iPhone 5S, 32g or 64g

JCB52 · Dec 26, 2013

My Dad got me a black 32g iPhone 5S for Christmas. I haven't opened it yet because I was thinking that I may need the 64g instead of the 32g. I currently have the 4S 16g and I'm maxed out on memory. Which model do you think I should get? Which one did you get and why? I have around 1,600 songs which takes up 8.1g, messages take up 1.3g, and every other app is under 300MB. But I've had to delete alot of my pics and I cannot keep any videos on my phone in order to keep my other things on it. I will be keeping this phone for 2-3 years at least, so I'd like to have enough room to store all my music (thinking I may get up to 2,000 songs total), pics, videos, and apps without worrying about space. I know that future iOS will take up more room, as well as apps getting bigger. Money is not an issue thankfully, although the restocking fee of $35 sucks.

Also, how would I go about selling my iPhone 4S? It's the first iPhone I've ever had so I don't know the best way to do it. Could I just sell it back to Verizon, my carrier, or would something like Ebay or Craigslist work?

mofunk · Dec 26, 2013

I bought an iPod Touch 32GB a few years ago and it has 4.5GB of space left. I could fill it up but I left some space incase I want to have a movie on it for when I travel. I purchased my 32GB iPhone with the same thought. Since I still use both, I don't have a lot of music on my iPhone. On my iTouch I have 2,000 songs, 65 Apps, 8 videos, 190 photos. I had installed 100 Apps but I moved them to my iPhone because I would use them more there plus they require wifi. After I deleted some of the apps I wasn't using, I freed up 1gb of space. Now it's at 5.7GB. Most of the songs that I have stored are mixes that's atleast 1hr long. So I'm guessing that number would be doubled if each song was 3-4 minutes long.

I think 32GB is plenty. You have 27.5GB of space to start. Right now I have 553 songs, 80 Apps (16 games), 260 photos/videos installed which puts me at 16.2GB of space left. Some of my Apps I don't add until I need them. I have over 300 apps in the cloud. I don't need them everyday, so that frees up space.

Every time Apple updates the iOS isn't that big. It's been hovering around 3-4GB. 32GB is plenty. Go with that and use the restock fee to buy you a nice case.

JOSE891 · Dec 26, 2013

JCB52 said:
My Dad got me a black 32g iPhone 5S for Christmas. I haven't opened it yet because I was thinking that I may need the 64g instead of the 32g. I currently have the 4S 16g and I'm maxed out on memory. Which model do you think I should get? Which one did you get and why? I have around 1,600 songs which takes up 8.1g, messages take up 1.3g, and every other app is under 300MB. But I've had to delete alot of my pics and I cannot keep any videos on my phone in order to keep my other things on it. I will be keeping this phone for 2-3 years at least, so I'd like to have enough room to store all my music (thinking I may get up to 2,000 songs total), pics, videos, and apps without worrying about space. I know that future iOS will take up more room, as well as apps getting bigger. Money is not an issue thankfully, although the restocking fee of $35 sucks.

Also, how would I go about selling my iPhone 4S? It's the first iPhone I've ever had so I don't know the best way to do it. Could I just sell it back to Verizon, my carrier, or would something like Ebay or Craigslist work?

Personally I had a 64GB iPhone 5S and never went over 32Gb so I was like "Hey, it seems like ill never use the other 32GB, Ill just exchange it, get my $110 back and use that money towards a 32GB iPad mini Retina". And it made sense to me as ill use the Mini iPad for movies and games vs my iPhone.

JCB52 · Dec 26, 2013

mofunk said:
I bought an iPod Touch 32GB a few years ago and it has 4.5GB of space left. I could fill it up but I left some space incase I want to have a movie on it for when I travel. I purchased my 32GB iPhone with the same thought. Since I still use both, I don't have a lot of music on my iPhone. On my iTouch I have 2,000 songs, 65 Apps, 8 videos, 190 photos. I had installed 100 Apps but I moved them to my iPhone because I would use them more there plus they require wifi. After I deleted some of the apps I wasn't using, I freed up 1gb of space. Now it's at 5.7GB. Most of the songs that I have stored are mixes that's atleast 1hr long. So I'm guessing that number would be doubled if each song was 3-4 minutes long.

I think 32GB is plenty. You have 27.5GB of space to start. Right now I have 553 songs, 80 Apps (16 games), 260 photos/videos installed which puts me at 16.2GB of space left. Some of my Apps I don't add until I need them. I have over 300 apps in the cloud. I don't need them everyday, so that frees up space.

Every time Apple updates the iOS isn't that big. It's been hovering around 3-4GB. 32GB is plenty. Go with that and use the restock fee to buy you a nice case.

Thanks for the detailed response. I have a iPod mini and an iPhone but I like having my full music library on both because I listen to music at work and also in case I forget to charge one of them, so that's why I was initially leaning towards the 64g. My Dad bought me the 32g, a nice case, and a car charger (which I'm returning because my car already has a hookup), so I'm set if I decide to stick with the 32g. It is more than double my current capacity, which is 13.3GB.

However you having only 5.7GB free on your touch is what worries me since I'll most likely add more songs and plan on doing alot of traveling next year (and in the years to follow, hopefully). How many GB does your music take up? My songs are all normal length, anywhere from 3-5 minutes and not mixes like yours. Your iPhone having that much space free is good to know, although I do have 3x the amount of songs. I guess I'm concerned about my future needs and the fact that you cannot add space if you want to later on down the road. The 32g does sound like a good option, but then this is my main electronic handheld device.

JOSE891 said:
Personally I had a 64GB iPhone 5S and never went over 32Gb so I was like "Hey, it seems like ill never use the other 32GB, Ill just exchange it, get my $110 back and use that money towards a 32GB iPad mini Retina". And it made sense to me as ill use the Mini iPad for movies and games vs my iPhone.

Was there a restocking fee when you exchanged it? How long of a trial period did you have before you exchanged it? Do you have a laptop/computer as well or is your iPad your "computer?"

ladytonya · Dec 26, 2013

I only have an iPhone and an iPad, I use my phone for my music as much as I use it for a phone, sometimes even more. Right now, my 64 GB phone is almost full between apps and music. I would say go big or go home!

cyks · Dec 26, 2013

I have 60+GB of music...no way for me to carry all of it on my phone at any time, but I have an iPod Classic for that.

For my phone, I made a few smart playlists and generally carry about 5GB of music.

If you absolutely have to have your entire library on you at all times, and have the money to spare, get the 64. Otherwise, with only a little management, you'd be fine with a 32GB.

jav6454 · Dec 26, 2013

JCB52 said:
My Dad got me a black 32g ... [...]

I'll just ask this:

Do you tend to take several videos and pictures with your iPhone?

IpadSC400 · Dec 26, 2013

Think about it, 64gb is a heckovu lot of memory. I don't think you'll find yourself exceeding 32gb in just pictures.

Ya, get the 64gb...

ewils19 · Dec 26, 2013

I was in the same boat as you this fall when the 5s's came out. I ended up getting a 64 GB and I'm very glad I did as I can now have all the apps I want on my phone and can take tons of videos and pictures and not worry about it. I'm also planning to keep the phone for 2 years so I think 64 GB was the right choice for me. It's wonderful not to have to delete photos so I have room to take new ones.

mofunk · Dec 26, 2013

JCB52 said:
Thanks for the detailed response. I have a iPod mini and an iPhone but I like having my full music library on both because I listen to music at work and also in case I forget to charge one of them, so that's why I was initially leaning towards the 64g. My Dad bought me the 32g, a nice case, and a car charger (which I'm returning because my car already has a hookup), so I'm set if I decide to stick with the 32g. It is more than double my current capacity, which is 13.3GB.

However you having only 5.7GB free on your touch is what worries me since I'll most likely add more songs and plan on doing alot of traveling next year (and in the years to follow, hopefully). How many GB does your music take up? My songs are all normal length, anywhere from 3-5 minutes and not mixes like yours. Your iPhone having that much space free is good to know, although I do have 3x the amount of songs. I guess I'm concerned about my future needs and the fact that you cannot add space if you want to later on down the road. The 32g does sound like a good option, but then this is my main electronic handheld device.

When I travel, I carry my iPad (movies and games), iPod Touch and sometimes my Classic (games/music), and now iPhone (music/games/mobile). On my iPod touch, I have over 50 mixes that are 100MB or more in size. A 3-5min song is about 5-10MB. So those 1-2hr mixes are actually roughly the equivalent to 500 songs.

5GB is a lot of music. I have right now 16.57GB music (2028 songs) on my iPod Touch. iPhone 5s, I have 4.8GB of music (571 songs includes 16 songs that are 50-60min long). I'm trying to shoot for 5GB of music on my iPhone.

I still think 32GB iPhone is fine. You can fill up half of your 32GB iPhone and still have enough room for apps and photos. Like cyks said management.

JCB52 · Dec 27, 2013

ladytonya said:
I only have an iPhone and an iPad, I use my phone for my music as much as I use it for a phone, sometimes even more. Right now, my 64 GB phone is almost full between apps and music. I would say go big or go home!

Hah yea that's what I was thinking, especially since I use my phone for everything.

cyks said:
I have 60+GB of music...no way for me to carry all of it on my phone at any time, but I have an iPod Classic for that.

For my phone, I made a few smart playlists and generally carry about 5GB of music.

If you absolutely have to have your entire library on you at all times, and have the money to spare, get the 64. Otherwise, with only a little management, you'd be fine with a 32GB.

There is some money to spare thankfully, so that is why the 64g is on the table as an option. My music library is not huge compared to some (~1,600 songs) but this will only increase as time goes on.

jav6454 said:
I'll just ask this:

Do you tend to take several videos and pictures with your iPhone?

Yes I do. I'm going to be doing a fair amount of traveling in the next couple years and I also film myself for a form check for certain exercises in the gym, so having space available for many pictures and some videos is important to me.

IpadSC400 said:
Think about it, 64gb is a heckovu lot of memory. I don't think you'll find yourself exceeding 32gb in just pictures.

Ya, get the 64gb...

Hah nice one. Yea I know the 64g is huge, I just don't want to get the 32g and then one year later run out of room. It helps that my Dad got me the phone and I didn't have to pay for it, so the upgrade to a 64g will most likely not cost me money between returning the car charger of $10, the $90 case for a $50 one, and selling my old iPhone 4S, at least that's my thinking.

ewils19 said:
I was in the same boat as you this fall when the 5s's came out. I ended up getting a 64 GB and I'm very glad I did as I can now have all the apps I want on my phone and can take tons of videos and pictures and not worry about it. I'm also planning to keep the phone for 2 years so I think 64 GB was the right choice for me. It's wonderful not to have to delete photos so I have room to take new ones.

Thanks for this! This is my reasoning. I studied abroad in Italy back in the summer of 2010 and while I had a camera then, there were times when I didn't bring it or forgot it and having extra room on my phone would have been very helpful. I'm planning on going backpacking through Europe some time next year and I plan on taking alot of pics.

mofunk said:
When I travel, I carry my iPad (movies and games), iPod Touch and sometimes my Classic (games/music), and now iPhone (music/games/mobile). On my iPod touch, I have over 50 mixes that are 100MB or more in size. A 3-5min song is about 5-10MB. So those 1-2hr mixes are actually roughly the equivalent to 500 songs.

5GB is a lot of music. I have right now 16.57GB music (2028 songs) on my iPod Touch. iPhone 5s, I have 4.8GB of music (571 songs includes 16 songs that are 50-60min long). I'm trying to shoot for 5GB of music on my iPhone.

I still think 32GB iPhone is fine. You can fill up half of your 32GB iPhone and still have enough room for apps and photos. Like cyks said management.

See you have three, potentially 4, Apple products over which to split your stuff. I have two (iPod mini and phone) but want everything on my phone as well. I do agree that management will enable me to most likely use the 32g with no problem, but I do like the thought of the 64g and not having to worry about memory. Plus, I've read that the phone runs slower the less free space it has on it, and this is certainly true of my 4S. Is this the case with newer phones?

Harmonious Zen · Dec 27, 2013

JCB52 said:
Hah yea that's what I was thinking, especially since I use my phone for everything.

There is some money to spare thankfully, so that is why the 64g is on the table as an option. My music library is not huge compared to some (~1,600 songs) but this will only increase as time goes on.

Yes I do. I'm going to be doing a fair amount of traveling in the next couple years and I also film myself for a form check for certain exercises in the gym, so having space available for many pictures and some videos is important to me.

Hah nice one. Yea I know the 64g is huge, I just don't want to get the 32g and then one year later run out of room. It helps that my Dad got me the phone and I didn't have to pay for it, so the upgrade to a 64g will most likely not cost me money between returning the car charger of $10, the $90 case for a $50 one, and selling my old iPhone 4S, at least that's my thinking.

Thanks for this! This is my reasoning. I studied abroad in Italy back in the summer of 2010 and while I had a camera then, there were times when I didn't bring it or forgot it and having extra room on my phone would have been very helpful. I'm planning on going backpacking through Europe some time next year and I plan on taking alot of pics.

See you have three, potentially 4, Apple products over which to split your stuff. I have two (iPod mini and phone) but want everything on my phone as well. I do agree that management will enable me to most likely use the 32g with no problem, but I do like the thought of the 64g and not having to worry about memory. Plus, I've read that the phone runs slower the less free space it has on it, and this is certainly true of my 4S. Is this the case with newer phones?

Your phone won't run slower if you have less free space on it. This is not 1995 and your phone isn't running Windows.

I have a 64GB but realized that the bulk of the space was reserved for videos that I shot myself. If I didn't sync those videos, then a 32GB would work just fine for everything. I now have around 9000 photos, 2000 songs and all the apps I want with plenty of room to spare.

Even though you might be taking a lot of videos, remember that it's not as if you have to keep them all on your phone. Once you take them, offload them onto your computer or into the cloud.

JCB52 · Dec 27, 2013

Harmonious Zen said:
Your phone won't run slower if you have less free space on it. This is not 1995 and your phone isn't running Windows.

I have a 64GB but realized that the bulk of the space was reserved for videos that I shot myself. If I didn't sync those videos, then a 32GB would work just fine for everything. I now have around 9000 photos, 2000 songs and all the apps I want with plenty of room to spare.

Even though you might be taking a lot of videos, remember that it's not as if you have to keep them all on your phone. Once you take them, offload them onto your computer or into the cloud.

Well that's good to know that the phone will not run slower. How much room do you have left after accounting for the things you listed? I've never backed my stuff up to the cloud, is it easy to do? Also, I figure since I'm selling my iPhone 4S I can essentially upgrade from the 32g to 64g for free due to the money gained from selling it, so that's also why I'm leaning towards the 64. My reasoning is that if I find I don't need all that space then I know for the future to get the 32 and it doesn't cost me anything (when I sell the old phone).

JCB52 · Dec 27, 2013

As much as I want the 64gb, I've decided (thanks to you guys) that the 32gb is more than enough. I guess I was just wanting the biggest and the best, but I don't put movies on my phone and I'm not playing many games aside from words with friends and scramble with friends. Thanks all for the help, I appreciate it!

mofunk · Dec 27, 2013

NP save that money you would have spent on the 64GB and add it to the money you get from your iPhone 4 and get some accessories or another gadget.

Right now I'm making a sorta docking station. I'm getting tired of pulling my USB cables out of my gadget bag each day.

jav6454 · Dec 27, 2013

JCB52 said:
Yes I do. I'm going to be doing a fair amount of traveling in the next couple years and I also film myself for a form check for certain exercises in the gym, so having space available for many pictures and some videos is important to me.

Then get the 64GB. Why? Taking pictures and videos is a sure fast way of filling up space. Plus, not always are you going to be near your computer to download the media and free up space.

Having a nice comfortable space margin is very crucial for video/picture taking. Why limit the amount of pics/vids you can take?

batterypower · Dec 27, 2013

I'm always lazy when it comes to photos.... i just checked i have over 5000 photos. maybe it's time for me to downlaod some and delete some photos... i definitely need the 64 GB... maybe you need too? pricing is pretty big difference for some people tho...

JCB52 · Dec 27, 2013

mofunk said:
NP save that money you would have spent on the 64GB and add it to the money you get from your iPhone 4 and get some accessories or another gadget.

Right now I'm making a sorta docking station. I'm getting tired of pulling my USB cables out of my gadget bag each day.

See but I don't have a need to get anything else, which is why the 64gb was tempting. I don't know, I still have time to return it but I'll see. Gahhh I can't make up my mind hah. I would rather have too much room than not enough...

jav6454 said:
Then get the 64GB. Why? Taking pictures and videos is a sure fast way of filling up space. Plus, not always are you going to be near your computer to download the media and free up space.

Having a nice comfortable space margin is very crucial for video/picture taking. Why limit the amount of pics/vids you can take?

Good point, that was my thinking as well. When I go to the Verizon store tomorrow I'll see what I'm going to do.

batterypower said:
I'm always lazy when it comes to photos.... i just checked i have over 5000 photos. maybe it's time for me to downlaod some and delete some photos... i definitely need the 64 GB... maybe you need too? pricing is pretty big difference for some people tho...

Yea I never download my photos, so I have to learn how to do it. $100 is not that much when you are shelling out so much for the phone, plus I'd essentially not be spending a penny since I got extra money from Christmas and I plan on selling my old iPhone 4S which was quoted at $135 by Gazelle if I exchange it with them.

mofunk · Dec 28, 2013

I just upload mine to my flickr account. You can make that private. Or use dropbox. Photos aren't as big as music. Videos you can upload to youtube or vimeo. Everything I do, regardless if I upload to a site, get saved to a DVDr and my external drive.

I understand your dilemma. I was going back and forth with a case. Spigen Slim armor or Slim Armor S or Ultra Hybrid or Poetic flip book. I'm lucky because I won the Poetic case so I bought 2 Spigen cases. Now which one should I use. lol

Good luck

ross1998 · Dec 28, 2013

I would do 64gb, if they come out with gta Iv for ios, it will take around 16gb of storage so 32gb won't be enough for all your needs including gta iv

Ahiqar · Dec 29, 2013

I went with 64

I just went from a 16gb 4s to a 64gb 5s. I wanted extra space for music and for taking videos and pictures. I could have gone with the 32 possibly, but I decided I'd rather have the space than not.

The Doctor11 · Dec 29, 2013

I have an 8 gig iPhone 4... You'll be fine with 32 gigs

JCB52 · Dec 30, 2013

mofunk said:
I just upload mine to my flickr account. You can make that private. Or use dropbox. Photos aren't as big as music. Videos you can upload to youtube or vimeo. Everything I do, regardless if I upload to a site, get saved to a DVDr and my external drive.

I understand your dilemma. I was going back and forth with a case. Spigen Slim armor or Slim Armor S or Ultra Hybrid or Poetic flip book. I'm lucky because I won the Poetic case so I bought 2 Spigen cases. Now which one should I use. lol

Good luck

I have to create a flickr account then, I have imgur but that's not one of the options on the iPhone. As much as I want the 64g I'm sticking with the 32g. I have 12.5g available after downloading everything from my old phone and a couple of suggested apps that the iPhone recommended.

I've also decided to keep the case because at first I thought it was one of those bulky cases due to it being water proof and whatnot but it is surprisingly slim and light. Thanks for your help man, I appreciate it.

@everyone else: thanks for your opinion. I don't play GTA so no need for the extra space. I honestly only wanted the 64g so I can keep all my pics in one spot but if I load them into flickr I should be fine.

uiop. · Dec 30, 2013

Have you considered using something like Spotify Premium instead for your music? I used to have a 64GB iPhone 5 because I wanted to carry around all 30GB of my music, but started using Spotify, and now have a 16GB iPhone. Really is a great solution.

And no, I don't work for Spotify. I just love the service.

budmonster · Dec 30, 2013

I just upgraded to an iPhone 5s 32gb. Now I'm thinking about returning it and getting a 64gb at BB. But do "I" really need that much space?

I use Google Music for my songs, this is my first iPhone. Anyways I have over 10,000 songs on there. iOS now has an app for that so I no longer would need to store music on my phone.

Once you take a photo or video, cant you just upload it to the iCloud? Then I could just delete it?

I'm just wondering if it's really worth going back to Best Buy for the extra GB. I don't know if they have a restocking fee or not and if so how much. Anyways, I have 15 days to return my phone, well 12 now.

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