Phone with Storage Expansion options or not?

[philippecr]

For iPhones users, sorry your only choice is to buy another one.  

As for Android users, storage expansion option via microSD cards are often regarded as an advantage for most Android phones. To store that so-many-photos, selfies, videos and all kinds of files. Not to mention that most recent flagship phones are able to shoot 4K Video (thats a HUGE chunk of data there!).

HTC and LG recently made microSD slot as a standard feature on their flagship phones. But recently there's this on-going trend that Android phones not include a storage expansion option like instance, Samsung who oddly decided to remove it from it's flagship Galaxy S6 series. 

What is your view on this 'trend'?

[jerralkhor]

I recently came across an article that quoted Hugo Barra speaking about the removal of SD Card slots in some of Xiaomi's devices. He talks about how poor quality SD Cards could cause app and sometimes device failures, and because of the proliferation of fake SD Cards in the global market, you can't really be sure that the SanDisk or Kingston you just bought is really a SanDisk or a Kingston.

He goes on to add that from experience, some of the past devices he's worked with developed quirks and problems despite everything (software-wise) checking out fine. As a last resort he takes out the SD Card and *poof* problems disappear.

Of course, he could also be trying to save cost on some of the devices Xiaomi is pushing out, and gave a marketing spin to it

[goldfries]

SD Card slot is very helpful for those who know what they want and what to expect.

It's not as prone to failure as said in the Mi article.

Actually the reason they don't put is just to avoid user problems of which people have the tendency to fault the hardware than the storage.

[eyogan]

IMO,

SD Card it was previously very usefull until there are so many brand and competition really high so that the vendor have to reduce the quality to compete at the market. But then now slowly but sure everyone start store they needs on the sky. Me personally i use 3 cloude storage for my devices. icloude for my idevices (even its only 5GB),  and for me which quite convenient is Google drive and one drive. both offer 15GB free. but have to manage storage wisely, since its effecting your internet usage also. 

Regards,

[goldfries]

Cloud based storage is limited. 

1. The files are listed but in order to access them you are still required to download, and that could take quite a while if the data connectivity isn't fast and in many cases, downright annoying.

2. Cloud is limited, supposedly you have 10GB worth of shows. Cloud? Not likely.

3. Affect data quota. I've had data plans run out befoer, just because I didn't disconnect. Dropbox keeps syncing away. 

[philippecr]

Cloud Storage might be the best solution for 'Backups', but it's definatly not ready for "files-on-the-go". Bottleneck now is with limited internet bandwidth quotas and the not-so-seemless files accessing, not to mention wireless network reliability.

And apps nowadays getting larger and larger, just look at Facebook app.... 16GB just doesn't do any justice at all.

[Lacus]

Personally prefer phones with storage expansion.. Though phones these days seems to start having bigger internal storage. 

[KNS1]

The Leef iBridge is a fascinating take on mobile storage. With capacities ranging from 16GB to 128GB with a 256GB variation coming soon, you can effectively double or triple your iPhone storage with a device that measures only 63 x 19 x 18mm. It comes with both a USB 2.0 and lightning connection so you can plug it directly into your iOS device, no wireless connectivity needed.

Using the iBridge app, you can access all your photos, movies and music (apart from DRM protected files) without taking up any storage on your iOS device. With the iBridge Camera, a feature built into the iBridge app, you can take photos and directly save them to the storage device. If you want to clear space by transferring photos from your iOS device, that’s also available via the app – you can then copy/move these by plugging the iBridge into your Mac or PC.

It’s compatible with the iPhone 5/5s/5c/6/6 Plus, the iPod Touch (fifth generation), the iPad 3/4/Air/Air 2 and the iPad mini 2/3.

Price

16GB- $60 (around £40); 32GB - $80 (around £54); 64GB - $120 (around £80); 128GB - $200 (around £135); 256GB - Coming soon

Connectivity

USB 2.0, Apple Lightning

sos- http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/best-ways-get-more-storage-for-your-iphone-or-ipad-3579792/

[mydragoon]

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@jerralkhor wrote:

I recently came across an article that quoted Hugo Barra speaking about the removal of SD Card slots in some of Xiaomi's devices. He talks about how poor quality SD Cards could cause app and sometimes device failures, and because of the proliferation of fake SD Cards in the global market, you can't really be sure that the SanDisk or Kingston you just bought is really a SanDisk or a Kingston.

He goes on to add that from experience, some of the past devices he's worked with developed quirks and problems despite everything (software-wise) checking out fine. As a last resort he takes out the SD Card and *poof* problems disappear.

Of course, he could also be trying to save cost on some of the devices Xiaomi is pushing out, and gave a marketing spin to it

---

there was an article that I feel explains why manufacturers are dropping the microSD and I feel the article has got strong points. it has more to with being able to price the phones higher and sell more units of those with more storage. 

hugo was just trying to justify XiaoMi's move of excluding microSD and personally, I don't think they are really valid.

I'll try to dig up that article and share it here

[mydragoon]

as mentioned earlier, this is the article:

The real reason why micro SD card slots are disappearing from smartphones

http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-real-reason-why-micro-sd-card-slots-are-disappearing-from-smartphon...

[quote]The reason that smartphone manufacturers are ditching micro SD card slots in their devices, especially at the high end, is money. Manufacturers can't charge a premium for an SD card slot, but they can charge a $100 for a few extra gigabytes of flash storage.

What Apple began with the iPhone, other manufacturers are now doing with their smartphones. And from a making money point of view, it makes good sense. A 128GB iPhone 6 costs the consumer $200 more than the 16GB version, but adding that extra storage costs Apple less than $50.[/quote]

[quote]If there's an SD card slot on the device, then many users would buy the lowest-cost (and lowest margin) device, and boost that with a cheap micro SD card. I agree that it won't be as fast as internal storage, but for music, video, or apps that don't demand a high level or performance, it's going to be more than adequate.[/quote]