unifying memories in android phones

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PatrickCT

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Hi guys

I'm fishing for informtion here. I'm looking for a mid-range android phone in which I can easily unify the secondary and primary memory, so that the phone sees it all as primary memory.

I have a huawei p8 lite 2017 with 16 GB ram (primary memory).The 16GB is full and I cannot install more apps. I also have a 128GB sdcard (secondary memory). I have moved whatever I can to the sdcard, including all downloads, whatsapp and camera media. It is now the selected storage device. I have tried via the phone settings and via various utilities to move installed apps to secondary memory, but to no avail. Also, many of these apps give one no option to install to secondary memory, so uninstallation followed by reinstallation does not work. So I sit with 16GB full and an almost-empty 128GB.

There are two major android issues and one huawei issue here:
Android uses segmented memory architecture. I thought that I had seen the last of this philosophy with the 8088/8086 architecture.
Apps tend to be written to install to primary memory.
Certainly most of the ones I have give one no option to install to secondary memory, and there is not option to move them to secondary memory via the phone menu or utilities.
Huawei's android presentation layer (emui) makes it difficult to migrate apps to secondary memory.

I understand the segmented memory philosophy is for security purposes, but I imagine that the os designers at the time didn't foresee the app explosion and subsequent demand for storage space.

I recall reading about low-level techniques for unifying the memories, but would rather find a phone that allows one to do this natively.I also see that some phone manufacturers don't support this.

I'm not concerned that apps may operate slower if installed to sdcard, nor that the sdcard may have to remain permanenty in the phone. What I don't want is to be forced into a constant upgrade cycle just to increase primry memory. My present phone is adequate for my purposes and, memory constraints notwithstanding, I'd use it until its android version is deprecated and it becomes impractical to use.

So, the question is: are there mid-range phones/phone families that will allow me to natively merge primary and secondary memory, so that they appear to android as a single, contiguous memory? Any valid advice and information will be appreciated!
 
PatrickCT said:
I understand the segmented memory philosophy is for security purposes, but I imagine that the os designers at the time didn't foresee the app explosion and subsequent demand for storage space.
Click to expand...
No, the main reason was not security, but how SD card flash memory is pretty unreliable and prone to failure, also often being quite slow.

Modern mid-range phones have 64-128GB of storage, you'll be fine for most apps with it now, things like photos/video can easily be put on your external, you don't need to attempt the unified memory bit.
 
Johnatan56 said:
No, the main reason was not security, but how SD card flash memory is pretty unreliable and prone to failure, also often being quite slow.

Modern mid-range phones have 64-128GB of storage, you'll be fine for most apps with it now, things like photos/video can easily be put on your external, you don't need to attempt the unified memory bit.
Click to expand...
OK. I read that android is derived from unix and the segmented memory architecture was due to security. But I have virtually no knowledge of android, beyond what i need to know to use my phone. Although 64GB sounds good now, it does look like cellphones, like computers, are in the ever-increasing hardware capability/software demand spiral. Soon 64GB won't be enough.
 
PatrickCT said:
packages at R


I stick to low to mid-range phones. So packages of a few R100/month, or a phone of R2-3k.
Click to expand...
Most phones in this price range worth buying will be coming with 64GB primary storage, so you should be okay coming from 16GB with most of the newer phones in this price bracket.. they would also have SD card slots, so you would be able to push all non-app storage to the SD card to help save the 64GB..
 

Currently R2999 and usual price R3200. Great phone for the price.

POCO M3 128GB dualsim.
 
You can also find 128gb with memory card slot but that will be slightly more
 
VERY late response, I know. I checked out the suggested models and ended up buying a Xiamo Redmi Note 10S on a MTN contract. So thanks for all your advice. Good phone, still working fine. Dual sim, 128GB, and I made a 128GB sd card the default storage for camera, themes and gallery. Unfortunately there isn't the ability to point the user data of apps to the sd card; anycase it seems that many newer phones do not have slots for sd cards.
 
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