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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > iPhone, iPad & iPod > iPhone 5S: 16 vs. 32 Gb?

iPhone 5S: 16 vs. 32 Gb?
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HamSandwich
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Feb 23, 2014, 07:51 AM
 
Hello,

I'm getting an iPhone 5s, silver by the way, don't know why some find silver weird, hmm. Anyway, 16 or 32 Gb? I do want to carry around all of my music I'd say. How much does the OS really take up? How much weighs an anverage iPhone 5s photo...? How did you decide this?

Greetings,
Pete
     
subego
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Feb 23, 2014, 03:32 PM
 
16 is close to useless.

I'm not that big on apps. What I do have takes 14GB.
     
turtle777
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Feb 23, 2014, 05:42 PM
 
I have always regretted it when I didn't get the max available.

As subego said, 16GB is useless, 32GB felt severely limiting.

-t
     
ghporter
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Feb 23, 2014, 06:09 PM
 
Since the storage on the iPhone is not upgradable, get the most you can afford, and push to afford as much as possible. I'm looking at a 64GB model when I upgrade this fall.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Gankdawg
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Feb 23, 2014, 07:28 PM
 
32 minimum as other have said. My iP4 is 32 and I'm always pushing the envelope and having to decide what to take off to make more room for something else. I have considered iTunes Music Match as a way to save space but so many bad reviews have kept me from it.
     
SSharon
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Feb 24, 2014, 01:10 AM
 
Just another vote for 32gb as a minimum. 16gb just doesn't cut it anymore. Kind of makes me wonder how I survived with the original 8gb version.
AT&T iPhone 5S and 6; 13" MBP; MDD G4.
     
HamSandwich
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Feb 26, 2014, 04:32 PM
 
So... Thanks for all the quick answers! Can you say what you really filled the space with. I don't even know how large iOS is. And then, how much space does a photo take up?
Btw, did you ever get any warranty extension, if so, why? My parents usually liked getting them. They are often not so expensive, and the moment you ever really needed one, you don't regret it.

Pete
     
HamSandwich
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Feb 27, 2014, 10:00 AM
 
Btw, 8 GB was sort of big at a point. It was much more than 128 MB. Hmm.
     
Gankdawg
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Feb 27, 2014, 10:13 AM
 
I like to have all my music on my iPhone, that's 17 GB. Photos (2,538) take another 2.4 GB. Apps are sitting at 4 GB. Don't forget about 'Other' in your calculations. Mine's sitting at 3.5 GB right now. Can't believe Apple still hasn't fixed that yet. Going to nuke-and-pave this weekend to reclaim some space.

I always buy my phones off-contract, usually from Craigslist so I have no experience with extended warranties. So much cheaper to buy that way versus on-contract (at least in the US). I use Straight Talk as my provider and for $45/month, I get UL talk, UL text, and up to 2 GB of data (which I've never used all of). And it's a prepaid service too.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Feb 27, 2014, 05:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by PeterParker View Post
Btw, 8 GB was sort of big at a point. It was much more than 128 MB. Hmm.
Yep. That was five years before the iPhone was released.
     
HamSandwich
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Feb 28, 2014, 05:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Yep. That was five years before the iPhone was released.
Huh? Any sources? I thought that was the space phones had when iPhone came out. Please note phones and MP3-players were different things ages ago. *nostalgic*
     
Spheric Harlot
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Feb 28, 2014, 08:11 AM
 
The iPhone was billed as a phone/iPod/Internet communications device combination when it was introduced.

iPods at that point were at 60 or 80 GB, IIRC. (True, though: the flash-based iPod nano was at 8 GB at the time.)
     
andi*pandi
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Feb 28, 2014, 01:49 PM
 
get as much as you can afford. I have the 4S with 16, don't put any movies on it, mostly music and apps, and I had to trash some apps today to make room for the IOS update. 6gb music, 2 gb photos (I usually delete from phone after connecting to desktop), then apps.
     
DCJ001
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Feb 28, 2014, 06:43 PM
 
I have a 16GB iPhone 5 with about 300 apps, one of which is 1.5GB (TomTom USA GPS), and one album of music, and several small videos. I also have about 6GB of files in DropBox that do not affect the space on the iPhone. When I take pictures or record videos, the ones that I save are transferred to DropBox when I am in WiFi.

My iPhone still has almost 2GB of space available. It's really about how one manages the space.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Feb 28, 2014, 10:49 PM
 
You will fill up 16 GB really, really fast with the operating system (a sizable chunk of the "Other") and also some iCloud data.

Honestly, even 32 GB doesn't really leave much of a comfort space, so I say definitely max out the hard drive to 64 GB instead. (Even get an iPhone refurbished, if you can find one.) I purchased a 64 GB iPod Touch refurbished for the price of a 32 GB in-store model and I have no concerns with the "refurbished" nature of the product and I have no concerns about running out of space, which is how it should be.
     
DCJ001
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Mar 4, 2014, 04:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by And.reg View Post
You will fill up 16 GB really, really fast with the operating system (a sizable chunk of the "Other") and also some iCloud data.

Honestly, even 32 GB doesn't really leave much of a comfort space, so I say definitely max out the hard drive to 64 GB instead. (Even get an iPhone refurbished, if you can find one.) I purchased a 64 GB iPod Touch refurbished for the price of a 32 GB in-store model and I have no concerns with the "refurbished" nature of the product and I have no concerns about running out of space, which is how it should be.
What hard drive?
     
HamSandwich
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Mar 6, 2014, 11:47 AM
 
So, why are they at all still offering 16GB models when they are so useless? In addition, can someone explain the pricing differences to me? A 128 GB SSD drive is about 90 Euros, I think, so the difference should be 50 Euros between each model, not a hundred. How comes? Not standard SSD drives, I suppose, but other than that, it just, huh, "looks good"?
     
P
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Mar 6, 2014, 11:59 AM
 
Because Apple gets away with it. They make LOTS of money from those overpriced storage upgrades.

Actually I don't think that 16 gigs is pointless. If you use Photostream and delete old photos from your phone, and not bring your entire music library with you on the phone, it's doable. I'd rather get a 32 gig model if I got it today, but I think that there's a good chunk of users who will be OK with the 14 or so gigs you have left after the OS is installed. It's worse with some other manufacturers (and carrier combos), where the OS+unremovable apps takes up more space.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
subego
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Mar 7, 2014, 07:53 PM
 
P is right. Apple has historically gouged you on memory, and people keep buying the product.

An added factor is they want to lure you into the store with the lower price and then upsell you.
     
   
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