Samsung has said it will review the storage space issues in the 16GB Samsung Galaxy S4 after it was alerted to the problems by a BBC Watchdog investigation.
The 16GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 only has around half of that memory available to the user, due to the new TouchWiz UI features.
Despite advertising 16GB of internal storage, the Samsung Galaxy S4 only offers roughly 9GB of user available storage highlighted by the BBC Watchdog exposé. The Samsung flagship does offer microSD card expansion options, but early purchasers have complained about the memory discrepancy.
“We appreciate this issue being raised and we will improve our communications,” said a Samsung spokesperson to CNET UK. “We are reviewing the possibility to secure more memory space through further software optimisation.”
BBC Watchdog presenter Anne Robinson revealed a teaser clip for the next episode would address the Samsung Galaxy S4 memory issues at the end of last week’s show.
Samsung defended its latest flagship and the memory issues by explaining the storage space was necessary to bring users “more powerful features” provided by the latest iteration of its TouchWiz UI.
“Samsung is committed to listening to our customers and responding to their needs as part of our innovation process,” added the spokesperson.
The microSD card expansion only allows Samsung Galaxy S4 users to store photos and other media content and doesn’t permit app installations. Seeing as some Android games can be over 1GB in size, the 9GB remaining on a 16GB Galaxy S4 could be filled up very quickly.
At the Google I/O keynote last night, the search engine giant announced that a Google branded edition of the Samsung Galaxy S4 would launch in June. Removing the TouchWiz UI from the Galaxy S4, the handset would offer users a similar experience to the Google Nexus 4 but with the body and specs of the Galaxy S4.
It will be interesting to see how much internal storage is freed up by the removal of the TouchWiz UI on the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition.
Next, read why Samsung is hurting Android.
