Calling all Huawei Ascend Y200 Owners

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jasonwaiheke

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Topic # 108815 6-Sep-2012 08:52

I have recently been looking into how good the Huawei Ascend Y200 is and whether or not to get one through the deal offered by TCL. My main concern was the limted memory, but looking at the apps i have and the others i want based on experience with my android tablet, the amount of memory stated and the file sizes of the apps i wanted to have i should be ok.

so i got it.

now i have it and i am looking at the storage section, and am a little confused. i mounted a 1GB micro SD card from my last phone, obviously i can get better and i possibly will in time.
And the external or added SD card displays as it should (used and available space), but then it goes on to say internal SD card (what is this) and internal storage (again what is this, and how does it differ)

total space on internal SD card is 17.96MB available space 17.96MB and on the internal storage available space 88.30MB

if we go to applications -> storage use -> all - 'internal storage 77mb used / 88mb free
if we go to applications -> on sd card it is reffering to my external SD card and this is ok
if we go to applications -> running - RAM 97mb used 41mb free

in the specs i read about the phone it claimed to have 256MB RAM and 512MB ROM, but i dont see this anywhere, or at least cant get it to add up to it, nor make any sense of it.

can anyone help?

uglyb0b

333 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 19

Reply # 682203 6-Sep-2012 11:11

The ROM is not internal storage space, it is internal memory which will be split into system, cache and data partitions. The "internal storage" will be a specific partition for app data.

With a phone like this you will need to root and uninstall the bloatware, and use something like links2sd to be able to install any apps other than the bare minimum.

jasonwaiheke

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 682299 6-Sep-2012 13:11

uglyb0b: The ROM is not internal storage space, it is internal memory which will be split into system, cache and data partitions. The "internal storage" will be a specific partition for app data.

With a phone like this you will need to root and uninstall the bloatware, and use something like links2sd to be able to install any apps other than the bare minimum.

thankyou for clarifying ROM, if you are correct then i must say i am a little annoyed, as i tried to get clarification on this in a previous post to no real avail, and with nothing really to go from, i just took the ROM to mean internal storage origionally thinking 512MB is not much but not bad. Google results came back with ROM meaning read only memory, similar to a computers BIOS but i still took this to be some sort of internal storage capacity possibly partioned to allow for various installed applications such as OS and base apps by the manufacturer but at least a partition of this set up for installing personally selected apps to aswell, with photos and music etc to an external SD Card as i knew nothing is installed to RAM, and there was no other mention of any thing else

the phone allows you to select if you want apps to be installed to the phone, to the SD Card, or to let the system decide

The external SD card i have added displays the total vs available space correctly.

under storage -> what is 'internal SD' i have 17.96MB available out of a total 17.96MB here vs 'Internal Storage' where here i have 88.3MB out of a total of who knows what.

i am guessing the internal storage (storage -> internal storage -> 88.3MB available) is the same as
if we go to applications -> storage use -> all - 'internal storage 77mb used / 88mb free thus implying that there is 165MB available data space for apps on the internal memory.

the internal SD card looks like it is a partition similar to that of the external SD card for photos, music etc. thats my guess anyway

i cannot make sense of the RAM, unless this is only displaying the RAM allocation and used / available values with relation to apps as opposed to the whole phone

uglyb0b - do you have one of these phones?

uglyb0b

333 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 19

Reply # 682311 6-Sep-2012 13:25

I don't have one myself, I am just relating knowledge I have of other phones.

I would imagine there is a small sd card for internal storage (similar to the Galaxy phones) which is why it is labelled as "internal SD".

The ROM is the memory the phone has physically on the board. Only a small amount of that will be used for user data. The rest is taken up by the system and cache partitions.

In terms of RAM, I would guess that a certain amount of that is taken up just to keep the OS running, and is not listed. Which is why the numbers you have will not add up to 256mb.

I would suggest downloading some kind of system diagnostics app to see exactly what is being used where. I haven't used any apps like this personally so I can't suggest any, but I will have a look around and post back with any suggestions.

Edit (added this to clarify)
under storage -> what is 'internal SD' i have 17.96MB available out of a total 17.96MB here
This will probably be a separate memory like an internal sd card

vs 'Internal Storage' where here i have 88.3MB out of a total of who knows what.
This will most likely be the /data partition of the ROM

i cannot make sense of the RAM, unless this is only displaying the RAM allocation and used / available values with relation to apps as opposed to the whole phone
This would be my guess too.

nzgeek

575 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 46

Reply # 682355 6-Sep-2012 14:26

The number quoted for ROM size is usually the total amount of flash memory on the phone. This is split into a number of partitions, such as /system (where the OS itself lives) and /data ('internal storage', where your apps and settings live).

I have a guess as to why there's a small internal SD area. Things like photos and downloads from the browser need to go somewhere. The /data partition isn't any good for this, because Android doesn't let you get access to it under normal circumstances. The internal SD gives you a general-access area for storing these items, in case you haven't got an external SD card inserted.

jasonwaiheke

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 682383 6-Sep-2012 14:56

Thanks everyone for your replies. i am starting to get a better understanding of how different RAM, ROM, internal memory and SD cards are.
i just wish when you look at the tech specs of a phone before you buy, that they were a little clearer or more accurate.
like i said in the begining getting the phone this way was the most affordable option for me to move into the smartphone arena, and i was not too worried about the storage as majority of the apps i use are less than a MB with those that are over all under 5MB at this stage, and there is not many more i want. whilst i will still have enough room for these apps, and some for my photos and music, i dont carry much music or photos around and it is easy enough to upgrade the SD card for more storage for these things, or move them off what i dont need with the data cable. it is also good to know that if the app supports being stored on the SD card, then the phone will run it from there too, so i am not totally limited to just the internal memory. it's just a shame it is only 105MB, guess thats why they just mention the RAM and ROM not the physical memory available for the user as it would pull the value of the whole phone down.

but i can with an SD card have upto 32GB of storage...