If you own a 4GB Windows Phone 8.1-powered smartphone and have been looking forward to upgrading it to Windows 10 Mobile, you're in for a nasty surprise.
Microsoft will reportedly only push out the OS to smartphones that have a minimum of 8GB internal memory.
The news comes courtesy of Windowsunited.de, which cites Microsoft Support as its source and reveals that the bare minimum requirement for handsets to be eligible for Windows 10 Mobile is 8GB. The same is validated by the German Windows 10 Mobile website, which notes that Windows Phone 8.1 smartphones that have at least 8GB of on-board memory will benefit from the OS.
The operating system will allegedly take up 5GB of space and, therefore, users with Windows Phone 8.1-powered devices with 4GB of on-board memory will not be eligible for the Windows 10 Mobile.
The German website of Windows 10 Mobile categorically states "8GB internal memory required." Other country websites, interestingly enough, do not list this caveat.
The 8GB requirement falls in line with a previous report that listed the initial devices eligible for the Windows 10 Mobile. The handsets listed at the time—the Lumia 435, Lumia 532, Lumia 535, Lumia 635, Lumia 640, Lumia 640 XL, Lumia 735, Lumia 830 and Lumia 930—all have 8GB of storage or more.
For those thinking that perhaps expanding the storage of their handset with a microSD card could be a workaround, this solution will not work since the basic storage needs to be a minimum of 8GB.
The requirement has also been corroborated by an update Microsoft made to the Lumia storage space page, where the company stated that Windows 10 Mobile will need a minimum of 5GB of free memory. The page revealed that, after installing the Windows 10 Mobile update, handsets that have 8GB of internal space will have 3GB available, whereas those with 16GB and 32GB will be left with 10GB and 25GB, respectively.
While Microsoft has yet to officially confirm the news, handsets such as the Lumia 530 or HTC Windows Phone 8S, which boast only 4GB of internal storage, may be left high and dry since they lack sufficient space to download Windows 10 Mobile.
Many hope Microsoft will develop a way to compress the system or do away with space consuming apps to make Windows 10 Mobile available to handsets that have 4GB of space. Remember what happened to Apple when it pushed out iOS 8? Microsoft does not want to repeat the mistake and fragment its users, especially considering the fact that entry-level Windows-powered handsets are a popular choice in emerging markets.
