Newsletter 
Budget smartphones and tablets will no longer come with just 16GB of storage. Google is raising the minimum requirement for flash storage on Android devices, in order for these devices to pass its certification program for Google Mobile Services. Devices must ship with at least 32GB of storage, starting with Android 15. With 75% of that storage being allocated to the data partition – the partition that actually stores user date.
The last time Google changed this requirement was just two years ago, with Android 13, where it jumped from 8GB to 16GB. And now, all budget devices must have at least 32GB of storage. It’s a good move, but with all of the AI features that Google is adding, the minimum should definitely be at least 64GB.
It’s important to note that Gogole can’t legally prevent manufactures from building smartphones with less than 32GB of storage, as long as they use the open source version of Android. Since AOSP’s licensing terms do not allow for such restrictions. However, Google can enforce this requirement on companies that are looking to ship Android devices with Google services included (also known as GMS).
Improving the minimum storage should improve user experience
By making this change, Google is hoping that it will help improve user experience on low-end Android devices. Which are actually some of the more popular Android devices on the market.
Moving the minimum storage requirement to 32GB means that there will be more space for apps, games, photos and much more. But on the flip side, this change does not mean that you’ll see faster storage speeds. That’s typically the other issue with low-end devices. Low storage, and slow storage speeds. Making opening apps and saving things, a pain.
The new GMS requirements, which is a confidential document, also include all cellular devices to include an option to share their emergency contacts data with the system’s Emergency Location Service during emergency calls. New chipsets also have to support Vulkan 1.3 or higher, and comply with the Android Baseline 2022 profile and Vulkan Profile for Android 15.
Finally, Google has also increased the minimum RAM requirement with Android 15. While OEMs must have at least 2GB of RAM for GMS certification, if the device has 2GB or 3GB of RAM, it has to use low RAM optimizations. If there’s 4GB of RAM, this becomes optional.