KPH tech blog

‘Do you still use a Micro SD Card with your smartphone?‘

It was the above, linked article, written by Joe Maring, Android Authority, on 8 Feb 2018 – itself a response to the many comments on the AA forums – that got me thinking about expandable storage.

To answer the question in the title, yes, I do still use Micro SD cards, and I still like the feature. But with more phone OEMs deciding to get rid of these old features to make room for newer technologies (OnePlus recently said they were ditching the 3.5mm headphone port to make way for newer tech, such as in-screen fingerprint scanners), would I really miss it if I got a phone without expandable storage?

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A bit of context – my iPod Touch

It may have been 2010 – but this was the pre-streaming era. There was no way to store purchased music in the cloud and listen to it on the fly.

Something I used to outright hate about my iPod Touch (with a living vengeance), was it’s storage. Considering it was a 64GB device, about 6GB was already taken up by iOS, so in reality I had about 58GB to play around with.

At the time, 58GB was enough for all my music, as well as a few videos and photos. But even if it hadn’t have been, I was stuck with that 58GB limit, no matter how much media I wanted to put onto it.

There was no way to expand it, and no real cloud storage either – iCloud was only a backup feature for photos, contacts and documents back then.

Also, I remember because of iOS, which took up about 8GB, I was really only left with 58GB on a device touting ’64GB’ of data storage space.

It may have been 2010 – and my iTouch worked for about 3 years – but this was the pre-streaming era. There was no way to store purchased music in the cloud and listen to it on the fly, whenever I wanted. In fact, if I remember correctly, Apple had only just begun the process of adding purchased music to every user’s iCloud account.

Apart from Spotify, there was no such thing as paying a subscription for a music streaming service. Not one where you could also listen to your previous purchases, anyway.

Thankfully, today it’s a different story – with services like YouTube Music, Apple Music, & Amazon Prime all providing this functionality.

But keeping my music with me, at all times, on my phone, is something I’ve grown to love – and I’m not yet fully into streaming music to give this up.

Another thing I used to hate about my iPod Touch (and a bit off-topic, but still kinda relevant, so I’ll say it anyway), was the way the data was synced from my PC. It involved something along the lines of ‘flashing an image’ of the data, but the compelling thing was that if it was deleted from your PC, it would also be deleted from your iPod the next time you hooked it up to synchronise.

This frustrated me the most. I think it was a bit like a mirror image – no image, no reflection. I remember deleting my music files from my PC, then trying to sync over 2 new music files the next week. My iPod deleted 3000 songs to sync over 2 new purchases. WTF?

And it was then that I learnt how iOS devices worked. Take those music files off your PC, and iTunes will recreate what it sees on your PC, as a flash image on your iPod – in my case, nothing.

No files on PC, no files on iPod.

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My other devices

But that’s a story for another day. What I’m interested in at the moment, is would I miss Micro SD card storage if it wasn’t available anymore?

The basic fact is that with a new device that doesn’t support expandable storage, you need to transfer everything all over again from your laptop or PC.

Apart from my Walkman MP3 player, every portable device I’ve used in the past 8 years – phones, cameras, even my 2-in-1 ultrabook/laptop – has had expandable storage.

When I get a new phone with a Micro SD card slot, I don’t have to hook the phone up to my laptop via USB and sync over everything all over again. I can just simply take the micro SD card out of one phone, and into the other.

No syncing, no copying. Zilch effort. Music, photos, videos & documents copied over in the blink of an eye. It really is so convenient.

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Huawei, and ‘Nano Memory’

Huawei, with the release of the Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20 X, revealed their solution with regards expandable storage – they’ve ditched Micro SD cards in favour of their own, newer, Nano Memory.

They claim that Micro SD cards are old, that there’s a few benefits of the newer technology (such as faster read/write speeds), and that the NM cards are the same size as a Nano Sim, hence the name ‘Nano Memory’ – meaning that more physical space is saved within phones for other, new technologies.

I like that they’ve kept expandable storage as an option, and I’m open to the change – especially if Nano Memory becomes the new standard for external storage. I’d be open to this change despite the added initial cost of purchase, and my reservations about copying over my files – but if it becomes the new standard, this would have to happen anyway.

But I’ll only welcome Nano Memory if it becomes widely available and is supported by more than one OEM. If, however, it ends up being just Huawei’s own method, then I can’t see it catching on, and I doubt I’ll be persuaded by it.

(Remember how Sony Ericsson phones only used Sony M2 cards? Or the Playstation Portable/PSP that only used Sony-branded, Sony-exclusive, flash cards? Yep, I hope that’s not what ‘Nano Memory’ becomes for Huawei.)

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My micro-thoughts

But, I can also see Huawei’s argument, that Micro SD storage is an old technology, and that it’s also a bit cumbersome, with regards to phone hardware design.

Normally, a micro SD card would require a separate slot, meaning physical hardware space for other features within the phone is often sacrificed to accommodate the micro SD slot.

This sacrifice is the same argument that applies to the beloved, and rapidly disappearing, 3.5mm headphone port.

But many OEMs are getting around this problem with ‘hybrid’ slots – one half of the SIM tray for the SIM card, and the other half for the Micro SD card. This means saving physical space while expanding the internal storage space.

There’s also the argument that previous iPhone users, who are now transferring over to Android (ahem, expensive iPhones!), probably won’t use the expandable storage feature, so OEMs don’t put it in. That apparently makes a device like the OnePlus 6, the Pixel 3, or the Galaxy S9, more appealing to that audience. A cheaper device, with pretty much the same features as an iPhone.

But I don’t agree with that, and it’s why, up to now, I haven’t really considered OnePlus phones. Phones like the OnePlus 5T or 6 are great phones, with a widely-loved OS in OxygenOS that expands on the Android experience – and all this at a decent price. But, no Micro SD card support.

In the article I linked above, Maring talked about phones being released with “128GB or 256GB of internal storage to help mitigate the loss of microSD support,” but despite this, he also admitted that “there are still a ton of users that need to have this feature.”

“Smartphones that are released with 128GB and 256GB of internal storage help to mitigate the loss of microSD support, and as Android Central’s Andrew Martonik recently pointed out, it’s even possible to get by with just 64GB these days. Even so, there are still a ton of users that need to have this feature.”

I’m one of those phone users, and judging by the quoted forum users, and the general gist of the 94 comments on the article (with views from both sides of the argument), I’m not alone on this.

I really would miss the luxury of being able to transfer all of my media over from one device to the other in the click of a finger. How do iPhone users cope?!

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My Galaxy S7

My Galaxy S7, while supporting Micro SD cards, doesn’t do it very well, with every phone reboot effectively ‘ejecting’ & reinstalling the Card, without me doing anything. I found that, inevitably, this plays havoc with third-party media apps such as PowerAmp, where my playlists were being reset after each reboot. But since using the onboard Samsung Music app, I’ve had no problems.

I’ve also made use of the USB OTG functionality (USB On-The-Go), to sync new files onto my 128GB microSD card using the provided USB-Micro USB adapter, to plug-in my USB drive – all without taking the microSD card out of the phone.

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Summing up

Something I used to outright hate about my iPod Touch was it’s storage […] I was stuck with that 58GB limit, no matter how much media I wanted to put onto it.

If there was no microSD slot on my Next Phone, I would certainly miss it and the ease of life and stress-free living it provides. Not only that, even if the storage was 64GB, 128GB or even 256GB, I’m not sure what I would do if I ever hit that storage limit – what would I keep, and, what would I delete?

But, if I could be significantly convinced that its loss was worth it for the newer features I would be getting, I’d be okay with ditching the luxury of expandable storage.

However, I don’t think Micro SD Card support, or any form of expandable storage for that matter, is something I’m willing to give up just yet. Especially when I’m forking out between £400-£700 on a new phone. I don’t want to run out of internal storage, to then have to pay out more for cloud storage.

I like the idea of expandable storage, and I hope OEMs continue to support it. But I fear in time they won’t, in the same way that many are now ditching the 3.5mm headphone port.

I guess what I’m saying, is that I’m not sure I could live without expandable storage for the foreseeable future.

Also, considering that I’m currently replacing my daily driver once every 2-3 years, I’m sure I could cope with my Galaxy S7 for a bit longer. Or, at least, get a newer phone with similar features.

But I think what I’m also saying, is that if I do get a new phone, it probably won’t be one that ditches the option of expandable storage.

And that, really is that.

– Chris J.K.