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Getting by with just 16GB?

H

hipnetic

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 5, 2010
1,275
573
I got the iPhone 6 on release day but really wanted the 6+. I got the 64GB, because my 16GB iPhone 5 was tight on space and I couldn't upgrade the OS without freeing up space (but see below). I took a good number of photos which were the main usage hog. Anyway, my plan was to give the 6 to my wife and get a 6+ 64GB, but now I'm wondering if maybe I really could get by with just 16GB. Here's what I'm thinking:

- I don't store music or videos on my phone. For music, I stream.
- I don't play games very often, and when I do, it's usually puzzle games.
- I could probably free up some extra space by not bothering with the Apple's Office-style apps (Pages, Numbers, etc.), since I don't think I've ever used them.
- I used to think that I needed to free up space in order to upgrade the iOS, but I later discovered that I could upgrade regardless of space by doing the upgrade via tethering the iPhone to my MacBook and doing the upgrade via iTunes.

There's just one space issue I'm really concerned about: Photos and Videos. Now, I don't often take videos (and certainly not long ones), so I won't worry too much about that. For Photos, what do the rest of you 16GB folks do to get by? I suppose I should just get in the habit of letting iCloud do its thing, and then downloading them (permanently) to my MacBook from the cloud, right?

What about other photo cloud options? Is the Flickr app (or other alternatives) good in terms of being able to set it up to auto-upload your photos frequently?

The only other thing I worry about, is how do I know for sure that a photo is safe to delete from my phone? I suppose I should be safe by just deleting the older ones, since those *should* have been uploaded to the cloud.

I could also sync my iPhone to my MacBook more frequently and make sure the photos get backed up that way.

Any of you who are using a 16GB iPhone 6 or 6+ (or even an older iPhone running iOS8), please chime in with your thoughts.
 
I'd stick with the 64. For $100 more, you get 4x the storage and don't have these concerns. You can take a lot of photos and videos and not worry too much.
 
I've always had the 16GB version. I don't store music or movies on my phone and when it fills up on pictures/videos after a year or two I just transfer them to an USB-stick. No problem.
 
barkomatic said:
I'd stick with the 64. For $100 more, you get 4x the storage and don't have these concerns. You can take a lot of photos and videos and not worry too much.
Click to expand...

i started importing photo's off my phone about 3 years ago when i got my 4s because i dropped down to 16 and was having issue's with space.... i have about 12 gigs of just photo's on my computer now, and this is after i deleted the crap

i got the 128 this time around so i can have everything with me at all times if i need it..., i've yet to transfer all the photo's and apps over and i don't have to worry about app management because my phone is too small

i found myself just having to do storage management all the friggin time with 16gb....
 
If you can live without all of your pics, sounds like a 16gb phone would work for you.

I can't even fit all my apps on a 16gb. 64 will be my go to device unless they change the base to 32. Then I'll swap to that.
 
I used to only get 16GB but that seemed stupid now considering you can get 4x as much for 100$ more.

It's nice to not have to worry about running out of space even though I only use about 10 gb so far
 
Guys, while I appreciate getting replies from anyone and everyone, I really don't need to hear that it's safer to move up to the 64GB. I get that. $100 more isn't a big deal, and I already went through that mental decision-making when I got my iPhone 6.

I'm really more interested in hearing from people that *did* go with a 16GB model, and want to hear how they're able to deal with it.

One of the reasons I'm thinking about the 16GB model, quite frankly, is because they seem to be easier to come by. I just checked the inventory today and saw that my local AT&T store had a 6+ 16GB. A few weeks back, I saw that there were some Targets that had 16GB models.

I have to think, too, that Apple wouldn't bother offering a 16GB model if it was totally impossible to live with only 16GB.

As I mentioned, I don't need on-board storage of music or videos, and I don't play graphic-rich games. So, I'm thinking that it's probably doable.

Another possible reason for going with 16GB: It used to be that Apple's products held their resale value really well. Now, it seems like a race to the bottom in terms of price. There are deals going around where you can "trade in" your iPad or iPhone at Best Buy or AT&T and they'll give xx dollars, and they don't seem to give you *ANY* extra money if you have a larger-capacity device. So the best bang-for-the-buck in resale value now seems to be to get the lowest-capacity device. Unfortunate, but true.
 
If you can get by with 16GB or are willing to take all the steps needed to live with 16GB; then get it. It seems that you already know what it takes to live with a 16GB device.

As for not being able to OTA upgrade in the future - that may actually be a feature! Future iOS's are not kind to older Apple devices (intentional or otherwise); so running the native iOS for your phone may provide you the best experience for years to come. Apple withholds some of the cutting edge features from older hardware anyways, so there is very little to gain for older device owners by upgrading.
 
I have the 16GB Plus and I've always had more than enough space.
I stream music from iTunes Match, Spotify, Beats Music, and rarely Pandora.
I stream video from YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu.
I store my photos in iCloud.
And I, like you don't play many games, I currently have three little puzzle games that don't take up much space.
Other than that I just have a bunch of social media apps.

I have every app that I can think of possibly wanting on my phone and I still have 6.1GB of space left.

Ultimately I think you have to decide what storage capacity is gonna work for you.
 
I can easily get by with the 16 gb too I think. I don't have a 6 yet but the 4s I'm still carrying around only has 4.7 gb used and that's 2 years on my phone next month. I have very few apps installed and some photos. All my music is on my iPod in my car and on my iPad. Everyone's needs are different and if I took a lot of photos I'd be more tempted to move upwards in size. The only reason I can give myself to move to a 64 gb would be resale value. I just don't need to carry everything around on my phone.
 
I'm getting by with a 16GB. Mainly because I don't keep videos and pictures on my phone, and I don't use a ton of apps. 64GB would be nice, though. But, for my use, 16GB is fine. When I had my 64GB OPO, I only used like 7GB.
 
I had a 32G iPhone 4 bc the sales guy talked me into it. Downloaded many apps that I have never even opened bc I could and took an endless amount of photos. it annoyed me to sort through photos in the past to get to the favorite or important ones. Now you can easily make albums of your phone. Bought the 16g 5 and 5s and the storage amount was sufficient. I have most of my photos uploaded on social media sites if I need to find past photos. I also stream everything w netflix and store extra documents on Dropbox. Apple guy told me about 500 photos is 1 gb. I looked at past usage and I average 600 a year since 2010. I sync my photos on my laptop at least once a week because I like to have them secured on a hard drive.

I have 8 gb of free space on my 6+ After downloading apps. so I think I have plenty of room even if I wait until iPhone 7 to upgrade. I am usually tempted by the latest greatest so most likely I'll get the 6s + and I prefer to start phone as new so another 8gb available for photos when I use about 1.5 gb a year. I could probably live with only having 1 months worth of photos on my phone but having 6-8 months is plenty.

My iPad is a different story - def getting the 64 next time. Not sure how it's almost filled w only 700mb to spare. I only have 39 apps and do not use it to take photos. No videos or music or huge gaming apps. Saved some photos from photo stream on the camera roll but less than 800.
 
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I haven't had any issue with the 16GB iPhone 5. I used to take a lot of pics and hence enabled iCloud to store them on the cloud. Haven't had any problems as such with storage.

I don't play a lot of games and there are just a few songs stored on it for traveling purposes. No music videos. For that, I just use Youtube. Still have a lot of space left for storage.

I just keep backing up my pics on the Mac and the cloud.

I got the 16GB iPhone 6 recently(it's $170 expensive to jump to the 64 gig where I stay). No problem with storage as yet.
 
16gb is just fine for me...

I dont have the need to carry ALL my songs on my phone at all times; thats what playlists are for and are very easy to swap in and out with iTunes...

my other half does all the snapping of pics so I dont need to...

I have about 40 apps that I use on a regular basis...

Im still amazed at the people with 200+ apps... like do you really use all of them on a regular basis? or is it just app hoarding???
 
I have the 16gb 6+ and I'm doing just fine. I use the cloud a lot(which I love) and as for music I use my iPod classic. I used the extra $100 to buy apple care+, which is the first time I've ever purchased it. My 5 was a 64gb and I used about 30gb of that, but mainly it was all music. I'm very happy with my 16gb
 
I used to have a 32 GB phone, then got a 16 GB phone through work. The lack of space is a major hassle, and I have to actively manage free space for instance by routinely moving photos to my Mac, deleting apps that are not routinely used, and moving my entire music collection to the cloud (Google Music).

I have a 64 GB phone on the way, and wouldn't recommend anything less. With 16 GB, I can almost guarantee you that you will at one point run out of space - which incidently also results in your phone slowing down.
 
I guess if you use your iPhone as mainly a phone with the odd web browse, few apps and photos 16gb would do the job.

I'd say 16gb would suffice for someone who's new to smartphones. My mum for example would never fill up a 16gb device as she has her music on CDs, her movies on DVDs and most of her mail goes in the post! lol

I think most users after the latest iOS update will steer toward the higher capacity models as no one wants to be clearing photos or deleting apps because their hand is forced.

I tend to go for the higher capacity models so have the 128gb 6 and Air 2, probably overkill but I know I can chuck whatever I want on it and not worry one bit :)
 
This is just an opinion, so take it for what it is worth, but why bother with the 6+ if you aren't going to use it videos and games.

It seems to me that the things that make the 6+ better than the 6 are going to be things are going to use a lot of memory.

I think I'd just buy a 16GB 6 and put the money I saved towards an iPad mini.
 
hipnetic said:
Guys, while I appreciate getting replies from anyone and everyone, I really don't need to hear that it's safer to move up to the 64GB. I get that. $100 more isn't a big deal, and I already went through that mental decision-making when I got my iPhone 6.

I'm really more interested in hearing from people that *did* go with a 16GB model, and want to hear how they're able to deal with it.

One of the reasons I'm thinking about the 16GB model, quite frankly, is because they seem to be easier to come by. I just checked the inventory today and saw that my local AT&T store had a 6+ 16GB. A few weeks back, I saw that there were some Targets that had 16GB models.

I have to think, too, that Apple wouldn't bother offering a 16GB model if it was totally impossible to live with only 16GB.

As I mentioned, I don't need on-board storage of music or videos, and I don't play graphic-rich games. So, I'm thinking that it's probably doable.

Another possible reason for going with 16GB: It used to be that Apple's products held their resale value really well. Now, it seems like a race to the bottom in terms of price. There are deals going around where you can "trade in" your iPad or iPhone at Best Buy or AT&T and they'll give xx dollars, and they don't seem to give you *ANY* extra money if you have a larger-capacity device. So the best bang-for-the-buck in resale value now seems to be to get the lowest-capacity device. Unfortunate, but true.
Click to expand...
It sounds like you've already made up your mind in terms of what storage capacity to get and want to feel justified in doing so. Concerns with iOS 8 taking up a lot of storage would be enough for me to go with a 64GB 6+ which I did. I guess if you just didn't want to store much of anything on your device then 16gb could work.
 
I've always gotten 16gb and will get a 16gb 6.

My iPhone 5 still has 4gb space and that's including every picture I've ever taken with my phone and 2gb music. I never take videos.

This time I plan to cut the photos by half and delete apps I never use so basically set up as new instead or restore from backup.

I would get the 64gb but I can't justify spending and extra £80 when I can just put stuff I don't need on my PC or pay 79p a month for 20gb of iCloud for my photos.
 
Breaking Good said:
This is just an opinion, so take it for what it is worth, but why bother with the 6+ if you aren't going to use it videos and games.



It seems to me that the things that make the 6+ better than the 6 are going to be things are going to use a lot of memory.



I think I'd just buy a 16GB 6 and put the money I saved towards an iPad mini.
Click to expand...


I dont play games on my 6plus. Mobile gaming is not for everyone.
 
An interesting observation: The latest round of Android phones all seem to start at 16GB and don't offer SD storage expansion. I asked a friend (anti-Apple guy) what that was all about and he said that the big thing is to put everything on the cloud now.

I think I already mentioned it, but I'll say it again...I can easily afford the extra $100 for the 64GB model, but I'd: a) Prefer not to waste money on something I don't need - if I can live comfortably with 16GB, I'd rather save that $100, b) The 16GB model is easier to find in stock (yes, I know this situation will improve).

Breaking Good said:
This is just an opinion, so take it for what it is worth, but why bother with the 6+ if you aren't going to use it videos and games.
Click to expand...
There are lots of use cases that don't involve games or videos:
1) I do a lot of web browsing on my phone. The added resolution and information that will be displayed will be appreciated.
2) I use it as a GPS in the car, and will like the larger screen for that, too.
3) I play a lot of podcasts and streaming radio in the car, and will like having larger on-screen buttons to poke at while driving.
4) Photo viewing/editing.
 
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