Samsung‘s newly-launched Galaxy S23 flagships have an unusual problem. The phones eat up too much storage space out of the box, giving users less storage to work with. Depending on the market, the system files on the Galaxy S23 trio occupy more than 60GB of internal storage.
The Galaxy S23 phones have bigger system files than others
Smartphones ship with dozens of pre-installed apps and other services. The storage space occupied by those apps, as well as the Android OS, is counted against the total internal storage of the device and categorized as system files. So, the full storage amount advertised by companies and printed on the box is never available to you; you always get a little less. That’s normal and has never been a problem for anyone.
However, in the case of the Galaxy S23 series, the system files occupy much more internal storage than competing phones from other brands do. The base model reportedly has about 40GB of storage reserved for system files, while that goes well above 60GB for the Ultra model (via). The Galaxy S23+ comes with a hefty chunk of internal storage reserved for the pre-installed apps, Android OS, and other system files.
The size of system files isn’t the same everywhere even on the same Galaxy S23 model. That’s because the devices don’t ship with the same set of pre-installed apps everywhere. In some regions, Samsung offers more of its own ecosystem of apps than others. The company also has some regional partnerships where it offers to have partner apps pre-installed on its phones. There may be other factors in play as well.
But, the gist of the story is that Galaxy S23 phones ship with a lot less storage space than you’d expect. The base model starts at 128GB of storage, but you may only get about 90GB of that. Samsung’s heavy customization of Android OS with its One UI skin and its offering of in-house alternatives for all Google apps may be the major culprits here. Unfortunately, you can’t do much. Don’t forget that the system file size will start growing the moment you set up your phone.
This storage problem may be why Samsung isn’t adopting Seamless Updates
Google added a nifty new feature called Seamless Updates to the Android OS back in 2016. It reduces your phone’s downtime during software updates. This is done by creating two identical partitions of the phone and installing updates in the background on the partition that is not in use. Your phone will boot to the updated partition the next time you restart it. Seamless Updates essentially make software updates as simple as a restart.
Despite years of existence, and Google’s continued efforts to improve the service, Samsung never adopted Seamless Updates. The feature is missing from the Galaxy S23 phones as well. It appears the company is deliberately refusing support for the feature because creating two partitions means the phones will occupy even more internal; storage out of the box. Hopefully, Samsung has taken note of user complaints and work toward them in the future.