tl;dr Boost cheap Android phone/tablet storage with microSD card + "adoptable storage". Works on Moto and ZTE/R2 phones but not LG and Samsung. May slow performance and SD card failure requires phone factory reset so don't do it on your only or main life/job/critical phone. Best not to remove the SD card once you do this.
Re: Visible/ZTE R2: Certainly this cheap phone has its limitations and these are valid concerns -- tiny storage space and single band wifi. This is how I address the storage problem: use the
adoptable storage feature to "merge" the internal phone storage with the 128GB SD card, then instruct apps to use the SD card for data instead of internal storage.
Settings> Storage *Options* > Migrate Data. Note: THIS PROCESS FORMATS THE SD CARD AND ERASES ANYTHING SAVED ON IT PREVIOUSLY.
Or, one can go through each app's settings individually and where desirable, "change" from "Internal Shared Storage" to "SD Card". Some Google apps and all System apps don't allow this change. This leaves the max space for new app and data installs. But, since SD cards are slower and generally shorter-lived than internal phone memory, you may notice a slowdown in performance and the SD card may die taking your data with it and forcing a factory reset of the phone. So you may wish to leave your really important apps and data safely using internal storage.
ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA, AND IT'S A GOOD IDEA TO BACK UP THE ENTIRE PHONE CONTENTS ON GOOGLE DRIVE. Then it's easy-peasy to restore the phone to its former glory with a NEW OR BIGGER SD card in place.
Settings > System > Backup > Backup to Google Drive.
While many reviewers of this feature *scare* readers with the potentially catastrophic results of removing the SD card, or having it malfunction after enabling adoptable storage, it doesn't have to be that way. Go back into the Storage > SD card options and select "Format as portable". Then power off the phone and remove the SD card safely. Then, once the card is back in the phone (or a different/replacement SD card) you can choose to enable the adoptable storage once more... or not... as you prefer. Or, do a factory reset with a new SD card in place, and restore the phone from your Google Drive backup (assuming that you made a backup of course).
This explanation is rather long -- sorry about that -- but I thought it may be worthwhile to add to any discussion of using cheap Android phones (cheap usually = small storage) as media players as this solution is applicable to most modern Android phones. Adoptable storage has been available since Marshmallow (Android 6.0 in 2015) but not enabled by all manufacturers, Samsung and LG being the major holdouts.
Have you noticed that *I REALLY LIKE* Moto phones (G4, G6, E5 Play), as well as this latest acquisition the R2? They come with minimal non-Google bloatware and since 2015 have adoptable storage enabled. Thus I have been able to load up my main music collection (about 70GB) on all my phones and still have room for a bunch of videos and audiobooks. Hope this explanation helps someone to make a more informed decision about a phone/device to suit their needs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
Two major cons: single band wi-fi only (2.4 GHz) and less than 5 GB of storage to work with
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