Android phones: MicroSD card slots and headphone sockets are on the way out, not sure how I feel about that

[mikeymikec]

I did a bit of searching on gsmarena to confirm what I've long suspected, and here are the results:

Phone release date​	headphone socket​	MicroSD​
2025​	39​	174​
2024​	105​	365​
2023​	157​	333​
2022​	200​	422​
2021​	209​	416​
2020​	214​	463​

Sure, 2025 isn't over yet, but I somewhat doubt we're going to see ~150 more phones released this year with one or both features

The thing is, I can survive with a phone without either feature, but for example:
1 - I have a set of earphones for running that I took ages to find which fit and are a reasonable sound quality compromise (I bought a second set just in case they stop being produced too). While I'm sure I can find another cordless set that fits the bill, with non-replaceable batteries the earphones will likely need replacing let's say every 6 years (I don't like landfill fodder), and while USB to headphone adapters are available they detract from portability.
2 - My car stereo has an aux headphone connector and that's it. I do also have a USB-C to dual USB-C + headphone socket adapter if need be.
3 - A phone with more internal storage than I could ever conceivably need is going to be prohibitively expensive for the foreseeable future, and a phone is a handy device to dump a load of data on instead of carrying something extra around with me.

The other problem with the decreasing selection is that if one classes say a headphone socket as a deal-breaker, then one has to accept the lower end of the market.

I'm not quite in the market for an immediate replacement phone; my Nokia 8.3 5G has burped a couple of times in the last 6 months and I would prefer to only replace it when I deem it necessary (ie. I don't trust it any more), but on the other hand I feel like maybe I have to get on with getting a new phone if I want either feature, rather like me buying a grey-licence version of standalone Microsoft Office "just in case" because at some point MS will pull the plug on it. On the other hand, I've had my eye on a couple of Motorola phones but their Android lifespan support is nowhere near Google's or Samsung's, which is another potential landfill fodder argument.

I considered the possibility of getting a new dumb / feature phone and have other gadgets (e.g. a digital camera) to fill in the blanks with, so I made a list of things I need my phone for (my desktop pc gets used wherever possible, my phone mostly fits in a few 'away from home' scenarios):
calls
texts
threema
note-taking
picture taking (very casual, though it's handy to make a quick note of something I've seen)
email
Internet access
Banking apps / authentication
ebooks

I'd love to have a phone the size of say a Nokia 8210, something that can actually go in my pocket without doing me a mischief if I sit or squat down! This absolute surfboard of a phone I have is annoyingly large. Overall though I think I still need a smartphone (the banking authentication would be a pig without it) at least until phones are replaced with something better, but whenever I look at say the Samsung A56 I'm thinking, "why should I pay more for a phone that doesn't have the features that I want?"; paying £250 or more for a device that feels like a significant compromise just makes me not want to do it.

Thoughts?

 

[sdifox]

I am on moto g stylus 5G 2024. It is not too big and has headphones jack and SD card support. I think I paid C370 tax in for a renewed one.

 

[WelshBloke]

TBF USB C headphone dongles arent that bulky. I've got a couple of Samsung ones in a drawer somewhere, they were fairly cheap, not bulky and worked well.
SDcard is a bit more tricky. You can plug a pendrive into an Android phone but I get that thats not really a solution. A decent pendrive is probably a better solution for transferring data from and to different devices though but for permanent storage in a phone its not great.

 

[mikeymikec]

I am on moto g stylus 5G 2024. It is not too big and has headphones jack and SD card support. I think I paid C370 tax in for a renewed one.

I've encountered the Stylus revisions a few times in my research but they seem to be a North America continent type only.

I've been thinking about a similiar one, the Moto G55 which mercifully is a bit shorter and lighter than my current phone. The G56 seems have come out recently but is longer and heavier (though with more camera lenses that may translate through to better camera? I have no idea how to read camera lens specs despite trying to read up on the topic once).

 

[lxskllr]

I know exactly how I feel about that. It's bullshit, and removes consumer choice and flexibility. Dongles are hot garbage. I don't even use headphones, but I like and use the ability to hook my phones up to arbitrary 3.5mm ports. Bluetooth? You already failed. It's fine when it's the best solution, but speakers and headphones aren't it.

Expandable storage is obvious. Who would buy a computer with a hd hardwired in, and no way to change it? About 10 morons, and it would be a failed product that left the shelves within a quarter. I don't know why it's considered acceptable on a pocket computer.

edit:
It's a huge reason I favor motorola phones. Not the only reason, but it's a big one.

 

[WelshBloke]

Expandable storage is obvious. Who would buy a computer with a hd hardwired in, and no way to change it? About 10 morons, and it would be a failed product that left the shelves within a quarter.

Doesn't that describe a fair few laptops nowadays? Not that it isn't a terrible idea but I don't think that it's that uncommon!

 

[lxskllr]

Doesn't that describe a fair few laptops nowadays? Not that it isn't a terrible idea but I don't think that it's that uncommon!

Might be more than 10 morons, but morons for sure. Anyone with sense would tell the companies to shove their garbage up their asses, and refuse to buy the junk til they released something suitable. I'd consider a computer like that, but only for a couple tens of $ from the pawnshop. Certainly not new.

 

[WelshBloke]

Samsung A54

Might be more than 10 morons, but morons for sure. Anyone with sense would tell the companies to shove their garbage up their asses, and refuse to buy the junk til they released something suitable. I'd consider a computer like that, but only for a couple tens of $ from the pawnshop. Certainly not new.

My dell laptop (that I kinda hate) is like that but I did get it really cheap on eBay!
I certainly wouldn't buy one like that full price (or half price tbh).

 

[Quintessa]

the Moto G55 which mercifully is a bit shorter and lighter than my current phone.

If G55 checks most of your boxes (besides you're a true Motorola fan), grab it while you still can. It's rare to get SD + jack + compact body + new release and from a major OEM. You can always get a used Pixel or Samsung for a camera boost later, but phones with expandable storage and headphone jacks are rapidly vanishing. The G55 might be your last clean hit.

 

[manly]

Doesn't that describe a fair few laptops nowadays? Not that it isn't a terrible idea but I don't think that it's that uncommon!

iPhone has never had expandable storage. I agree on laptops: they should support replaceable NVMe in almost all cases.

The vast majority of consumers doesn't require microSD or headphone out on their smartphone.

 

[Oyeve]

My fold 7 is so thin I don't think they could even put a headphone jack in it, USB C connector barely fits. I do wish they would bring back MSD though. In my tab 9 ultra I have a 1TB SD card in there with tons of music and video files.

 

[Shmee]

I really just want expandable storage for cheap, which is why I would want a micro SD card slot. I know my Samsung S20 FE has one, so I probably won't upgrade for a while/ever. Those that make phones without SD card slots can take that garbage and shove it.

 

[WelshBloke]

iPhone has never had expandable storage. I agree on laptops: they should support replaceable NVMe in almost all cases.

Just because the iPhone has never had it doesn't mean that that's a positive thing! Given that phones are powerful enough to be usable for many years now it's a shame that we can't replace bits easily.

The vast majority of consumers doesn't require microSD or headphone out on their smartphone.

Not sure I agree with that. The main problem people at work have with phones (apart from dropping them or losing them) is running out of storage on them. If they could just magically add a TB of storage I think a lot of people would go for that!
The headphone thing has changed a fair bit with quite cheap Bluetooth headphones being decent now. Plus if you really want wired headphones you can get ones with usbc connections that'll just plug into your phone as normal.

 

[lxskllr]

Eh... USB headphones /can/ be done. Doesn't mean they *should* be done, especially when there's a good solution that costs pennies to implement. I have an old phone in my room that works as an internet radio. It's always on a charger, and it's always plugged in to 2.1 speakers. Now, since it's parked, going to dongletown isn't as a big a deal, but it would still be lame when compared to obvious solution I implemented.

 

[manly]

Just because the iPhone has never had it doesn't mean that that's a positive thing! Given that phones are powerful enough to be usable for many years now it's a shame that we can't replace bits easily.

Not sure I agree with that. The main problem people at work have with phones (apart from dropping them or losing them) is running out of storage on them. If they could just magically add a TB of storage I think a lot of people would go for that!
The headphone thing has changed a fair bit with quite cheap Bluetooth headphones being decent now. Plus if you really want wired headphones you can get ones with usbc connections that'll just plug into your phone as normal.

I mainly agree with you, but we're not the average consumer. Perhaps consumers would make different choices if microSD was a standard feature; but for well over a decade they've already voted with their wallets. Apple has literally sold billions of iPhones, none ever having expandable storage. Samsung and Google long ago copied that move, with hundreds of millions of additional units sold.*

Sure you could argue that consumers are just sheeple, but sadly that isn't changing anytime soon. And you're absolutely right that the latest SoCs are so performant that it's a shame the manufacturers encourage cycles of e-waste.

Also note that a typical reaction to a mobile phone having reduced battery performance after a few years is to go get a new phone. Instead, it should be getting a battery swapped out at a very reasonable cost.

* I feel strongly that soldered RAM and storage on laptop computers is very lame. One reason why I left the Mac ecosystem in 2017.

 

[mikeymikec]

I've more or less decided two things: 1) To keep using my Nokia 8.3 until it becomes a real problem and 2) to give up on getting a headphone socket and MicroSD card on a new phone, just because it seems that insisting on either option limits my choices drastically (and to the low end) and I can work around both limitations.

While I love the idea of removable storage, and that it gives me a bit more flexibility when running phone backups (I can dump the backup data on the MSD card and later transfer it to my PC - I don't trust the cloud), I haven't really been making great use of the additional space; my phone has 64GB internal storage of which 30GB is free and my MSD card has 64GB storage of which 25GB is normally free, I'm fairly sure I can make do without significant inconvenience as long as my next phone has at least 128GB storage.

I think my wife will insist on MSD storage for her next phone though, she has a 128GB MSD card in hers and that's about 70% full IIRC. I spend very little time on my phone (but I still want it to perform well and take decent photos), whereas her phone constitutes about 99% of her home computing use.

Mostly on my wife's behalf (her phone recently warned her that the battery health is poor), I'm looking at phone reviews, and I swear to God, if I have to read another mid-range phone review which looks like it was written buy a guy who wouldn't *dream* of owning a phone that cheap, constantly comparing a ~£300 phone to a freaking Google Pixel or Samsung S2x and without any kind of useful and consistent metric, I'm going to scream. *I don't care* that there are more expensive and better phones, I'm trying to pay ~£300 or less! To successfully sell me a ~£600 phone, it's going to have all the features I actually want, more years of Android support that the phone could ever last for, and has some kind of "no matter what" 5 year warranty! Ie. a unicorn.

 

[watdahel]

It is a sad state of affairs. Even a $10 wired earbuds sounds astronomically better than a $30 bluetooth earbuds.