[AC Question]

cubot one phone 4.2 instruct phone to use, nearly empty, 32 gig memory card for installation of new apps. installing new app, phone reports not enough mem. Huh?

[Rukbat]

32 gig memory card for installation of new apps

No, 32GB card for storing data and, maybe, putting some parts of some apps on. But you still need enough free internal storage to install an app before it can be moved to the card. (The card can be mounted as main storage, but you'd have to play in Linux for a few months to learn how to do it [you have to rewrite a system file, and if you do it wrong you'll have to reflash the ROM, because the phone won't start], and the phone would have to be rooted.)

[Mooncatt]

I'm not familiar with this phone, so I did a little searching for their specs. It looks like they run on the low (if not obsolete, by today's standards) side of specs. As Rukbat said, you first need the internal space to initially install any app, and some of it will still remain on the internal storage even when it has been "moved to external sd." It looks like the Cubot phones I saw were all 4 GB internal memory. A large chunk of that will be taken up by the operating system and pre-installed apps. That leaves very little to install additional apps to begin with. Today's apps are getting a lot larger as well, so only one or two could suck up enough internal storage that you start getting low space warnings.

Unfortunately, I think your only real solution is to get a newer phone with more internal space to begin with. 32 GB is adequate for most people today, but more is always better. There's 16 GB offerings still too, but even those will start suffering if you're not careful with space usage.