One thing about google Play and older devices

...and one reason why I prefer console (and retro) games

 Long time ago, I purchased Android port of legenadary Carmageddon game from Google Play store. The game was perfect; It ran perfectly on my low-end Gigaset tablet and controls were almost better than the original MsDos/Win95 version.

Kuva, jonka Arthur Samuel Rowan (@arsapi) julkaisi 31. 07ta 2016 klo 18.15 PDT

Some months later the game was suddenly updated, and android 4.x compatibility was somewhat butchered, and the original paid, adfree version of the game was converted to in-app-purchases supported game... And I had auto update enabled in my device, so it updated and then the game didn't work anymore... Yeah... Shit happens

 
And that is one bad thing about Google's Play store and other digital distribution platforms; App developers can just suddenly change their old feature rich and complete app to something else, instead of releasing the "new" version as different app...

That's why I prefer old game consoles and non-online-updating DRM free PC games; when it comes to ability to play games long after their release date in their original form.

Low-end Android devices

I recently got new cell phone: Sony Xperia M4 Aqua. It has enough power in processing side, but only 4gb storage out of 8gb and Sony has already bloated it with its own software so there is only 2gb for end user.

I also own this cheap Gigaset QV830 tablet with almost vanilla Android 4.2.2 . For comparison there was 4gb free for user.

Either way both of my devices are still quite low-end spectrum for Android device storage capacity. 

I have to really think what apps I can Install. 

I like to find those Android apps with low storage footprint (low RAM footprint is also good with devices with 1gb or less). But there is one problem. You can't really see the true requirements for apps in Google's own Play store. You can see if the app is compatible or not, and amount of storage the initial installation needs, but that's it.

My workaround is HP Mini 110 laptop with Android installation in HDD. It has only 1gb of RAM and single core processor, but enough storage capacity to hold multiple Android apps.
(Another solution would be running  the Android in virtual machine, if you have powerfull PC).

Now I can inspect apps before installing them to my other devices and I definitely know how much RAM and storage they consume. And if android app runs smoothly in old laptop, then it runs smoothly on my other devices too...