Even though Samsung has significantly cut down on new bloatware for its Galaxy S5 smartphone, the company did not reveal how much storage space is available to the user on the phone. Independent reports from GottaBeMobile and Android Central have confirmed that the Galaxy S5 ROM takes up even more space than the Galaxy S4’s ROM, however. Out of 16GB on the base Galaxy S5 model, over 8GB is occupied by the Galaxy S5’s software, with the rest available to the user.
GottaBeMobile discovered that only 8.65GB is available to the user on the handset, while Android Central’s model had less than 7.86GB of storage available. Comparatively, the Galaxy S4 offered about 9GB of storage for apps and other files.
While Samsung appears to have increased the size of the firmware that ships on-board of the Galaxy S5 even though it showcased significantly less TouchWiz apps during its MWC 2014 press event, the company is still offering only 16GB of base memory in its newest Android handset. The company appeared to be ready to remove 16GB options from flagship devices when it launched the Galaxy Note 3 last year, whose most basic model is available with 32GB of storage on board.
HTC has opted last year for offering users 32GB of memory on the cheapest HTC One model, although that choice may have been related more to the lack of microSD support on the handset, rather than dealing with bloatware-related storage issues.
For what it’s worth, the Galaxy S5 comes with microSD support for cards up to 64GB of storage, and Samsung only announced two Galaxy S5 versions when it comes to storage including a 16GB model and a 32GB model.
Hands-on images showing the Galaxy S5’s available storage follow below.
