GB memory for?

Some users do not want to solve the problem of the iPhone’s lack of memory, install programs to clean up unnecessary applications and constantly make sure that there is always free space on the disk. It’s easier for them to pay 150 and never come back to this question.

For many years, users have been comfortable with devices with 128GB of storage. However, the manufacturer decided to provide either a large amount of free memory. 256 GB, or reduce its volume to a critical minimum. 64 GB.

Is it worth saving and buying a 64GB iPhone 8

For users who prefer autonomous work with a gadget, 64 GB will obviously not be enough. Storing a music collection, many games, films, photos, as well as constant shooting in 4K require free space, which means that you will constantly have to clean up your memory, delete something, and move something.

If the user listens to music online or prefers to enjoy radio broadcasts, downloads no more than 2-3 films for a single viewing, and stores his own photos and videos in the cloud, then 64 GB will be more than enough, and it is inappropriate to overpay for more memory.

64GB iPhones are Okay.

  • 1000 songs;
  • 2500 standard photos;
  • 2500 Live Photos;
  • 20 most popular applications;
  • 2 hours of video with 4K resolution and 30 fps;
  • 10 best games;
  • Apple app package.

If this is enough, then 64 GB will be enough in the choice of the version. With more of your own videos, you will need 256 GB of memory. For 150, the user gets 4 times more internal space, and whether it is worth overpaying for this is an individual decision of each.

How much internal memory does your smartphone need

32 GB or less

If you are considering buying a device with a drive of 32 GB or less without support for memory cards, then you should be aware that you will not be able to use it comfortably. You will have to constantly shrink and regularly remove all unnecessary from your smartphone.

But what is there, constantly keeping several of your favorite games on it in this case will no longer work, photos, videos and music will be available only online. over, you will need to regularly clean your application caches. especially messengers. This volume is only for the most undemanding and inactive users.

Applications

To estimate the amount of space that needs to be allocated in the memory of an iPhone or Android smartphone for software, I chose ten popular programs and games. This is the minimum set that, plus or minus, should be on every gadget. I estimated its base size from the App Store (Google Play does not provide clear values, which may differ depending on the device). After that, I added up what came out separately for applications and games, and also highlighted the total. It should also be noted that all applications are gradually overgrown with cache. to get the final value, I threw another 30%.

To be honest, the result is quite impressive. almost 20 GB for apps and games. It’s a lot. Nevertheless, you should understand that even a conditional Telegram with active use can grow up to several gigabytes. It’s good that its cache can be flexibly controlled.

20 GB is a convention, but it clearly shows that applications and games will need enough memory. If we are considering a gadget with a 64 GB drive, of which about 50 GB is left after the OS and “garbage”, then the software will take up almost half of the storage. This is important to consider.

256 GB

If you choose a smartphone with a 256 GB drive, you should at least roughly understand what exactly you will store in its memory. It is suitable for those who take a lot of photographs and periodically record videos, play modern games, watch movies and constantly consume other content.

Here is the maximum that will fit in 64GB storage.

Already from these approximate calculations, it is clearly seen that a smartphone with 64 GB storage will not fit everything that you might want to store on it. For example, if you regularly travel long distances on a train or often fly in an airplane, then even several seasons of your favorite TV series will have nowhere to fill. In theory, an external drive with a suitable connector and low power can come to the rescue. Support for such is now even on the iPhone, but they do not work as well as we would like. And the convenience of this whole venture does not cause much enthusiasm.

Any smartphone will initially have less available memory

It makes no difference whether a smartphone is based on which operating system you buy: iOS or Android. Regardless, you will not receive all the storage space declared by the manufacturer. Part of it will already be occupied by the built-in software, which cannot be gotten rid of without dancing with a tambourine.

For example, in the 2020 iPhone SE 64GB, iOS alone takes up about 11GB. There will definitely be a conditional “Other” by 2-4 GB at once, which will gradually increase. For other manufacturers, everything strongly depends on the number of built-in applications, but in the amount of about 15 GB, you can safely minus.

How much storage space is needed for apps and games

Music

Musical compositions vary greatly in duration, quality and volume. Everything becomes much more complicated if you are not using modern streaming services, but uploading music offline in the traditional way. If the average track “weighs” about 10 MB, then a thousand will weigh the same 10 GB.

Interestingly: if you refuse any other content, a device with a 64 GB drive will fit approximately 5 thousand songs that can be listened to offline. Nevertheless, if you have fast access to the mobile Internet, as well as a subscription to any streaming service you like, you can get access to a noticeably larger amount of music. However, you need to understand that you will have to pay extra for this feature. For example, a month of Apple Music for an average user costs 169 rubles. not so much for an impressive library of tracks.