The presence of a microSD slot in the Samsung Galaxy S4 justifies software taking up nearly half of the available storage on the 16GB version of the handset, the company has said.
The Korean giant has been criticised by users of their newest flagship smartphone, who switched on their 16GB devices only to find just over 8GB of space for their own photos, music, apps and more.
The rest is taken up by the Android operating system and Samsung's pre-installed apps and software nuances, but it's left many fans feeling ripped off.
However with an additional 32GB available through a MicroSD card, Samsung says there's plenty of room for additional files.
In a statement sent to CNET, Samsung says, "For the Galaxy S4 16GB model, approximately 6.85GB occupies [the] system part of internal memory, which is 1GB bigger than that of the Galaxy S3, in order to provide [a] high resolution display and more powerful features to our consumers."
I'm not sure how the S4's 1080p display would impact storage that much -- although the images and assets used in each app would have to be higher-res -- but the statement continues, "To offer the ultimate mobile experience to our users, Samsung provides [a] microSD slot on Galaxy S4 for extension of memory."
MicroSD app limits
Unlike the HTC One and iPhone 5, the Galaxy S4 does come with a microSD card slot, to expand the amount of storage at your disposal. What you might not know, however, is that Samsung doesn't let you install apps onto that card.
That means that while you can buy extra space for photos and videos, you'll need to keep a close eye on how many apps you install. Cutting-edge games will hog space -- Real Racing 3 for example asks for at least 1.2GB of free space on your phone, so it's easy to see how the S4's 8GB could quickly fill up.
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