On Sunday, April 6, 2014 11:04:19 AM UTC-4, Danny D. wrote:
On Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:53:30 +0200, Poutnik wrote:



I suppose so. Maybe root cause of his confusion is

the false thought the Android OS is stored

in dedicated firmware flash storage, something like BIOS in PC,

what is not true.



Actually, the fundamental root cause of my "problem", is that I

had (innocently) "thought" that we could MOVE (or delete)

pre-installed apps to the 32GB SD card, which, if true (as it

was in prior versions of Android), would make the 4GB ROM less

limiting.



In fact, the carrier (T-Mobile) advertised that the 4GB phone

could be augmented with a 32GB microSD card, but, only *after*

I added the 32GB class 10 card did I realize that was a lie.


It can be augmented with 32GB of flash, which can be used to
store photos, videos, music, etc. It's just that the additional
memory can't be used to store apps, as I understand it. Do you
have photos, videos, music, etc that are hogging space and can go
to the flash card?

Are you sure there isn't something wrong, like a corrupted file
system, some apps half installed, not removed completely, etc
that is making it look like memory isn't available?
Maybe it's time to restore it to original, wipe it clean and start over?




Google, apparently, prohibits moving of apps to the flash card,

so, the flash card is only useful for "user content" of which

there is none (simply because the phone is useless and therefore

has never been put in service).


Seems like a very unusual case we have here. This is the first
phone I've ever heard of that ran out of memory before it was
even put into service.





NOTE: The story is complicated, because prior to Android 4.0,

Google allowed moving of apps; between 4.0 and 4.3 Google

disallowed moving of apps; and after 4.3, Google allowed

moving of apps if the developer enables it.

account).



The other fundamental root cause of the "problem" is that there

is absolutely no way for a consumer to know that the 4GB phone

has only 600MB of usable space for apps.



I have a similar Android, with 4GB flash, Jelly Bean OS. In addtion to
the apps it came with, I've downloaded probably a dozen that I installed.
Right now it reports the apps taking .62GB of memory and 1.13GB available.




Since the user can't easily know these two fundamental

pieces of data, and since the carrier clearly knows them,

I feel the carrier should tell us this information when

we ask. They don't (and I have proof via many calls to

T-Mobile over this topic, all of which are documented).



What did they tell you when you asked? Did they give you a
number? And if they didn't I would never assume that because
the hardware says it has 4GB of flash, that it's all available.
It's like buying a PC with a 1TB hard drive and expecting that
it's all available, ie that the OS, apps etc don't take up some
of it.



In the end, I filed *both* an FTC and FCC complaint.

I do realize that nothing will come of either one, unless

others file their own complaints (safety in numbers).

If it were me, I'd try to figure out what I'm doing that is so
unique that it renders a phone that 99% of folks can use, useless.
If you're a power user, why did you buy what appears to be an
entry level phone? Isn't this like buying a $300 PC then complaining
because it won't work to run the hot new gaming apps well?

If the phone is truly unusable, you can sell it on Ebay and
buy another one that suits your needs.