A few years ago, most people were happy with 64GB to 128GB storage, but the needs have since grown – most people are now considering 128GB to 256GB for their next phone, according to the survey by last week.
The new survey skewed towards higher storage capacities. 128GB is the sweet spot right now, but it won’t be long before 256GB becomes the preferred option. This is already the case for some and a significant portion of voters are considering 512 GB.
Things change quite quickly – two years ago, people who needed 256GB (or more) were in the minority. Now they are quite common. What happened? 8K videos, RAW photos, and HDR images have occurred. Just like high quality mobile games.
Manufacturers list them in advertisements to show off the performance of the new chipset and camera upgrades for their brand new flagships, but in many cases they have failed to recognize that these items also require more storage.
For mid-rangers and more affordable phones, 64GB would be an acceptable compromise, but the majority still clamor for a microSD slot. Files that don’t need fast storage and the convenience of moving those files with the card to another phone are still popular with more than half of voters.
A growing number of people are accepting internal storage only and we believe that number will increase as the market grows to 256 GB and higher capacities. Despite the buzz and big promises, however, cloud storage (and streaming) solutions are still not classic alternatives to offline storage.
And we think data caps aren’t the real issue here, but the tendency for online services to shut down just years after launch – just ask the owners of Nextbit Robin. The “cloud-first” phone was launched in early 2016 with only 32 GB on board and no microSD as it promised 100 GB of cloud storage. This service ended prematurely in March 2018, barely two years after its entry into service.
