Hello, my name’s Tom and this is Proper Honest Tech. Choosing an iPhone model has, I think, got a bit easier this year than in previous years, if you’ve decided that you’re definitely purchasing a 13 of some description. No more having to choose the iPhone Pro Max just to get all of the latest features… Across the board, from the iPhone 13 Mini to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, MOST of the key features are present on all of the phones this year, with the Pros having extra cameras, some exclusive features, and of course the larger size with the Max.
So, let’s assume that you know whether you’re going to be purchasing a Mini, a regular iPhone, a Pro or a Pro Max. And for the sake of getting this video started, let’s also assume you know what colour you want. Your last big decision, and a decision that a lot of people struggle with, is deciding what storage option to choose. And this is where things can all get a bit complicated. Because in some instances, you can double your storage for the relatively small cost of $100. But at the same time, nobody wants to spend money that they don’t need to spend, and why pay extra for a phone where you only end up using 10% of the available storage? So in this video, I’m going to present to you 7 questions that I think you should ask yourself when choosing your iphone 13, to ensure you get the right amount of storage for you. Question 1 – How much storage do you currently use? This should be the starting point for all conversations about iPhone storage sizes…
What’s your current usage situation? And, this doesn’t matter if you’re not on an iPhone at the moment, I’m going to assume that even if you’re jumping from Android to an iPhone 13, you’re still able to see what your storage consumption is. Chances are, that usage is based on years of you using your phone each day exactly the way that you like to, and getting into some kind of habits about the way that you use it, what you download, what you store locally, what you store in the cloud, what you stream etc.
So, if you’re finding that right now, on your current device, you’re only using say, 40gb, why would you assume that you’re going to suddenly require an additional 960gb, and therefore opt for the 1TB option? Yes, you want room to grow into on your new phone, but you also don’t want to waste money on space that you’re simply never going to use. Take a note of your current usage, and then keep that in mind when we’re discussing the other questions. Oh, and if you’re not sure how to do this, if you’re on an iPhone, go to Settings, General, About, and look at this section here, it will give you lots of useful information. Question 2 – Do you regularly have to delete things at present? If you’re spending a lot of your time on your phone deleting photos, videos, apps, or anything else which you feel adds value to your iPhone experience, then quite simply, you don’t have enough storage at present.
Like we talked about in the previous question, identify how much storage you have at the moment, and look to increase it, because the fact that you’re constantly having to delete things, means that you need more storage. Question 3 – What do you primarily use your iPhone for? Now, most people, myself included, are probably going to say that they use their iPhone primarily as a communication device. But I want you to do is take a moment and really consider, on a day-to-day basis, what storage-heavy uses do you have for your iPhone? For example, I use mine to record a lot of my YouTube videos, which I do in 4K, at 30 frames per second. And whilst I do tend to dump the footage straight onto my Mac via AirDrop and then delete the footage from my phone, if I’m capturing lots of footage, the files can quickly add up. I don’t tend to take a lot of video for my own personal usage, but it’s something I want to get more into the habit of doing. What about you? Perhaps you’ve got kids or pets and you like to take photos and videos of them every day? Maybe you travel a lot, or you’re just passionate about photography or videography.
Maybe you produce music and like to capture loads of audio samples. All of these are hobbies or activities that are likely to have a heavy reliance on file sizes, and the last thing that you want is your creativity being hampered by your phone’s storage. If we look just at photos and videos as an example. I exported the last 5 images I took on my current iPhone, an iPhone XS, and found that they were on average 3MB in size each. Let’s use this, and therefore assume that for each gig of storage, you can fit around 333 photos on your phone. So 128gb of storage, is in theory going to allow for around 42,000 photos. But that would also mean that you’ve then got no space for apps, videos, games or the operating system of your phone. 42,000 photos seems like a lot to me, but if you for example took 25 photos a day, in a year that would be almost 10,000 photos. You can see how, for some people, they really do need the space. And when it comes to video, 1 hour of 4K HEVC footage at 60 frames per second will take up around 24gb.
Again, an hour of footage might sound like a lot… but consider how many videos you take of a minute duration or more, and you can see how quickly it can all add up. Question 4 – What kind of apps do you download? Recent research shows that apps in general are getting much larger, with the core size of apps like Amazon, Gmail, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok and others all being around 4 times larger today than they were back in 2016. In other words, you need 4 times the available storage on your phone just to host the same apps you’ve been using for years. And as apps become more powerful and complex, I’d guess that this trend is likely to continue. So think about the kind of apps that you use on your device. If you run the core iPhone apps, and just a handful of social media apps on top, you might be comfortable with opting for less storage. On the other hand, if you run creative apps like video or audio editing suites, or professional tools like animation or CAD apps, or even games that take advantage of the immense power of new iPhones, you might well want to invest in more storage, to ensure that you’ve got enough space to run everything smoothly today, and in the future.
Question 5 – How long do you plan on keeping the iPhone? I put this question right after the previous question, because they’re kind of linked. Apps growing year-on-year isn’t necessarily an issue, if you’ve got the money to be upgrading your phone every year. Because, you could feasibly opt for 256gb of space today, and if you find that you’re almost running out in 11 month’s time, you know that you need more when you buy the next phone. But what if you plan on holding onto the phone for the next 2 or 3 years? You want to futureproof your purchase as much as possible, especially when you consider that the jump in cost with storage isn’t as awful as it might seem.
For example, on the iPhone 13 Pro, the difference in cost from the lowest storage, 128gb, to the largest storage, 1TB, is $500. Now that might sound like a lot of money, and it is, but you’re getting almost 8 times the storage on the 1TB model. My advice would be that if you know you’re going to hold onto the phone for 2 or 3 years, try to work out the minimum storage you’d need to get you through the next 12 months, and then purchase the phone that comes closest to double that storage capacity, hopefully future-proofing you for the foreseeable.
Question 6 – Do you use, and are you happy with Cloud Storage? Years ago, pre iCloud, if you took a lot of photos and videos with your phone, you either had to accept that whatever storage you had on your phone was your lot, or you had to have a local backup option, like syncing your phone with your computer. But thanks to cloud storage solutions like iCloud, you don’t have to be quite as restrictive anymore. Your phone has settings built in to offload files to the cloud in order to save space on your device. It’s why, if you view a photo that you’ve not viewed for a while, it shows that little white circle at the bottom, where your device is downloading the full res version from the cloud. The same with video, often times you’ll actually be streaming your video file, rather than watching it locally on your device.
And if you’re happy with how that works for you, then you perhaps don’t need to worry quite so much about iPhone storage, and can think more about having a suitable cloud plan instead. But what if you live in an area where cell coverage is poor? Or your home wifi is slow? You might prefer to store everything locally and not have your device automatically punt things to the cloud for you. And if that’s the case, make sure you’ve got the space to do that.
Question 7 – Do you want access to the Pro Res video function in 4K? A significant feature that’s coming to the iPhone Pros in the near future, is the ability to record video in ProRes format, which has the potential to be a killer feature for anyone who uses their iphones for creating video content, and wants the best possible video files.
However, due to the file size, which I believe is around 4gb for every minute of 4K Pro Res footage, Apple have limited the 4K functionality of this feature to the 256gb storage options and above on the Pros, and the feature isn’t available at all on the iPhone 13 or Mini. In a way, I get it… 10 minutes of footage would sap a third of the storage of a 128gb phone. But at the same time, it would have been nice to just let people do it anyway, we’re all grownups after all. Nevertheless, if this feature is important to you, you HAVE to plump for the 256gb storage option as an absolute minimum, and you may want to consider going even higher. After all, 20 minutes of footage is going to use up around 100gb of space, so the 512gb option might be a good shout if you plan on taking your phone out on long video shoots, and then exporting the footage back at the end of the day.
Hard to tell until we can play around with Pro Res video, whether or not it’s going to be worth it, but it’s the only reason I’ve opted for a 256gb Pro rather than a 128gb Pro, I really wanted to be able to at least test the feature out. So there you go, 7 questions to ask yourself when choosing the right storage option for you. It’s a tricky one, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, no matter what you might think, and you really do have to consider lots of options before you spend your cash. But it’s worth it in the long run, getting you the absolute best bang for your buck. What about you, what storage option have you gone for, assuming you’re buying an iPhone 13? Drop me a comment, and let’s talk about it. And as ever, I hope you found this video useful, if you did, do please consider leaving me a like, and subscribing to my channel for more content like this in the future. See you on the next video.
