Ah, this is why my next phone won't be an Andriod

Among all the things that I don't like about Andriod, this is probably the top in my list: internal phone storage restriction.  In fact, I hate this so much that unless Google changes this restriction, my next phone will absolutely not be an Android.  I also lost incentive to invest anything on my HTC Desire, including getting 32Gb microSD card for Desire to use.

Here's the deal: by default, all the application are installed in the internal phone storage, and once you used up all the internal phone storage, you cannot install anything anymore.  In fact, your phone may not even function properly without enough free internal phone storage.

So how much effective memory do my new HTC Desire have?  About 120Mb.  To me, this is like having a Porsche but can only drive it within Mong Kok area.

Granted, some new apps allows you to install in microSD card, but you don't know whether you can install it on the microSD until AFTER you installed the app.  The Android marketplace does not give you any indication about whether an app is microSD card install friendly or not.  Also Android is notorious on NOT freeing up all the memory after uninstalling apps. So the more apps you try, the less effective internal memory you have even after you uninstall those apps.  This effectively DISCOURAGE people from trying out new apps.  No wonder the Android marketplace is so inferior compare with the iOS App Store since Android developer knows that they are dealing with customers who don't want to try new apps even when they are free.

So from my on, my workflow on trying out Andriod application is like this:

• Find an app that I may interest in at market place.
• Download the application
• The moment I finish downloading the application, I will try to move the application to microSD card.
• If the application cannot be moved to microSD card, uninstall the application.

And even with this workflow, I have closely monitor how much memory have left (again because of the notorious memory free up problem).  Based on what I read, the sure way of reclaiming all the memory back is by a factory reset, something that I wouldn't do unless I got the My Backup Pro.