A Comprehensive Comparison of Domestic Mobile Phone System Purity: Who is Truly "Minimalist"?

A Comprehensive Comparison of Domestic Mobile Phone System Purity: Who is Truly "Minimalist"?The mobile phone system serves as the bridge between users and hardware, and its experience directly impacts user satisfaction. In recent years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been continuously exploring and optimizing system functions and pre-installed applications

A Comprehensive Comparison of Domestic Mobile Phone System Purity: Who is Truly "Minimalist"?

The mobile phone system serves as the bridge between users and hardware, and its experience directly impacts user satisfaction. In recent years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been continuously exploring and optimizing system functions and pre-installed applications. However, "purity" has become an unavoidable topic. The purity of the system directly affects the phone's fluency, storage space, information push, and overall user experience.

To gain a deeper understanding of the current status of system purity among major mobile phone manufacturers, we selected flagship models from six major brands: Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo (iQOO), Honor, and Meizu, and upgraded them to their latest system versions for testing and comparison. The tested models are:

• Huawei Mate 60 Pro - HarmonyOS 4.2

• Xiaomi 14 Pro - HyperOS 1.0

• OPPO Find X7 - ColorOS 14.0

• iQOO 12 - OriginOS 4.0

• Honor Magic6 Pro - MagicOS 8.0

• Meizu 21 Pro - Flyme 10.24

This test adheres to the following principles:

1. Factory Reset: All phones are restored to factory settings to ensure consistent test environments.

2. Default Configuration Activation: Activation is performed using default settings without any personalization.

3. No Third-Party App Installation: Avoid third-party application interference with test results.

I. Storage Space Occupancy: The "Hidden Culprit" of RAM Expansion?

First, we observed the initial occupancy of each phone system, including the storage occupancy of system files, other data, and pre-installed applications.

| Brand/System | System Files | Other Data | Pre-installed Apps | Total Occupancy (approx.) |

|---|---|---|---|---|

| Honor MagicOS 8.0 | 24.73GB | 9.47GB | 2.82GB | 34GB |

| Xiaomi HyperOS 1.0 | 14.59GB | 19.05GB | 0.21GB | 28GB |

| vivo OriginOS 4.0 | 17.60GB | 8.56GB | 1.94GB | 26GB |

| OPPO ColorOS 14.0 | 18.46GB | 6.18GB | 3.30GB | 24.6GB |

| Huawei HarmonyOS 4.2 | 15.32GB | 5.70GB | 1.65GB | 22.67GB |

| Meizu Flyme 10.24 | 16.23GB | 5.82GB | 0.83GB | 22.88GB |

The table shows that the system file occupancy of Honor MagicOS 8.0 is the largest, reaching 24.73GB. Other data also reaches 9.47GB, for a total occupancy exceeding 34GB, making it the most "bloated" system among the six phones.

Besides Honor, Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO also have high system file and other data occupancy, reaching 28GB, 26GB, and 24.6GB respectively. Xiaomi HyperOS 1.0 has the smallest system file size, but its other data occupancy is as high as 19.05GB, significantly higher than other systems. The primary reason is the default activation of the 6GB RAM expansion feature.

RAM expansion refers to the system automatically allocating a portion of storage space as virtual memory to improve system performance. Besides Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo also default to enabling 4GB of RAM expansion, while Honor goes as high as 8GB. Huawei does not offer memory expansion functionality, and Meizu defaults to disabling it, requiring manual activation.

Currently, major mobile phone manufacturers, especially for flagship models, are incorporating end-side AI large models, increasing the demand for phone RAM. Therefore, some phones, even with a large 16GB RAM configuration, still default to enabling RAM expansion. For users with frequent AI large model usage, RAM expansion can be retained. But for general users, manually disabling RAM expansion can release storage space.

II. Pre-installed Applications: A Hidden "Pitfall"?

Besides system data, pre-installed applications are also a significant factor in storage space occupancy.

Based on the storage occupancy displayed on the phone, Xiaomi HyperOS 1.0 seems to occupy the least, only slightly exceeding 200MB. However, checking the specific application occupancy reveals that the actual occupancy is much higher. It is speculated that the system calculation method may be different, and some application occupancy data may be recorded as other data. Therefore, we exclude Xiaomi and focus on comparing the pre-installed application occupancy of the other five phones.

| Brand/System | Pre-installed Application Occupancy (approx.) |

|---|---|

| OPPO ColorOS 14.0 | 3.30GB |

| vivo OriginOS 4.0 | 1.94GB |

| Honor MagicOS 8.0 | 2.82GB |

| Meizu Flyme 10.24 | 0.83GB |

| Huawei HarmonyOS 4.2 | 1.65GB |

The results show that OPPO ColorOS 14.0 has the largest pre-installed application occupancy, reaching 3.30GB, four times that of Meizu. The pre-installed application occupancy of Huawei HarmonyOS 4.2 is also relatively high, reaching 1.65GB.

Large pre-installed application occupancy does not necessarily mean a large number of pre-installed applications. Next, we counted the number of pre-installed applications on the six phones, including both system applications and third-party applications.

| Brand/System | Number of Pre-installed Applications |

|---|---|

| Huawei HarmonyOS 4.2 | 55 |

| Honor MagicOS 8.0 | 50 |

| vivo OriginOS 4.0 | 45 |

| Xiaomi HyperOS 1.0 | 40 |

| OPPO ColorOS 14.0 | 38 |

| Meizu Flyme 10.24 | 28 |

The table shows that Huawei HarmonyOS 4.2 has the most pre-installed applications, reaching 55, followed by Honor MagicOS 8.0 with 50. Meizu Flyme 10.24 has the fewest pre-installed applications, only 28.

It is worth noting that both Huawei and Honor phones have a "hidden pre-installation" phenomenon, where there is a "Hot Recommendations" folder on the desktop that contains applications not pre-installed on the phone. Clicking them will directly redirect to the download page for installation.

Therefore, the actual number of pre-installed applications on Huawei and Honor phones is higher. Coupled with the RAM expansion feature, this might be the main reason for the "bloated" Honor MagicOS 8.0 system.

OPPO ColorOS 14.0 does not have a large number of pre-installed applications, and its RAM expansion is not significant, but its system occupancy is second only to Honor MagicOS 8.0, reflecting a problem with its large system size.

In contrast, Huawei HarmonyOS 4.2 has a larger number of pre-installed applications but the smallest overall system occupancy. This is attributed to the absence of RAM expansion consuming storage space and the smaller size of the HarmonyOS itself.

If Huawei HarmonyOS 4.2 can further reduce pre-installed applications and ads while optimizing the system size, its pure experience advantage will become more pronounced.

III. Uninstallable Applications: Who is "Cleaner"?

Although some system applications and third-party applications can be manually uninstalled, some remain uninstallable. We conducted a test of uninstallable applications on the six phones, counting the number of uninstallable applications.

| Brand/System | Number of Uninstallable Applications |

|---|---|

| Meizu Flyme 10.24 | 14 |

| Xiaomi HyperOS 1.0 | 17 |

| Huawei HarmonyOS 4

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