The Galaxy S23 series, Samsung’s latest flagship, runs Android 13 with the One UI 5.1 user interface. The operating system consumes 60 GB of the phone’s memory, leaving just half of the 128 GB free for user data.
The software takes up a lot of space because of pre-installed apps and proprietary Samsung services that duplicate similar Google software solutions and cannot be uninstalled since they have system status. The issue is particularly severe in Western markets such as the United States and Europe.
The cause for the system’s large amount of memory usage is still unknown, and some speculate that Samsung is not employing the Android A/B Seamless Updates feature. By installing updates on a separate partition, this functionality would drastically minimise the time necessary to install them. Buyers who want more storage for their data are worried about a large amount of space used up by the software.
In comparison, the Android 13 operating system on the Google Pixel 7 consumes around 15 GB, while Windows 11 on PCs consumes approximately 30 GB. The Samsung Galaxy S23’s operating system is more than double the size of Windows 11.
