vB Easy Archive - Memory Shortage on SmartFlip

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Memory Shortage on SmartFlip
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Posted by: davidwsica

I've had the SmartFlip for about 2 weeks and I seem to be continually fighting available memory issues. I've moved my IE cache to the card, installed most programs to the card if they will run there (most will except SplashID), and tried to delete obviously unnecessary files but I'm still only about 1MB free space. Any other tricks out there for freeing up memory on the SmartFlip? Is there a way to store email on the card?

I'm just waiting for a smartphone with 128MB flash rom. I can't believe they load all these smartphones with just 64MB, it's truly crippling if you want to load anything on them.

Thanks,
David

Posted by: hylton

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidwsica

I've had the SmartFlip for about 2 weeks and I seem to be continually fighting available memory issues. I've moved my IE cache to the card, installed most programs to the card if they will run there (most will except SplashID), and tried to delete obviously unnecessary files but I'm still only about 1MB free space. Any other tricks out there for freeing up memory on the SmartFlip? Is there a way to store email on the card?

I'm just waiting for a smartphone with 128MB flash rom. I can't believe they load all these smartphones with just 64MB, it's truly crippling if you want to load anything on them.

Thanks,
David

Yep, this is the biggest problem w/ this phone, given that the missed call problem can be resolved w/ a ROM flash. But, the memory is a huge issue...if you hard reset, you'll probably find you only had about 5mb of available memory. This has been discussed some, but so far, nobody has found a way to free up space.

This was a HUGE oversight on HTC's part if you ask me. There is no reason the ROM needs 64mb, even for WM5. But I agree, they should have just gone w/ a 128mb flash rom and been done w/ it, then the phone would be usable as a PDA. Early on in the StrTrk rumor-mill, there was talk of a second-generation release of the phone w/ a 128mb rom, but it was never confirmed...but that would make this phone super-sweet.

As it is, the more I hear people complain about the low memory, the more I'm thinkin' I'm just gonna scrap my plans to buy one and go for something else...

Unlikely that Cingular is aware of this issue, but maybe everybody will get lucky and Cingular will choose to remove as much as possible from the ROM before they start selling this device and offer it w/ enough memory to be useful.

Chris

Posted by: IPahwa

I have 11 MB available storage on QTEK 8500 with iMate Rom. The puzzling thing is that imate rom has clearvue suite built in the ROM and phone still shows more memory as compared to QTEK ROM which does not have Clearvue included in the ROM. I am not sure if this helps or not. I installed new version of Net CF 2.0 on the memory card but still it hogged 4 MB internal memory of my phone. Once I uninstalled it, memory did recover to its original storage space. You may want to check the programs that you installed on the memory card (esp the one that has plug in for the homescreen display such as Fizz Weather) as they do install .dll files in the internal memory. Other thing you can do is to move all the files under \windows\App Mgr EXCEPT install folder to memory card. Only draw back is if you need to uninstall any program, you will have to move that folder back to windows\app mgr. Otherwise you can save your self some precious storage space. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks

Posted by: RonAnnArbor

I also found that I had between 10 -12 MB free of rom after installing the iMate smart flip rom on my Qtek 8500...

I have about 500 contacts in my phones, and about 360 entries in the caledar program, 50 tasks on the tasklist, and 30 notes or so synced with smartnotes, Battery Pack pro is on the phone itself, everything else I have installed has been on the card.

I read a discussion somewhere else about saving email to the memory card, but can not find for the life of me where. If you read through the Cingular forum on the 2125, the same techniques discussed there will work for the 8500.

Posted by: hylton

That's good news about the imate ROM, hopefully the Cingular ROM will have at least 10mb available. I'm currently running about 5-6mb of apps on my MPx220, but that doesn't include Copilot. But as long as there is enough memory to not be constantly getting low memory errors, I'd be willing to rely on the microSD for everything but things that would only run on the phone.

5mb was definitely too little, 10mb is still bad, but at least you could avoid low memory errors all the time w/ 10mb.

Chris

Posted by: Eagle117

What about contacts and calendar entries? I have about 300 contacts and 150 calendar entries. Will these take up all available free space and fill up one of these? As soon as the 3125 comes out I plan on getting one but these memory reports are a bit concerning.

Posted by: gregski

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonAnnArbor

I read a discussion somewhere else about saving email to the memory card, but can not find for the life of me where. If you read through the Cingular forum on the 2125, the same techniques discussed there will work for the 8500.

There is a thread discussing that mod here . It is for the SP5/Tornado, but should work for any WM5 device. You can find it near the bottom of page 2.

Posted by: hylton

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle117

What about contacts and calendar entries? I have about 300 contacts and 150 calendar entries. Will these take up all available free space and fill up one of these? As soon as the 3125 comes out I plan on getting one but these memory reports are a bit concerning.

That won't take up enough space to matter. The bigger issue w/ memory is how many apps you install and then how much space IE history eats up...between those two things, you can end up frequently getting low memory messages.

The other thing I'll add to the discussion is that John1027 had posted (in another thread) about getting low memory errors, he had the IMATE. I don't know how much memroy he had left, but he must have had a ton of apps installed to have eaten up 10mb+ of space. Either way, 10mb isn't much, it's only tolerable.

Posted by: IPahwa

Quote:

Originally Posted by hylton

Either way, 10mb isn't much, it's only tolerable.

I agree with you. HTC Mteor has 128 MB ROM but the form factor is not that appealing. I guess sometimes, when we buy "cute" phones, there is always a trade off in other aspects. It's not that HTC could not jam more memory in this phone but i think in their vision, these type of cute phones are going to be used by "non-business" clients and hence don't need more memory or IR or.......

Posted by: gregski

Another good resource to free up memory rather quickly is Oxios Memory . Very easy to use.

Posted by: conan_troutman

Quote:

Another good resource to free up memory rather quickly is Oxios Memory . Very easy to use.

yeah but that releases program memory not flash memory also if any one has resco toys you will notice that the htc does not have the flash memory sperate to that in which the rom is installed on as it is in the MPX220.

also not sure how a rom upgrade could create 128 mb of memory would it be a hard ware upgrade to do that?

just to show the pathetic use of memory on wm5 on my old MPX220 I had 33 aplets installed to the phone and never got any low memory warning now on my WM5 phone I only got 4 installed before I got the warning I could not even install the rest to the sd card until I dleted two form the phone to create enough memory for the cab file to be staored when using activesync to install them.

Posted by: hylton

Yea, a 128mb ROM version of this phone would be a different phone...new hardware...I meant that early when this phone was a rumor, there was a rumor that there might be a second product developed w/ 128mb hardware and ROM...but again, it was just that, rumor...may never happen, especially if this device falls flat on it's face b/c of the problems w/ it.

Chris

Posted by: john1027

Quote:

Originally Posted by hylton

Hi Chris - saw your comments and you are right that I experienced the low memory errors that you get with just the minimal installed. It was really no worse than any other smartphone I've tried though. It is just that 64mb is simplu just too low for many if you are trying to use the device to its fullest extent as both a phone and a scaled down PDA.

I never checked to see what I had on the smartflip after a hard reset, but I can tell you that I loaded everyting extra I had onto the card to include ringtones, programs, etc. Other than a couple minor programs, I had nothing in main memory. It may have been a combination of contacts, email, etc. I do wish that i-Mate gave you the option of putting ClearVue on the card also as it would free up a lot. I left the ie cache and email on my main memory and cleaned them manually often. I have experienced the well-documented extra directories that can appear on the SD card when you chose to have email and ie write to the card. I just got tired of trying to fix that problem each time it happened and opted to leave them in main memory. BTW in doing so I never had the extra storage card folder problems pop-up. Even when you put programs on the card, dlls are created in main memory and all of those take a piece of the memory also.

I will just have to stick with a ppc device until either someone comes out with a device that is a nice as the star trek with 128mb. There was some rumors of a second genration of a star trek with 128mb, but those died off and were probably just speculation, but one can hope.

Posted by: RonAnnArbor

I will second that any themes, ringtones, photos, etc should all be stored on the memory card, and not on the phone proper. I looked at my memory card and between background images, photos, ringtones, wallpaper it eats up a good 10 MB of storage space. If that was all on the phone, I would have had memory errors as well.

Posted by: rev12

Once you installed your ringtones to your storage card - Are you able to select them as ringtones - if so how were you able to set that up? I am sure that would be helpful for me to free up some memory. Thanks.

Posted by: conan_troutman

just place all ring tones (ones you want selcting in the ring tones category) direct to the storage route or ina My Documents folder on the staorage card.

they should selct automaitcally

Posted by: davidwsica

Quote:

Originally Posted by rev12

Once you installed your ringtones to your storage card - Are you able to select them as ringtones - if so how were you able to set that up? I am sure that would be helpful for me to free up some memory. Thanks.

What about themes also?

Posted by: conan_troutman

i have found some home screen plugin such as Patrick sullivans scrolling calendar when picked to install to card creates a application data/ Home on your card so maybe more can moved there too with a reg edit to show where it now lies. as for ring tones on cards see above ther was no regediting involved for my qtek 8310

Posted by: DereX888

Check these folders first for any unwanted/unneeded files:
\Storage\Application Data\Home\ <-can have many home screens and their pics
\Storage\Application Data\Sounds\ <-always loaded with tons of unneeded rings
\Storage\My Documents\ <-often loaded with stupid animated files & backgrounds
\Storage\Program Files\ <-always have some unneeded ****, but be careful here
i.e. my phone had \Storage\Program Files\de\ loaded with lots of dfiles and subfolders in german language; apparently I won't use it in other than US-EN language so it was a waste of ~1MB; there were other programs and their folders like \Storage\Program Files\Software Store\ with crap to connect to web and buy already outdated progs containing screencaps banners and their infos etc - jeeeezus, what a waste of space...

After reset I always clean up and 'slim down' all such junk on my phone, which always give extra 3+MB of space on this particular VOQ model (your 'mileage' may vary).

I hate when manufacturer's shortsightness hurt me, the customer, in a longer run. They include soft in the ROM and fail to notice that such soft is usually outdated within a year (I have i.e. Resco Battery & Memory meter included in ROM, v.1.1 i believe, while I install always newest version anyways - so i'll be glad if they wouldn't include old prog in the ROM obviously).

idea:

Lets all send them messages to manufacturers, maybe they'll listen if 1000s of ppl will bug them not to do that, and they'll include 'extra' software as installers on a CD instead of stuffing it up our ROMs...

Posted by: AC407

My 3125 is cingular branded and when I go into Task Manager>Menu>System Info I get the following:

Memory Information:
Storage Memory:75.25 MB
Used: 12.75 MB
Free: 62.50 MB

Program Memory: 44.84 MB
Used: 21.34 MB
Free: 23.50 MB

Isnt that adequate?

Posted by: RonAnnArbor

Your Cingular 3125 phone is a beta phone - you are not going to get the exact same performance anybody else would - the regular phones are not going to come with as much memory as you have in your phone - they will come with 64 MB. Your beta phone had more memory in it so that the beta testers could try additional software while testing the phones. YOUR particular phone has plenty of memory. Anyone else with the upcoming Cingular, or current Dopod, QTek, or iMate phones will only have a total of 64 MB to work with. If that 64 MB, 3 are hidden files that are used specifically by the phone itself, leaving users about 61 MB of free memory.

Posted by: AC407

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonAnnArbor

Your Cingular 3125 phone is a beta phone - you are not going to get the exact same performance anybody else would - the regular phones are not going to come with as much memory as you have in your phone - they will come with 64 MB. Your beta phone had more memory in it so that the beta testers could try additional software while testing the phones. YOUR particular phone has plenty of memory. Anyone else with the upcoming Cingular, or current Dopod, QTek, or iMate phones will only have a total of 64 MB to work with. If that 64 MB, 3 are hidden files that are used specifically by the phone itself, leaving users about 61 MB of free memory.

O ok thanks for the info