It looks like I’ve found the first big Achilles Heel of this thing, and for me, it might just be a deal breaker.
The Telstra edition of the Desire does not have enough memory. The specs say it has 512Mb ROM, which is where I’m assuming the apps are stored and run from. That doesn’t sound like much, but most Android apps that I’ve found take up a few hundred Kb or less. With several in the 1-5Mb range. The apps I have installed add up to a grand total of 30Mb. If I add up all the apps and storage in my apps list under Menu>Settings>SD and phone storage, it comes to a touch over 120Mb.
Even considering how much space Android OS (unzipped, Eclair is around 250Mb, I’m unsure how much more space Sense uses) takes up, I’ve got to imagine that’s nowhere near 512Mb.
You’d think I had plenty of app storage left, but apparently, this is not the case. I’ve already had to uninstall some apps that I downloaded as I had begun getting storage space warnings. Where’s all the memory gone? Until the Froyo version of Android, I can’t install apps to my MicroSD card unless I root the device and run apps2sd.
I’m not averse to doing that, but I shouldn’t have to, right? I’ve installed nearly 100 apps on my iPhone 3GS and it hasn’t even blinked.
I’m thinking this is a problem. So, how to solve it?
I know, delete the Telstra apps and icons that are preinstalled and of no use to me. Good idea, right? Wrong. You can’t delete them. Typically of telcos and their modded phone OSes, there’s a wealth (around 20) of largely useless and not very good quality Telstra or BigPond branded apps and links that are tightly bound into the install. They register as 0Kb in size, but they must consume some space, right?
So now, I’m just annoyed. I am running out of storage and I can’t remove the preinstalled apps that are the likely cause of my pain.
Disclaimer: I’ve been gifted an HTC Desire by Telstra and they want me to review it here, on Twitter, etc. Sorry if my tweets (and those of my fellow reviewers) have irritated you. I noticed they were getting up the collective noses of a few folk today.
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Don’t you just love telcos that want to own the whole stack, and assume you have no better idea than to accept the dross they serve up …