Why Does the 16GB Samsung Galaxy S4 Have Only 8GB of Usable Memory? One Click Root Explains

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is Samsung’s latest superphone to hit the market. Like the Galaxy S3, it’s expected to sell millions of units around the world.

But early adopters of the GS4 are surprised to find a suspicious memory problem. Specifically, the 16GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 has a measly 8.53 GB of usable memory. What’s up with that?

You may remember a similar controversy over Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet, which sold its 128GB version with only about 64GB of usable space. With the Surface Pro, the included software and full Windows 8 operating system took up a significant amount of space.

Well, the GS4 has the same problem. Samsung’s operating system takes up approximately 7GB of space. That’s 1GB more space than the Galaxy S3 operating system takes up, and apparently, this extra space is used to:

-Control ‘more powerful features’

-Handle the increased display resolution

-Manage high-resolution photos and icons

Of course, this space limitation wouldn’t be a huge problem if Samsung would let users install apps directly onto an SD card. As it stands now, GS4 users have to install all their apps directly onto the phone’s internal storage. The only way to get around this limitation is to root it.

An easy solution

Start advertising smartphones and tablets by the amount of usable space, not the total amount of space. How easy is that?

Or, you could buy the larger version of the Samsung Galaxy S4. It comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB models, so the amount of available space as a percentage of total space is significantly higher on the 32GB and 64GB versions.