[corsica]

seeing as the 8S comes with only 4GB of memory, how much of that will be left after the OS is installed?
Also, won't that severly limit the user in regards of app installation seeing as apps can't be made to install on an SD card expansion

[MAERSK]

Well the 920s I saw in store had used about ~3 GBs of the 32. I hope for the sake of the 8S it'll be more compressed. I'd say you'd get about half of the 4GBs.

As for apps, they don't take up that much space. A lot of them are a few MBs but if you're a heavy gamer they could take up that space fairly quick since they take up more space.

btw your avatar is soooo cute

[Etyrnus]

The system takes 1.71 GB on the 920, so you're looking a little over 2.25 GB available if its the same on the 8S. It may be a little less.

[The Last Byte]

The system takes 1.71 GB on the 920, so you're looking a little over 2.25 GB available if its the same on the 8S. It may be a little less.

That sounds much better than 3GB.

[Etyrnus]

And a little more perspective, just set up a Nokia 820, and it has system taking 1.7 GB, so it does seem they optimized it a little for phones with lower memory. Best advice, go to store that has one, go to settings, and go down to phone storage. Tap that, then the bar and it will tell you how much the system occupies.

[The Last Byte]

And a little more perspective, just set up a Nokia 820, and it has system taking 1.7 GB, so it does seem they optimized it a little for phones with lower memory. Best advice, go to store that has one, go to settings, and go down to phone storage. Tap that, then the bar and it will tell you how much the system occupies.

Now I wonder what they removed....:P

[Etyrnus]

Well, the 820 doesn't have the pure view camera software, but I don't really see much of a difference otherwise.

[corsica]

i suspect the lumias take up more space because of their Nokia centric apps. You know, City Lens, Nokia Drive etc.

And I believe I could well live without them anyway. Have to wait and see what the display is like at 220 ppi, what the camera is like and how the phone performs in general. If it can handle some games (like AngyBirds and such, nothing graphically intensive) fine this might just be the phone for me.
Slap a 32GB micro SD in it (is 32GB the maximum capacity? I believe so) and I'm good.

I guess if WP really only takes up ~1.7GB then I can live with whats left. Would come down to Apps and Games only anway.

[Etyrnus]

And you already have the right idea, use the SD card for music and pics, keep the space on the phone for apps.

[corsica]

so is there some kind of release date? Some sites, including a 3rd party Amazon retailer give a 20th November date, others don't have any date at all.

edit: and why aren't there any reviews yet? Review units must have been out for a long time now

[dmarxs s]

I've heard the 15th, but no one really seems 100% sure. Also I'm starting to wonder why there's a lack of real reviews. I'd go for the 8X but I need the SD card.

[davide445]

Phonearena state official international release date is set to be November 20th.

In Switzerland where I pre-ordered on a local retailer will arrive at the end of November, but no specific date set right now, hope I can retire it the 30th when I will be there!

Me too can't find a in-depth review, apart from this hands on that you maybe already read

HTC Windows Phone 8S review | Phone Reviews | TechRadar

[corsica]

third party retailers on german Amazon now state Dec 6th as releasedate. Amazon itself is still on preorder and doesn't give any date at all

[Wonderknul]

Clove in the UK had noted that the blue version would be in stock on november 23. But they changed it to this today: "Black units due end of November. Blue units due 04 December. Red units - no sim-free stock available yet."

[richard_c]

Hi. Im new to the forums as I was looking for answers to this exact question! I really want the 8S but the 4GB of space was worrying me. Knowing the OS only takes up 1.7GB is good to know as I sat down and worked out how much space all the apps I use would take up and it wasn't even 500MB. As you say games will take up more.

One question I do have though something to do with the phones cache. Ive heard people say that the cache can get quite big and that you cant clear it up which could lead to problems on a phone like the 8S. Is there any truth to this?

I also plan to have all my music and photos on an SD to save space on the phone but what I would like to know is that if I download a song on my phone or take a photo can it tell it to automatically save to the SD card or does it have to be saved on the phone first?

Also I think the phone will be available next week. I've been asking around at local Phones4U stores and they said they should have some in next week. I asked 2 weeks ago and even though there was a display for 8S they had a HTC Radar on display instead as the dummy phone hadn't arrived. I checked Phones4U in Derby today and the dummy phone is there now and they are hoping to have them by next week and said they will be £230 SIM Free which is awesome :-)

[Etyrnus]

The phones do cache, but its balance based on available space and optimization. So if you have a large amount of space open (I think I'm using about 12 GB total on my 920 including the cache) it uses more. But then I have a bunch of games loaded. I wouldn't see 4 GB unmanageable, especially with being able to use expandable storage for media. I believe you can set the SD capable ones to save directly to the SD card, once one is installed.

[ragingsilver]

I think the answer I need is how much memory will maps take for offline usage. If the OS takes approx 2GB leaving me with 2GB for small apps and hopefully enough for offline maps.

[mrshamoozoo]

Well I know here in Georgia, the maps were about 121mb to download.

[johsoe]

I was at Beep event in Denmark where they had 4 models of the HTC 8S. All devices had less than a mb left of storage, WP8 was little less than 3 GB and the rest taken by apps.

Granted, the phones were probably debug build judging by all the zHTC* stuff there were in the program list.

I REALLY want a htc 8s with 4g, 16 gb storage and 720 display, y u no make it :(

[richard_c]

I think johsoe is right guys. I just looked at Dialaphones video review of the phone and one of the questions in the comments was how much space is free on the phone and this was their response:

Hi there, thanks for getting in touch.
Our HTC 8S had 1GB of free storage out of the box, which considering all the software crammed in too, is pretty good. Remember that the storage can be expanded via microSD too.
If you have any further questions don’t hesitate to drop me another comment.
Thanks,
Chris

This really sucks and is making me have second thoughts about not getting the phone. I mean come on HTC this is a mid range phone it should of come with 8GB of storage. Even the Lumia 610 has 8GB or storage and that's meant to be an entry level phone!

[richard_c]

Ive gone through the Windows Store and looked at all the apps I want if I choose to switch from my iPhone 4 to the HTC 8S and wrote down the size of each app I want. Here is a list of all the apps and the total space they would take up.

ALARM CLOCK 8MB
BBC NEWS 1MB
METRO 1MB
WEATHER 4MB
TRAVEL 3MB
WEAVE 3MB
FACEBOOK 4MB
ROWI (TWITTER) 3MB
INSTAGRAM (DAS IMAGE, METROGRAM, MTERO.AM) 3MB
FLIXSTER 1MB
LINKED IN 1MB
BACONIT (REDDIT) 1MB
EBAY 2MB
FLASHLIGHT 1MB
WHATS APP 4MB
PAYPAL 5MB
GUITAR TUNER 2MB
REMOTE 2MB
SAT NAV 4MB
UK DEALS 2MB
METROTUBE 1MB
SOUNDHOUND 2MB
IMDB 1MB
WIKIPEDIA 2MB
TV GUIDE 1MB
TED 1MB
AMAZON 2MB
ALL RECIPIES 6MB
DOMINOS PIZZA 1MB
ARTIST INFO 1MB
WPCENTRAL 1MB
NEXT BUS 1MB
TV SHOW 2MB
WIKITUDE 2MB
FOODSPOTTING 1MB
DRAW SOMETHING 7MB
WORDS WITH FRIENDS 8MB
ANGRY BIRDS 20MB
CUT THE ROPE 31MB
FRUIT NINJA 19MB
DOODBLE JUMP 7MB
PLANTS VS ZOMBIES 82MB
TETRIS 10MB
GRAVITY GUY 20MB
GEO DEFENSE SWARM 4MB
BULLET ASYLUM 16MB

As you can see that total 305MB, now I know with the SatNav download maps will make it more and im guessing games will cache information too. So 47 apps and its taken up less than the 1GB free. The thing that will make this phone a no go is if you like having alot of games on your phone

[corsica]

The 8X in store had 2.8GB used with the OS and very few 3rd party apps. Doesn't seem to be a problem for the 8S

[richard_c]

Depends how you see it. 2.8GB or the supposed 4GB is a large chunk. So you get 1.2GB free for apps.

[nextxpert]

I currently own a HTC 8S and after a few weeks I can say that 4GB is not enough for such a device.

I added 64 GB to store music and photos, but currently my memory usage stats look like this:
wp_ss_20121220_0002.png

Once in a while the device starts warning me that I have to clean up memory.
There is nothing I can do to reduce the 2.02 GB used for System
Other probably contains mail and contact information.

I will move on to something else, even though I love the form factor of the HTC Windows Phone 8S. It is by far the sexiest Windows Phone 8 device on the market.