Why no expandable memory?
![]() | Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years. Thanks, CNET Support |
Why no expandable memory?
Discussion is locked
For many years I have been a hardcore Apple fan-boy. For obvious reasons. Apple hardware and software is the best bar none.
The tangible quality has very few if any competitors. Hence 2 ipads and 2 iphones later. I loved my iphone but a few things really irritated the heck out of me. The small, eye squinting screen and the lack of storage space to name the most important ones(battery life was never a big issue for me).
So about two years ago, against my fan-boy status, I started to look at other options and lo and behold, I fell in love with the Note 3 (and most things with the name Samsung on - I now have a Samsung TV, home entertainment system, washing machine, fridge etc etc). The only niggle I had was the plastic and fake stitched leather look, not really a deal-breaker for me, because as everyone knows, you put an expensive phone in a proper cover and looks was a minor issue. The main issues were thoroughly addressed, namely a wonderful BIG, hi-resolution screen and STORAGE size by the microSd card load (64G at the time - now 128G and 200G)!
I started to look out for the Note that will "do it all" and has the same premium quality as the iPhone. The Note 4 almost did it for me.
Forward April 2015 and the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge was released. Finally it equalled the premium quality of the iPhone! But how on earth did Samsung forgot about the microSd card?! But not to worry, surely they will not make the same, deal-breaking mistake with the Note 5, it IS after all the most intense multimedia, multipurpose work phone in the universe! Surely Samsung "listen" to their customers. BUT it was not to be. In one brilliant moment, of pure genius, Samsung could have buried ALL the opposition. Sometimes I wonder why big companies keep their super-duper market research teams and their ridiculously overpaid marketing exutives at all.
Bottom line is this: missed opportunity of epidemic proportion and one faithful Samsung Galaxy Note customer lost that will dispose of ALL his microSd cards and jump back to iPhone 6 plus (or will wait for iPhone 7 plus).
I am very much a technophile (audio/videophone and everything in the multimedia and communication world) and read about every magazine and article on the newest and best audio-visual and mobile technology on the planet. I know I am not the only person seriously disgruntled with the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of mega companies like Apple, Microsoft and now Samsung. Surely for the money we fork out for the latest-and-greatest gadgets we must get what we want. Not ONE article of ALL the reviews on the Galaxy S6/Edge and Note 5/S6 Plus, I have read, does not bemoan the lack of removebale storage (and battery - which I understand in the limited design constraints of the closed body construction) in these phones. There is a very obvious reason for this: it does not make sense! There is nothing easier than inserting your microSD card in the card slot of your Mac/PC and copy-paste vast amounts of data/music/movies etc in a blink of the eye. Theoretically you have a unlimited amount of cheap, reusable storage space. Cloud storage is not viable in all parts of the globe and is totally dependant on your broadband data supplier and can be very expensive. The close-walled environment of iTunes is still a major problem for most. There is a very good reason why iPhone etc lost a massive marketshare of the industry to Samsung(and lesser extent to LG, HTC etc) : Samsung gave the customers what they want.
Yes you you can get 128G phones, but they cost a small fortune compared to MicroSD cards. Yes the internal UFS 2.0 memory in the S6/Note 5 is extremely fast, but the latest microSD ultra/extreme cards are so fast, the average consumer will not notice the difference and are becoming cheaper by the day. Samsung can not say that the new construction of S6/Note 5 does not allow the space for microSD slot. Surely another pop-out card slot (like the SIM card slot) must be possible.
Samsung is só close to the perfect formula for an all-conquering phone that it is mind-boggling frustrating that they missed one of the most obvious ingredients to there recipe.
What a shame.
looks more like you are looking for a debate instead of looking for answers. There are many reasons and the link previously give gives several of them.
Since there are other Android phones that have what you asked for, the answer looks to be to keep shopping. Did you want to repeat the prior discussions? Can't see how that will help.
Here I have a lot of phones from the office (we write apps) and the LG G4 being a recent addition is very nice, has the slot as well as most to the BLU models at amazon.com