Samsung changes mind, will look at storage on Galaxy S4

Samsung has backed down on the Galaxy S4's limited storage after the phone appeared on the BBC's Watchdog, saying it will try to squeeze its myriad features into a smaller space, freeing up more memory for apps.

The Beeb's consumer affairs show investigated the Android powerhouse's claims of 16GB of storage, after users complained the phone has only half of that available.

"We appreciate this issue being raised and we will improve our communications," a Samsung spokesperson told CNET UK. "Also, we are reviewing the possibility to secure more memory space through further software optimisation.

"Samsung is committed to listening to our customers and responding to their needs as part of our innovation process."

Samsung had previously defended its position, saying the lack of space was necessary to provide owners with "more powerful features". The S4 is more feature-packed than ever before, although in our review we questioned whether many people would ever use even a fraction of them.

A version of the S4 without Samsung's TouchWiz software -- running plain Android -- was announced yesterday at Google's I/O conference. Out in June, it'll be interesting to see how much storage space that model has available.

Unlike rivals such as the iPhone and HTC One, the Galaxy S4 has an expandable memory slot so you can cheaply slot in another 64GB of storage. But the S4 doesn't let you install apps to the SD card, just things like photos and music. With many high-end games pushing the 1GB mark, your phone's internal storage can fill up extremely quickly.

Models with 32GB and 64GB of total storage have been promised, but are yet to arrive here in Blighty and will be even more expensive than the £550 16GB version.

Do you think the S4 is bloated with features? Would you be interested in the plain Android version? Should it not be advertised as 16GB? Let me know what you think down in the comments, or over on our spacious Facebook page.

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