Recently, TechMiao (ID: techmiao) has conducted numerous comparisons of domestic mobile phone systems regarding their features and pre-installed apps. In fact, the user experience of a mobile phone system, including the presence of advertisements, is largely influenced by the cleanliness of the system itself. Therefore, this time I have prepared a comparison of the cleanliness of the systems of six major mainstream brands: Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo (iQOO), Honor, and Meizu.
Test Models:
These six models are the flagship offerings from their respective brands, all upgraded to the latest system versions. They provide a comprehensive reflection of each brand's mobile operating system experience. Throughout this article, they will be referred to by their brand or system names. Before testing, all devices were restored to factory settings. The activation process utilized default configurations without any modifications, and no third-party apps were installed proactively. Without further ado, let's dive into the results.
| 系统 | 初始大小 | 预装应用占用内存 |
|---|---|---|
| Android | 16GB | 5GB |
| iOS | 32GB | 8GB |
| Windows | 64GB | 20GB |
It turns out, expanding storage is a sneaky business! Upon entering the system, let's first take a look at the initial sizes of various systems and the memory usage of pre-installed apps. After all, many have already discovered that a brand-new 512GB smartphone may only have around 400GB of actual usable space. Besides the portion taken up by the phone's operating system, there's another culprit: the software that comes pre-installed on the phone. Here's a handy table listing the storage usage of major systems and pre-installed apps.
In terms of overall occupancy, initial allocations by various brands aren't overly significant, with Honor and OPPO taking up the most space. Honor's system files alone occupy 24.73GB, and when combined with necessary cache and other data for system operation, it exceeds 34GB. Compared to other brands, Honor's MagicOS appears to be the bulkiest.
Aside from Honor, Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO follow with significant combined system files and other data, reaching 28GB, 26GB, and 24.6GB, respectively.
Xiaomi initially had the smallest system file volume, but its other data occupies over 19.05GB, more than twice that of other systems. This is mainly due to including 6GB of memory extension within the other data, meaning the phone system automatically allocates 6GB of storage space for running memory.
Apart from Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo also default to 4GB of memory extension, while Honor's extends to 8GB. Huawei doesn't offer memory extension, and Meizu is defaulted to off, requiring manual activation.
If you don't want memory expansion, you can manually disable it on Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo phones, and after restarting the phone, the corresponding storage space can be released. However, there is no switch to disable this feature on Honor phones.
It's worth noting that major smartphone manufacturers, especially flagship models, are now incorporating large AI models at the edge to enhance user experience. Consequently, they have higher demands on phone memory. Perhaps this is why some phones still default to enabling memory expansion even with 16GB of built-in memory.
If you have a high demand for AI models, then don't disable memory expansion. Conversely, you can manually disable this feature if not needed.
Apart from system data, another major storage occupant is pre-installed apps. Looking at the storage usage displayed on phones, Xiaomi's app usage seems to be the least, just over 200MB. However, upon closer inspection, the actual app usage is much more significant, likely due to different calculation methods by the system where some app usage data may be included in other data. Therefore, Xiaomi is excluded from direct comparison.
Among the other brands, OPPO has the largest app usage, which also contributes to its total usage being second only to Honor. In comparison, Meizu has the smallest app usage, with minor differences among the rest.
Huawei has the most pre-installed apps.
Since OPPO has the highest app data usage, does it mean it also has the most pre-installed apps? Here's a breakdown of the number of pre-installed apps on six phones, including both system and third-party apps, to see how many apps each has:
From this table, it's clear to see the number of pre-installed apps by different manufacturers. Huawei leads with the highest count, followed by Honor, then vivo, Xiaomi, and OPPO. Meizu, regardless of whether it's system or third-party apps, has the fewest pre-installed apps. Looking specifically at system apps, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo are closely aligned, showing some restraint.
Apart from the pre-installed apps, Huawei and Honor are the only two among these six phones that also have "hidden pre-installs". This is manifested in a "Hot Recommendations" folder on the desktop, containing apps not pre-installed on the phone but offering a shortcut for immediate download upon clicking. Consequently, Huawei and Honor phones have the highest number of pre-installed apps, especially when factoring in these hidden pre-installs.
Huawei and Honor's "Hidden Pre-installed" (Popular Recommendations)
Combining the earlier discussion on system resource usage, it's evident that the abundance of pre-installed apps, coupled with memory expansion, contributes to the "bulky" nature of the Honor system. While OPPO doesn't have the highest number of pre-installed apps nor significant memory expansion, its system resource usage comes second only to Honor, indicating to some extent an issue with excessive system size.
In contrast, Huawei has more pre-installed apps yet the smallest overall system footprint. This is partly because Huawei doesn't utilize memory expansion, and also due to the inherent advantage of the smaller volume of HarmonyOS itself. If Huawei could further reduce pre-installed apps and advertisements on this foundation, the pure user experience advantage of HarmonyOS would evidently be greater than it is now.
Of course, including some system apps, third-party apps, and "hidden pre-installed" apps can all be manually uninstalled. Many users, upon receiving a new device, make deleting these apps their first task. So, let's take another look at how many non-removable apps remain after removing all that can be removed. Let's see the numbers directly in the table below:
The negative one screen has become a hotbed of clutter.
Apart from system desktops being affected by pre-installed apps and excessive ads, there's another area heavily influenced by ads and various information streams: the negative one screen.
Originally intended to provide various shortcuts, the negative one screen used to offer quick access to express delivery information, health data, and more. However, sometimes the system defaults to displaying various recommended content, making it appear chaotic and undermining the user experience, thus making the once quick shortcuts not so quick anymore.
In comparison, Meizu still maintains the highest level of purity in this aspect, with no promotions at all; only shortcuts like express delivery, calendar, and scanning codes are displayed, giving it a very clean and concise appearance. Next is Xiaomi, whose negative one screen, apart from a recommended card at the bottom, doesn't have any other promotions, showing considerable restraint.
OPPO, Honor, and Huawei can be considered the third tier, with only a small amount of app promotion and relatively minor impact on shortcut components. Among them, Huawei has the most complex negative one screen, featuring a discovery page recommending various widgets. From such feature designs, it seems that Huawei tends towards extreme complexity, which is indeed the opposite of minimalism.
From left to right are Meizu, Huawei, and vivo's negative screens.
Surprisingly, vivo stands out. OriginOS is renowned for its design, and its negative screen's various functional widgets are uniquely designed. Just when you thought it was over, a further swipe down transforms the negative screen into a "Today's Headlines" section, inundating users with flashy news, greatly diminishing the overall experience. Even if they want to integrate news, it's preferable to exercise restraint rather than dominating the negative screen with a waterfall of information.
In reality, integrating third-party apps and pushing ads into the system has become a tradition for smartphone manufacturers. Previously, Meizu attempted a pure "three zero" system with Zero Ads, Zero Pre-installed Apps, and Zero Push, but within a year, the official announcement declared the cessation of this initiative. This indicates the difficulty of achieving such purity—even Meizu couldn't truly eliminate ads, pre-installed apps, and push notifications.
We don't expect all manufacturers to achieve "three zero," but at least they shouldn't compromise user experience with excessive pre-installs and pushes. Fortunately, some manufacturers have responded to user demands. Xiaomi, for example, initiated the Razor Plan. Users simply hope that the purity of the system isn't just a slogan, but that more manufacturers take action to give users more choice and control.
