Is 8GB internal memory enough for Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 even after more than 1.5 years of use?

[scavira]

I am usually a very heavy user of my phone.
I have been using Google Nexus 4 for more than 2 years and I hate the limited (16GB) memory and extremely poor battery.
I bought my father a Lumia 535 and he loves it and I have also been playing with it just to get learn more about Windows phone before buying myself one.
My next phone will be a Windows phone, no matter what.
Most (if not all?) low/mid range windows phones have only 8GB internal memory.
I love the ability to store media in SD card and install apps in SD card.

But there are some things which cannot use SD card storage at all.

Please answer this query considering "heavy" usage even 2 years after buying the phone and even after upgrading the phone to Windows 10. (If you don't want to answer in a general sense for all low/mid range phones, then please answer for Lumia 535 and Lumia 640 XL)

Is 8GB really enough?

I do not want it to a pain point of using my phone (like how it is for me in my Nexus 4 with regards to internal storage)
If taking some smart decisions (like using the option to save all media and apps to SD card etc) can save me from worry even after 2 years, then it is fine.
But I don't want to be constantly annoyed/worried about my storage space every few days (eg: every week)

I read few posts in this forum where users have complained "other" consuming lot of memory space.
Clearing cache and clearing IE history etc can be done. But it should not become a chore.
It should not get to a point where even normal use of my phone makes me dread about internal storage running out.

So, long term Windows phone users out there, please answer this question sincerely.
Is 8GB internal memory really enough?

P.S I know I am getting lower price because of low internal memory. Please don't bring price factor into this, as it will not answer the question.
P.P.S I am NOT a Android or IOS ******. Please try to answer this question objectively keeping aside your love for Windows phones.

Edit1: I am ready to buy as large and as many SD cards as my usage demands. So the size of SD cards is not an issue for me.

 

[Don Geronimo]

In my experience using Windows Phone for about 3 years, my encounters with Phone only apps are rare, and save for some issues I had using the 10 TP (but I knew the issues going in) I've never had a problem on either the 635, 920, 925, and the 1520 by telling the phone to store new stuff on my SD card (on the phones that have SD support).

I'm not sure how heavy your storage use is, but my 64 GB SD card still isn't full and unusable. It has helped to keep my storage under control by occasionally deleting pictures from my Camera Roll (my phone automatically backs photos and videos to OneDrive, on which I have >1 TB storage thanks to Office 365) and using OneDrive to store my music and have them streamed through Xbox Music (plus I also have a Music Pass subscription).

 

[Narciso Neto]

[...]
But there are some things which cannot use SD card storage at all.

[...]

So, long term Windows phone users out there, please answer this question sincerely.
Is 8GB internal memory really enough?

[...]

In the order of words that I've put in bold...
1- You can set photos, videos, music, downloads and apps to be automatically installed on SD card. That's a nice thing, but I'd recommend you to keep apps on phone and everything else on sd card (as I do, even having a class 10 sd card). System things (as OS updates, Internet Explorer cache and so on) can't be moved to sdcard.

2- I had a 720 (8GB + 4GB sdcard). I used ~2.5GB of music and some pics (~70) on my sdcard. I think I had around 30 apps on my internal memory and I did never used it too much (never filled it). So I consider it is more than usable if you get an additional sdcard, I had a great experience with it (When I was getting my Lumia 830, I wasn't even looking for a 16GB phones as 8GB would be OK too).

 

[manus31]

If you gave a good sd card with fast write speed,you should not have any problems.Ive had windows phone with 8 gig internal memory for a year now and never had any memory difficulty.Some apps or games are fairly large,eg: Asphalt 8.This I moved over to sd card,still ran great.I wouldn't worry about it

 

[Timbre70]

Best is buy one with large internal memory to spare. SD cards can give problems sometimes.

Out of the box, half of the 8gb is already used up.

 

[xandros9]

8 GB will work for light coming-from-dumbphone users.

But any more than that, and an SD card is all but necessary.
Thankfully you can stick nearly anything into the SD card. Offline maps, apps, music, photos, documents... the card can even be used as a staging area for updates in some cases.