Other half persuaded me to buy a modern phone and I ended up with a Sony Xperia Neo – fitted nice in the hand and ran very smoothly (more so than a lot in the shop) and the ‘Bravia’ screen was very nice.

I am bit out of of touch but have just looked it up and it has 320mb of internal memory which is for apps etc – that doesnt seem a lot to me and a quick google suggests that if I do something called rooting I can install apps to the memory card – but does this wipe all the sony software? I realised I am stuck with this thing for 2 years and I remember on my old TyTn I ran out of application space and it annoyed me.

Should I return it and get something with more? tbh It had the nicest screen of most I looked at and was the only phone with HDMI out (which I fancy for various reasons) that didn’t have a huge 4″ or bigger screen as 3.7″ just seemed to be a nicer phone size and didn’t feel like holding some big slab of a phone up to my face.

Another irritation is that I realised when I got home I could have got £90 cash back via one of the cashback sites – I did email the store as they had a price match promise but the best they could do was £40 of stuff as the cash back was direct from the carrier so they can’t compete with it.

You don’t need to root the device to move stuff to the memory card. Install the app and then go to Settings->Applications->Manage Applications and select that App. You should be offered the option to move it to the SD card.

Not every app offers this but it is becoming far more common. With some you may need to stop the app first.

However, rooting doesn’t typically wipe the original software, it usually just modifies it. You can install custom roms which is a complete wipe, but that’s probably not for you.

Oh, and 320Mb is quite a lot to be honest. Android apps are developed with space in mind. Unless you’re installing some monsters, that will probably be fine.
Also, some apps will install to SD card automatically nowadays.

The caveat there is that this functionality requires Android 2.2 or higher. I don’t know what the current firmware is for the Neo (though Sony do tend to be somewhat slow on releases), but you might need to update.

Losing the Sony software would happen if you start installing custom ROMs, but not just by rooting.

Are you actually out of space or just worrying randomly? It might not ‘sound a lot’ but apps aren’t generally all that big.

Those phones come with Gingerbread installed, he’ll be fine.

Cheers,

So it looks okay then? I was expecting to get a HTC phone but the Sony seemed okay and small enough to mount onto the bike for GPS (in a suitable case). The 4-4.3″ monsters just seemed too big and there doesn’t seem much choice out there in the sub 4″ range. Especially on a sub £30 price plan and with front camera as I intend to use the phone for Skype calls as we do this a lot more with customers these days (across wi-fi of course).

I used to have a highly modified HTC Tytn years ago but for the last couple of years I have been using a ‘normal’ phone with a normal numeric keypad and 2mp camera and having to delete sms messages to make way for new ones!

yeah it is Gingerbread – which I just looked up and it seems it has the new Nav 5.0 which caches data and uses less – which should save some of my 500mb data (I swear I used to get more data and more minutes on Tmobile for the same money back in 2006!).

and yup – worrying now before I find out the bad way. Don’t want to be stuck with a turkey for 24 months.

One unfortunate thing I did just find out via google is that Sony put a really strong compression on to get the pictures under 1mb. Obviously I have my proper camera for photos and hate people taking pictures on phones when they should be using proper cameras but i was attracted to having something with a decent camera that works in poor light (the sony is supposed to) but now it seems that SE have ballsed that up with compression you can’t alter.

I am bit out of of touch but have just looked it up and it has 320mb of internal memory which is for apps etc – that doesnt seem a lot to me

You should find out if it’s too little rather than just assuming! Most of the big apps I have downloaded seem to be 2-3Mb.

This is why I am asking….

I’m considering joining the smartphone age, SE Xperia Arc being on my short list. However, I’m close to throwing in the towel, shortly after my head explodes.

I know what you mean! I am now wondering if I should have gone for the Desire S or Sensation with a big screen – too big for sticking on a bike though?

Some apps can be quite big but by that I mean, 15Mb and as above, most if not all will move onto your SD card. I’ve had my Wildfire for about a year now, it’s been fine and I’ve got loads of crap on there. Most of it is on the SD card.

That’s a good phone you have there Andy, stop fretting. 😉

I don’t know if you plan to put any games on it but a couple of the ones I have on take up around 500-700 mb!There are a couple of tough smartphones out there B.A.Nana like the motorola defy.

You should find out if it’s too little rather than just assuming! Most of the big apps I have downloaded seem to be 2-3Mb.

Helpful.

The Xperia ARC has a very good camera sensor if that matters?

Most of the big apps I have downloaded seem to be 2-3Mb.

Surely some of the games must be bigger than that?? 😯

Some of the big apps on my phone are 800MB+ (i.e. Grand Theft Auto, Settlers, Civilisation, Infinity Blade, Rage HD). I know the ‘droid is different to my iPhone, but surely there is a pretty fundamental limit to how small they can make apps like those?

Yeah, but as said, the “big” apps go mostly on /sdcard.