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First Time Tablet User - 16 or 32gb

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WoodyHD

Lurker
Finally decided I am going to buy a tablet. I figure I will hold off for the next nexus 7 and jump on it. I know there a ton of 32 vs 16 threads out there. Believe me I read a lot of them, but none of the OPs really fit the bill exactly for what I intend to do with the tablet. Basically I would use the tablet for browsing the internet, youtube, social media, and games. No music. No movies. I would likely have a few pdf files at around 40mb each. I would expect that most of the memory would be tied up in apps. Has anyone filled up ~13gb just with games?

Another thing that might sway me is resale value. Does the 32gb hold its value better than the 16gb?
 
Not sure on the resale, since I've always bought new anyway. But I've never even come close to using 10+GB myself, even with a bunch of pictures and music. I stream most of my music, and nowadays, I store a lot of pictures on my dropbox account anyway. but it's completely a personal preference. Based on what you've said you'll be using it for, you'll be fine with a 16GB version. Check out some classifieds, see what people are getting back out of a 32 vs 16 and see if it's worth the upgrade now, to get whatever the difference is later. Also remember, that by the time you go to sell your tablet, newer things will be out already (more than likely), so you'll have to factor that into your resale value as well.
 
WoodyHD said:
Finally decided I am going to buy a tablet. I figure I will hold off for the next nexus 7 and jump on it. I know there a ton of 32 vs 16 threads out there. Believe me I read a lot of them, but none of the OPs really fit the bill exactly for what I intend to do with the tablet. Basically I would use the tablet for browsing the internet, youtube, social media, and games. No music. No movies. I would likely have a few pdf files at around 40mb each. I would expect that most of the memory would be tied up in apps. Has anyone filled up ~13gb just with games?

Another thing that might sway me is resale value. Does the 32gb hold its value better than the 16gb?
Click to expand...
I personally got the 32gb version because I only paid $205 for it vs paying that for a 16gb version. But I would recommend the 32gb version because while you only use it for games and social media now, there might come a time when you need to load more stuff and you will have memory available without having to delete anything
 
If you buy the 32GB version there will never be a time when you regret it and wish you had bought the 16GB version instead - but the opposite could easily happen.

Whether you will ever need all the extra space is impossible to predict, but those of us who remember Bill Gates's confident prediction about the IBM PC memory limitations (later denied) that "640K ought to be enough for anybody" will think twice before trying to foresee our future possible uses of our new toys.

You can never have too much memory, despite what Bill Gates may or may not have once said.
 
I have a 32 GB Phone and a 16 GB Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 was an experiment for me and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a lot more useful than I expected it to be. I only use mine at home and always have easy access to a PC so I can move things around easily. If I were to get another one, it would probably be 32 GB - I don't know if I'd use the memory but it's kind of a Why Not? decision.
 
A lot of the arguments I've already seen, but I'm not sure what I expected. I do like that 32 better in the respect if anything comes up where I need the memory, but paying 20% less for the 16 would be worth it if I can determine if that will never be needed. I have zero reason to keep music on it now or in the future. I have an ipod and if that breaks I would seek a different solution for my music needs. Movies would only be if I started traveling a lot which if that happens in my future, the nexus I get this year will be replaced by then. In other words, that has no possibility of happening for years to come. So I really only see the memory being taken up by apps.

That bring me back to one of my original questions. I'm assuming that there is 13gb of usable memory on the 16gb version. Have any of you filled up that much space with just apps? Also, is there anything else I should consider that may consume that space?
 
Depends on the games. Some games are getting really large. Like into the GB range. They tend to be for the more advanced 3D games though.

My school of thought on the situation is, you can always not use that memory. I guess you would technically be out of that $50, but long term, you probably won't think, "gee, I wished I saved that $50 I spent on my tablet 6 months ago", when odds are, you probably make that in a day at least.

However, if you go with the 16 GB, and it turns out you need that extra 16 GB if your needs ever change, you're up the river. Ultimately, its up to you. If you strongly feel that you won't ever need to use that space ever, go get the 16 GB. I will tell you though, watching movies on this is a joy compared to a cell phone.

Then again, I think of devices as investments. I will end up using them until its not practical to use anymore, and sometimes my needs change over time.
 
For you I recommend getting the 16 GB since you do not plan to play games that often, or have music or movies on the tablet. I have been using the 8GB Model for almost a year now, and it has served me just fine!
 
Media files get bigger and bigger nowaday, always get the one with largest amount of memory if you can.
 
I have an 8G N7 purchased when they first came out (before Google even offered a 32G version) and have yet to run out of memory with it. I don't store any content on the N7, all photos, music, video, etc... are accessed from sites like Dropbox or via an OTG cable and a 64G microSD card.

As has been said, you can never have too much memory. If price isn't a concern, go for the 32G. However, if you wish to save a little money, you will probably be fine with the 16G.

On a low dollar item like the N7, I don't even consider the resale value. Most likely, by the time you are ready to sell, the device will outdated and it's $$ value next to nothing because new and better devices will be available.
 
mmoy said:
I have a 32 GB Phone and a 16 GB Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 was an experiment for me and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a lot more useful than I expected it to be. I only use mine at home and always have easy access to a PC so I can move things around easily. If I were to get another one, it would probably be 32 GB - I don't know if I'd use the memory but it's kind of a Why Not? decision.
Click to expand...

This is very similar to my position. I bought the 16GB version, as that was the largest available storage at the time.

I use mine for games, movies, surfing, emails etc. I don't tend to store a lot of movies on there anymore, as I kept on running out of space - the games I've downloaded (The Dark Knight Rises, Shadowgun Deadzone, Dead Trigger) can be quite large (TDKR is 2GB!), which doesn't leave a great deal of room for much else.

If it was me buying one for the first time now, I would stump up the additional cash for the extra storage. As I'm stuck with my 16GB version, I often use a USB memory stick and an OTG cable to get the extra storage I need. It's not an elegant solution with the cable dangling off the end (although I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of my MicroSD Card adaptor, which is a neater solution), but it gives me the extra storage I wish I'd had in the device in the first place.

Rhyan
 
I once installed a 3D game that uses 500MB of the storage, movie files are usually around 1GB for HD version, so I'd say 16GB is the minimum to be comfortable. I don't really like the idea of having the OTG cable all the time, especially when I'm moving around.
 
WoodyHD said:
Finally decided I am going to buy a tablet. I figure I will hold off for the next nexus 7 and jump on it. I know there a ton of 32 vs 16 threads out there. Believe me I read a lot of them, but none of the OPs really fit the bill exactly for what I intend to do with the tablet. Basically I would use the tablet for browsing the internet, youtube, social media, and games. No music. No movies. I would likely have a few pdf files at around 40mb each. I would expect that most of the memory would be tied up in apps. Has anyone filled up ~13gb just with games?

Another thing that might sway me is resale value. Does the 32gb hold its value better than the 16gb?
Click to expand...

For the purposes you described, 16gb should be just fine. You've basically described how I use mine (although I also use mine for some small school documents), and I am nowhere NEAR approaching capacity on my 16gb N7.

The only caveat is that the Nexus 7 does not have an sd card slot, so what you get is what you're stuck with, so it probably couldn't hurt to spend the extra cash for the larger capacity if you can afford it. If you can't, I still think you'll be fine with the 16.
 
I bought the 32gb because it was only $50 more than the 16gb, and double memory is definitely worth that small price difference. :)
 
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