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Buying an iPhone 4S 16GB? Don't.

E

erasr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 18, 2007
754
709
Just tried to record my first decent video, which was about 3 minutes long.

At 3 minutes 10 seconds it stopped recording because the phone reached maximum capacity.

I don't have that much music on it, not many photos and around 1GB of apps.

Looks like I will have to carefully manage my music if I want to use this as a tool to record video and shoot photos.

If you're thinking of getting the 16GB and want to shoot some video, don't. Get the 32GB.
 
erasr said:
I don't have that much music on it, not many photos
Click to expand...
Could you be more specific?

EDIT: Just read in this thread that 1080p recording on the iPhone 4S uses ~178 MB/min.

You get roughly 13GB to use in a 16GB 4S...so I'd say if you keep an 8GB smart playlist, maybe 2GB photos, and 1GB apps, you'll still have space for a 10 minute video.
 
Last edited:
Darn... I bought a 16GB. I really should've bought a bigger one, for multiple reasons. (I have lots of music) But, I don't have the money for that :/
 
Fortunately the next episode of 24 wont be shot on an iPhone.

If you are that video intensive, don't think a 32GB is going to be that much better. Get a Canon 60D or 5D so you can use your own memory cards.
 
erasr said:
You obviously haven't seen how good it is then.
Click to expand...

It obviously isn't, as it fills the memory in a few minutes, is it? What use is a HD video camera that can only record a few minutes? Answer - none.

Shockingly, and you may not believe this, I use a HD video camera for shooting HD video. Amazing, but true! That camera can get a whole hour on a DAT tape.
 
Exactly the reason I sprung for the 64GB version. I have 30 GB of music and put a few of my movies on it. I left about 12GB for photos/videos. I think that will be perfect. I always buy the largest offerings Apple gives on phones mainly because once you have it there is no way to upgrade.
 
Icloud

Well as long as you have icloud you have the 5 gb of storage so you can delete your video after filming it, and i dont see how an extra 16 gb should help that much if you can film 3 minutes on around 10 that would only make tou able to get around 8 minutes anyways....
 
SGMD1 said:
Could you be more specific?

EDIT: Just read in this thread that 1080p recording on the iPhone 4S uses ~178 MB/min.

You get roughly 13GB to use in a 16GB 4S...so I'd say if you keep an 8GB smart playlist, maybe 2GB photos, and 1GB apps, you'll still have space for a 10 minute video.
Click to expand...

Which sounds good but 178MB is heavy, and managing 8GB of music is easier said than done.

It's the limitations which play on the mind. Like when you go on holiday and want your music, need to take photos and want to shoot video (which would definitely be over 10 mins). What if there's no Wifi...

For lazy people who don't want to worry about GB management, I'd heavily advise getting 32GB. I think most people will want to use the 1080p Video more than they have on previous phones.
 
It obviously didn't fill the the flash memory on the phone, more than likely it is limited in how long it can record before writing the video/file to the flash storage. Maybe the ram or buffer was maxed out?

I've seen a lot of P&S and low end SLRs that have a time limit when shooting HD video as well. I remember some Sony SLT recently that had a 10 minute limit because the temperature of the sensor or something would get too high and it would stop the video recording.

A quick look at a couple video clips I have from the 4S, one is 147MB for 49 seconds and the other is 59MB for 19 seconds.
 
OP, would you mind editing the thread title to reflect something about recording HD video? As is, it just seems like you have problems with the 16 GB model in general.
 
This thread is BS.

"Hurr hurr hurr, i uzed up memoriez but i dun have THAT much muzik on da device hurrrrrr durrr."
 
I think a good solution would be to have a choice of 720p or 1080p do you get more videos if you are running low on space.
 
Yea I'm surprised at the number of people who are happy with just 16 GB. I upgraded this year because my 16GB iPhone 4 just wasn't enough space for apps/music/photos/videos. I'm glad they came out with a 64GB model.
 
Exactly why I got 32GB this time instead of 16GB.

Have you owned an iPhone before? Did you just go and buy it without seeing the features?

16GB doesn't mean you get 16GB. You get ~14GB. 32GB? 28GB. I'm guessing 64GB gets about 60GB.

Surely if you knew that the iPhone recorded 1080p HD footage and that you'd use it a lot then you'd realise you need a lot of space.

If I still got a 16GB iPhone I would only have a couple 1 or 2GB left, which isn't a lot if you're going to be taking a lot of (8MP) pictures and 1080P HD video.
 
I got a 16gb too. Didn't plan to do much video anyway, and I keep my playlist tight (got iTunes syncing only 3gb, a mix of stuff I've not rated yet and stuff I've rated 5*, and it selects the least played tracks). But then I came to shoot a video a couple of days back, and was pretty shocked to see a 10 minute clip come in at 2gb. It wouldn't be an issue if there was an option to drop to 720 (or even 640x480 for something unimportant), but there isn't.

I'm sure there'll be an app to record at lower res soon. If not I'll write one.
 
Yumunum said:
Darn... I bought a 16GB. I really should've bought a bigger one, for multiple reasons. (I have lots of music) But, I don't have the money for that :/
Click to expand...

Don't worry. You don't have to keep the vids on you device. I've done a couple and have stuck them straight in iPhoto and deleted them off.

HellDiverUK said:
It obviously isn't, as it fills the memory in a few minutes, is it? What use is a HD video camera that can only record a few minutes? Answer - none.

Shockingly, and you may not believe this, I use a HD video camera for shooting HD video. Amazing, but true! That camera can get a whole hour on a DAT tape.
Click to expand...

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billnye97 said:
Exactly the reason I sprung for the 64GB version. I have 30 GB of music and put a few of my movies on it. I left about 12GB for photos/videos. I think that will be perfect. I always buy the largest offerings Apple gives on phones mainly because once you have it there is no way to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Yup, I love how everyone says there's no need for a phone above 4/8/16 GB, but even with no media, you're looking at apps reaching 2 or 3 GB, plus pics and HD...fills up fast folks, and no matter how much you tote the cloud, it's just not going to help.
 
erasr said:
Just tried to record my first decent video, which was about 3 minutes long.

At 3 minutes 10 seconds it stopped recording because the phone reached maximum capacity.

I don't have that much music on it, not many photos and around 1GB of apps.

Looks like I will have to carefully manage my music if I want to use this as a tool to record video and shoot photos.

If you're thinking of getting the 16GB and want to shoot some video, don't. Get the 32GB.
Click to expand...

I respectfully suggest that you DO have "that" much music, etc. on it. I have a 16 GB, and just ran a test. Between apps and 10.5 GB of music, I had 832 MB of free space. I just made a video until I ran out of space - I now have a 4 minute 44 second vid and zero free space. If you could only make a 3:10 vid, you had less than 600 MB of free space. That's only 3% or 4% free, based on the reported capacity of 13.6 GB. So it's no surprise that you couldn't record a vid for very long.

That said, yeah, anybody who wants to do a lot of video recording would be much better off with a 32 or 64 GB model. A 30 minute video would take over 5 GB.
 
I picked up a 64 myself but why doesn't Apple let you change the quality of the video.

I am more then happy shooting a 720p video.
If, for some reason, I want 1080p, it should be a setting change.
 
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