The Galaxy S23 are today singled out for the place occupied by Samsung’s operating system and all the applications preinstalled on its new high-end smartphones. Enough to favor the versions with the largest storage capacities.
60 GB is more or less the size of Samsung’s mobile operating system and all the applications preinstalled on the Galaxy S23. To give you some comparison, that’s four times the space Google takes up on the Pixel 7 Pro and twice the size of Windows 11…
But what does Samsung put in its phones?
The “problem” was analyzed by Mishaal Rahman, Technical Writer at Esper. It turns out that the Samsung Galaxy S23s are out of step with most of the Android ecosystem when it comes to managing storage space. Indeed, some S23 users have noticed that the operating system already occupies 60 GB of storage out of the box. If you opt for the 128 GB version of the S23, which we do not necessarily recommend, this represents almost half the storage space.
Samsung’s software division has often been criticized for its interface choices. The Korean manufacturer tends to add its grain of salt everywhere on Android, unlike other manufacturers like OnePlus or Asus, to name a few, who have a much more minimalist approach.
On the same subject : The Galaxy S23 (unfortunately) still have this controversial function
The first explanation comes from the number of preinstalled applications. Brands that use Android on their devices must contractually integrate Google apps. But some manufacturers like Samsung do not hesitate to add their own applications that provide the same services. We thus find duplicates such as the calendar, the web browser or the Samsung application store.
As many applications as it is possible to deactivate, but which unfortunately cannot be completely removed from the system. To this must be added the “partners” who pay Samsung to be present on their phones right out of the box. Examples include Facebook, Netflix, Spotify, Outlook, LinkedIn, OneDrive, Office, etc. To these applications can also be added those of your mobile operator…
A story of partition
The other explanation comes from the absence of partitioning of the system. Indeed, Google offers since Android 7.0 an A/B partitioning feature that allows you to have two copies of the operating system. One is the one that’s active and in use, the other is offline and in the background. It is this system that the Google Pixel 7 Pro uses, among other high-end smartphones.
The latter is able to continue working while updating a new version of the system in the background. A simple 30-second restart then allows the phone to switch from one system to another in the partition to take advantage of the new version.
For its part, a Samsung phone uses only one copy of the operating system, which requires a restart and unavailability of the device which can sometimes take several (tens of) minutes. Google has been talking for a long time about the possibility of making this dual partition system compulsory, but does not seem resolved to decide.
Duel : Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs S22 Ultra, their characteristics scrutinized
In addition, “virtual A/B partitions” now make it possible to quickly create a second copy of the operating system when an update is available. Once the device has successfully rebooted to the new system version, the old one is then deleted. This makes it possible not to monopolize the storage memory too much.
Of the 15 GB taken by Google on its Pixel 7 Pro, 4.5 GB is allocated to the operating system and the rest is occupied by the brand’s applications and services. During a system update, this space does not double, because the compression makes it possible to mobilize only 2.1 GB of additional space. We are therefore still quite far from the 60 GB noted by some Galaxy S23 users.
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Ars-Technica
