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I have a Samsung Galaxy S7, which I'm sure is considered ancient technology now, but does everything I need it to do, so I don't really want to send it to the big hole in the ground and have to buy a new one.
But I have the same inevitable problems: running out of built-in storage, and shorter battery life (actually a little more complicated than that, I'll get to it).
Storage: I use as few apps as possible, using a browser where possible, store as much data (photos, files, etc.) on the SD card as possible, and have deleted all the caches, etc. I can find, yet still 32Gb seems to be filled up with crap.
What's the best way of clearing stuff out? Factory reset and manually install required apps? I've used the "restore" type function before and it seems to bring all the crap over.
Battery: I bought this phone re-furbed and swapped a nearly new battery out of my previous phone that died a premature death due to water ingress. The capacity is probably still ok, but the battery management has never caught up - it won't charge beyond "80%" at the very most, drops off a cliff below "30%", and is very selective about what chargers it will actually charge from.
Happy to replace the battery, but don't want to end up in the same situation.
I tried a few apps that are supposed to "reset" the battery management, but they didn't really work.
Cheers
I'd start with a factory rest, then, on the storage side, when you add the SD card there may be an option to add it as internal storage so you don't have to faff with what you keep where, the phone will just see it has a big old pool of storage capacity. Depends what Android release you're on (and possibly whether it's something that Samsung have enabled, but they're normally pretty good about leaving stuff like that available).
As for battery, I think it's just probably borked.
For many reasons I would get a new phone.
The main reason being security updates or lack of. The S7 doesn't get updates anymore so anytime you use your phone to buy something online or do some banking you are at risk. Even logging into forums etc your details are at risk. Name and address can be got from anywhere granted but you should still be aware that your device is not getting security updates as of over a year ago.
Better off with a lower level newer phone if you want to save pennies.
I had an S7 Edge and it was an amazing bit of kit but that was years ago. As mentioned above it's way behind modern security patches. Send this one to the recycler and get something newer.
The suggestion above to use the SD card as combined storage is sadly not an option, Samsung wouldn't enable it as it opens the floodgates to complaints that the phone is slow because performance is then pegged at the speed of a potentially cheap and slow SD card and not the onboard storage.
The good news is that Samsung are much better now at supporting devices with updates so treat yourself to a new Samsung, you might even be able to trade your old one against it and it'll get recycled then.
does everything I need it to do
... other than battery life and storage.
You could uninstall stuff you don't use - there's a storage manager on the phone - or factory reset / adopted storage as IHN said (obviously you have everything backed up, yes?) but really, Marky's on the money. That's, what, a six-year old phone that wasn't new when you got it, it owes you nowt.
Firstly, I really do appreciate people offering advice, so please don't take this the wrong way, but...
What a sorry state of affairs, no wonder the world's in the state it's in.
does everything I need it to do
… other than battery life and storage.
I take your point, but neither of these are problems to which "throw it away and buy a new one" seems like a proportionate solution.
The battery lasts all day, even if I spend too long scrolling through the forum. The storage thing is a minor annoyance, maybe sortable with a factory reset. Appreciate the comments as I say, and I won't say I wasn't warned about security, but I'll stick this out for a while yet. Cheers.
Melodramatic "state of the world" or no, that's how phones are designed I'm afraid. We've been conditioned to think "end of contract" = "time for my next 'free' phone, yay new shinies!"
Mine's four years old and I only retired its (older) predecessor because it actually died, but I seem to be in the minority. Even my luddite other half is getting New Phone Twitchiness.
Anyway. If the battery lasts all day then I wouldn't lose any sleep over what %ages appear on the screen.
What a sorry state of affairs
There are infinitely repairable phones available - Fairphone is one, not sure if there are more.
Re battery - get a replacement professional installed with a genuine part. It should be fine. I had the battery replaced in my S9, it's still in use now by my daughter.
Re the storage - factor reset. If you're synced to the cloud, it'll re-create everything but without the associated choss that's filling up your storage.
Do you a have a podcast app?
Mine was downloading everything I subscribed too, 24gb!!!!!
I ditched my S7 (saved as a spare) in January because the battery was getting bad, but there’s no way I was getting a full day out of it. I’d still use it if that was the case.
Re: storage - why on earth are you messing about with 32Gb of storage, and then complaining about lack of storage? You can get a Samsung 256Gb MicroSD card from Amazon for £35!
The Samsung Galaxy S7 comes with a decent amount of storage space out of the box, but if you find yourself running out, you might want to consider expanding it. Samsung’s Galaxy S7 actually supports expanded microSD storage up to a whopping 512GB. Suffice to say, your phone will be able to hold a lot of data, if you so choose. Not sure what the best Micro SD card for Galaxy S7? Follow along below, and we’ll show you the best options currently available to you.
This might help a bit - https://bgr.com/tech/galaxy-s7-storage-memory-microsd/
You can even get a Samsung EVO 512Gb card from Amazon for £69.75, which is astonishingly cheap - I can remember, not so very long ago a card of that capacity would cost you around £800!
Re: storage – why on earth are you messing about with 32Gb of storage, and then complaining about lack of storage? You can get a Samsung 256Gb MicroSD card from Amazon for £35!
Perhaps you misread the op’s op, where he states he stores as much data on the sd card as possible but the inbuilt 32Gb still fills up quickly...
There are infinitely repairable phones available
to be fair phones are generally very very repairable, samsungs motorolas and honors/hauwiaeiiaiieiaiiiieiis I have had apart are quite modular. the biggest hassle is getteing the screen off
Yes, phones are repairable. I made a deal with myself a while ago that I wouldn't change a phone unless it broke and since then most of them broke shortly after the contract was up. And I mean packed up, not just a screen crack. The exception is the S9 I changed for the S21 last year because we wanted a phone for my daughter, and she has the S9.
Samsungs can be repaired by WeFix who come to your door and do it in their van, it's pretty good. It was £80 for a battery on the S9 I think. Much cheaper than a new phone. I have a Google Pixel 2 in the drawer which was my wife's then my other daughter's, you have to send them back to Google for a new battery which is very inconvenient when it's your only phone.
The Android File Manager app from Google can really clear out crap well - try that first.
https://support.google.com/files/answer/9848742?hl=en-GB
Just a suggestion. Whatsapp has its own storage outside of what is in the phones gallery. Mine is sitting at about 7 gig. There's photo's in there from when I first started using the App. Might be worth having a look in there & freeing up some space.
You can even get a Samsung EVO 512Gb card from Amazon for £69.75, which is astonishingly cheap
It was £80 for a battery on the S9 I think
So there you go. You can can keep a five-year old phone that hasn't seen an update in three years limping along for just £150. Bargain!
More seriously: I'd be amazed if that phone supported a card that big. 128GB maybe.
Just a suggestion. Whatsapp has its own storage outside of what is in the phones gallery. Mine is sitting at about 7 gig. There’s photo’s in there from when I first started using the App. Might be worth having a look in there & freeing up some space.
If you use whatsapp, this.
I have the same phone. You can move the photo gallery and many apps to the SD card, but whatsapp insists on using the internal storage. Every time a mate sends you a video of a cat doing something human like, it gets added to a whatsapp media folder on the internal storage. If you empty those folders of videos and images you will probably find it makes a big difference.
Long time S7 user here. Had mines for 5 years before the battery started to go.
Contemplated just replacing the battery but decided against it due to lack of security updates. Bought an S20 5G and the S7 remains as a backup phone incase anything happens to the S20.
A shame, as the S7 has proven to be a very durable phone, more so than the iphone 6 that preceded it which gave up the ghost after only 18 months!
Last time I had a battery swapped at a local place it cost me £25 I think, so not a big deal, but I can do it myself. Agreed that modern phones don't seem too bad for repairability. I like the concept of the Fairphone - it's the obvious solution to what I'm moaning about really - but it's inevitably stymied by the size of the organisation which results in a very overpriced phone compared to its rivals. I'm happy to pay more for a more responsibly-produced product, but I suspect most of the cost is just down to lower economies of scale.
@captmorgan has it re. adding extra storage, and wins bonus points for actually reading my OP 🙂
Thanks for the Whatsapp head-ups. I've looked at what it's storing before and deleted the biggest stuff, but still possible it's taking up more storage space. Just backing up for a factory reset now anyway. Will keep an eye on Whatsapp in the future.