Maybe the iPhone 13 Pro Max will have up to 1TB of storage. Maybe the Android Go edition and its slim apps are good enough to run even 16GB. Or maybe there is a golden medium that makes the most sense to consumers.
It has been a while since we last asked how much storage was enough. At the time, the answer was 64 to 128 GB. But a lot has changed in recent years. On the one hand, Google Photos will end unlimited free storage for all users in June. The search giant previously stopped offering unlimited original-quality storage for new pixels in 2019.
It’s not just Google either. Samsung phones used to get a generous Dropbox allowance, but that hasn’t for years. Instead, you need to use Samsung Cloud. Or Apple iCloud. Or Google Drive / Photos. Or Microsoft OneDrive.
We would continue this train of thought with “or buy a microSD card”, but there might be nowhere to put it – this is the case with the Galaxy S21 generation. And the S21 trio are not alone in this difficult situation. It looks a bit like the rise of TWS headsets after the 3.5mm jack was removed.
Everyone uses their phone differently. Some have a ton of photos on theirs, others have lots of games installed, others still fill their storage with FLAC files. And, maybe, some are happy with a cloud storage solution. Especially now that music streaming is ubiquitous and there are several game streaming services to choose from.
So let’s break this down into two questions. First of all, how much internal storage do you need on your phone? And secondly, are you supplementing that with a memory card, cloud storage, or not at all?
