Brian & Anand Hate SD Card's in Phones

[lopri]

I've got no particular objection for/against SD cards, but using rape as an analogy in a debate about consumer electronics?

I was at some other board before writing my previous post. I apologize for my unnecessarily inflammatory analogy. I should have thought before posting.

 

[Zaap]

Part of me has wondered that if the primary reason we see a MicroSD slot on Samsung devices is because they sell MicroSD cards.

Good point. That's gotta be a big motivator.

 

[mikeymikec]

Part of me has wondered that if the primary reason we see a MicroSD slot on Samsung devices is because they sell MicroSD cards.

That seems like a fair bit of hardware to include for the sake of selling a $10 device. It would seem more sensible (in bottom line terms) to not include the socket, save the money on R&D and building the sockets, possibly use the space for something else.

Your argument would make more sense if Samsung required (one way or another) that their devices ship with MicroSD cards (or that the devices were noticeably hobbled without them). I wonder how many phones sold actually end up with a MicroSD card connected. I have one installed in mine because I thought it would be a good idea (and I use it for storing more music than the internal storage can handle), but my wife is a far heavier phone user than I am and yet I don't think she has a card connected.

 

[WelshBloke]

...I wish more professional reviews had been critical of the One. Droid-Life seemed to have the only review that presented what I deemed to be the issues with the phone...

Anand and Brian are pretty much obsessed with the aluminium unibody design and will forgive a lot if somethings got it and will denigrate anything that doesn't.

Thats pretty much where they are coming from with the removable battery thing and the SDcard thing. Its a shame that they are letting a subjective, aesthetic thing influence their reviews but once you realise where they are coming from you can compensate and "correct" their articles when you read them.

 

[Crono]

I don't know why this is even a thread. Anyone with any sense or cursory knowledge of mobile technology realizes there are tradeoffs and always will be tradeoffs. "Hating" SD cards isn't about hating removable storage technology any more than preferring external storage is about hating internal storage.

Ideally all smartphones would have equally fast internal and external storage with 128GB or more internal capacity, zero failure rates on storage, zero gaps or seams from battery doors, and an OS that allows you to be unaware of whether apps are on internal storage or external if you so chose (it should "just work"). We don't yet live in that world, and the world doesn't suddenly become a wonderful place if all phones had removable storage or all phones were purely internal-only. There's nothing wrong with strongly preferring either, it's just stupid to take an unequivocal stance either way and decide you know best for everyone. Neither Anand nor Brian are saying everyone must go internal-only.

Personally, I was highly anticipating a phone like the Ubuntu Edge coming to the market. I know photographers love microSD capability on smartphones because you can swap them right in or out, but for me having large internal storage for a reasonable price would mean I don't have to worry about running out of storage space (though I do fine right now with 32GB) nor would I have to pay for a card to stick in my phone.

Even on better would be to have an entirely modular phone (Ara/Phonebloks), but of course there are even more tradeoffs to that, whereas having 128GB+ of internal storage is something entirely feasible without massive design changes. It's just not very economical for the consumer/end user, at least.

 

[WelshBloke]

... Neither Anand nor Brian are saying everyone must go internal-only.

They both have an ambivalent (at best) attitude to removable storage, I think people just want the attitude of the reviewers to somewhat reflect the needs and wants of the readership rather than just the proportion of the readership that agrees with them.

 

[Crono]

They both have an ambivalent (at best) attitude to removable storage, I think people just want the attitude of the reviewers to somewhat reflect the needs and wants of the readership rather than just the proportion of the readership that agrees with them.

That's a problem I see a lot when users are quick to criticize reviewers. The best reviewers and tech journalists try to present things as balanced as possible, it's really not their job (even the ones who work for fan-based sites, I would argue) to attack or defend either the majority or a niche viewpoint, and we certainly have to grant them their own opinions from time to time.

You have to give some credit to Anand and Brian for the reply on the main site, at least, very few tech news/review sites will give a response (and that quick) to a perceived or bias in reporting. Not to mention it was in typical AT fashion with a thorough explanation of their reasoning.

 

[QueBert]

I respect Anand for praising phones that aren't built like toys. I understand some people like plastic and want SD slots. I want as few doors/covers whatever you want to call them as possible on my phone. I'd like more space, but not at the expense of having something else that messes up the lines of my phone. I know there's no way around it, but when I see the SIM slot cover on my HTC One I just wish there was a way they could have done away with it.

Unibody > * I'll take form over function 100/100 times. Beers stay colder much longer and don't sweat in a Styrofoam cup. But I'll always prefer to drink them in an actual glass.

 

[WelshBloke]

That's a problem I see a lot when users are quick to criticize reviewers. The best reviewers and tech journalists try to present things as balanced as possible, it's really not their job (even the ones who work for fan-based sites, I would argue) to attack or defend either the majority or a niche viewpoint, and we certainly have to grant them their own opinions from time to time.

Most of the time they seem to be expressing their opinion about the issues at had in a particularly narky manner.

You have to give some credit to Anand and Brian for the reply on the main site, at least, very few tech news/review sites will give a response (and that quick) to a perceived or bias in reporting. Not to mention it was in typical AT fashion with a thorough explanation of their reasoning.

That article is really weak though. There doesn't seem to be one real point that shows having an SDcard slot in a phone is a negative.

They say that an SDcard slot would need a removable back, but it only needs one as much as a SIM card does.

Then its bad because Google and Apple say its bad. Not that Google or Apple have any vested interest in you buying all your media from their cloud based solutions.

Then theres a vague point about reliability with no evidence or support.

Then they talk about performance, again with no actual real world examples of where it makes a difference.

Then theres the stating the obvious that people buy sdcards because theres not enough storage built into their phones. Well OK there, cheers for that.

Then its but theres no space. Really? Devices are getting bigger all the time. I've got tiny old phones that managed to fit full sized sdcard slots in (not micro or mini), I'm sure theres space in a device with a 5 inch display.

Then the conclusion that they would rather cheap high performance storage built in. Well DUH! Wouldnt we all. Its just until we get there I'll stick to using Cheap slower storage that seems to do the job just as well.

To be honest that article smells of a couple of people trying to justify their dubious fashion choices by wrapping them up in a bunch of half thought out excuses.
I get that the guys really, really like unibody phones, but theres no need for them to try quite so hard to convince everybody else.


This post brought to you by a particularly gruesome night shift.

 

[WelshBloke]

I respect Anand for praising phones that aren't built like toys...

I'd respect them more if they were just more honest about it. Just say that they like the unibody design above some of the functionality that other people want. Rather than trying to hide it under a bunch of rationalisations that don't stand up to examination.

 

[ssj3gohan]

There's two things at play now - concerning the response from Brian and Anand on the main site: SD cards and removable batteries.

First of all, from a technical perspective the whole sd card bullshit is... well that. You can't tell me that people accept larger and heavier phones than ever, but can't afford the added weight and absolutely minimal volume of a microSD card. OS compatibility is an issue, yes, but that doesn't explain away the validity of a niche (or even majority) of devices with SD cards. You don't need a removable back for SD cards. It can just go in like a microsim; through a rubber-covered door or something.

The other issue is removable batteries and in general having removable or serviceable parts. The engineering response is definitely true; you WILL incur a significant volume and/or weight penalty for including removable parts vs. fixed. But this is where lifetime comes into play. Right now, we are still at - arguably the tail of - extremely rapid improvements in phones that render any phone over 2 years old essentially worthless. People and businesses have no desire to keep old phones and other mobile devices in service. This will end very soon, maybe we are already at the point where it has ended. Devices will be powerful enough and software will be optimized to the point where it is 'good enough' for most people. PC has been here since halfway the 2000s and we've seen what this has brought about: 3 year purchasing cycles have gone up to 5 or even 7 years, making the longevity of devices MUCH more important.

People saying 'at some point we will have 128GB in phones and that is enough' - come on, you know this is a bust. Did you say the same about 512MB storage in your mp3 player in 2006? It's not enough. People will always want to store and manipulate more data, and from a technical perspective this is also desirable. At some point people will want the convenience of shooting at 4 or 6k resolutions and zooming in while playing a video to highlight something. At such points we're talking about gigabytes per minute of footage. And that's just one little use case. There's always going to be a need for more data.

Also, batteries are getting better pretty fast, but we will always have physical limits on batteries preventing long term use, at least as long as we're using lithium electrolytic chemistries. Long story short: your battery will die after 1-3 years, and you will want a replacement. It had better be serviceable, or you have a very expensive brick.

This ties into another thing: until recently, basically all over the world it was fairly common to get a 'free' phone with a ~$2000 contract (i.e. 2-year couple tens of dollars per month contract). At least on my side of the Atlantic, this is changing very rapidly. Data plans (and kind of unimportantly: call/sms plans) are increasingly getting decoupled from the actual devices. When people have to actually pay for their little bricks that cost their weight in gold, they tend to keep them in better shape and try to keep them longer - even if their actual expenses are lower!

I see SD cards (or whatever new standard we will get) as well as removable batteries as a cornerstone of the new mobile paradigm in this respect. Longer device lifetimes will enable so much more than what we have now. Instead of toys, mobile devices can get established platforms, they can become productivity devices.

Case in point: HP iPaq HX2x00. Workhorse of the industry for over 10 years! This device started out with a stock 16/32MB memory (!) but near the end of its lifetime gained SDHC support besides the obviously obsolete CF card slot. Windows CE/mobile 5 was a mature platform with very easy development tools and enabled many companies to adopt this model for basically any mobile notetaking task: railways used (and still use!) them extensively, the majority of warehousing companies around here used them for inventory tasks, a multitude of SDIO/IR accessories were made for very niche tasks as well as more modern battery packs, NFC and authentication/battery combo's. Many companies still feel like there is no good substitute for these devices right now, although I've seen the earlier HTC phones being used for this task (Desire (S), Dream).

But also aside from productivity, for everyday use you will get to the point where it's possible to make a phone that lasts 5 or 7 years. That in turn allows other entertainment and content consumption industries to release compatible peripherals; standardized big-screen interaction, proper interfaces to local clouds and NAS storage, interfaces to domotics and remote management. Imagine Google Now or Siri properly responding to the question to dim the lights? That's a proper human interface if you ask me.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I'd respect them more if they were just more honest about it. Just say that they like the unibody design above some of the functionality that other people want. Rather than trying to hide it under a bunch of rationalisations that don't stand up to examination.

Not to mention that they ignore the two best selling Android phones, the SGS4 and Note 3 which just so happen to completely discredit their claim that you have to choose between good battery life and a removable battery.

I think the real issue is if they have to admit these things have value they have to acknowledge that Samsung is giving consumers what they want

 

[poofyhairguy]

Anand and Brian are pretty much obsessed with the aluminium unibody design and will forgive a lot if somethings got it and will denigrate anything that doesn't.

Didn't Brian admit he had to take a file to his HTC One after dropping it? To me that is the reason I will AVOID an Aluminum phone. At least plastic can take a fall and go back to form.

 

[turn_pike]

Frankly this thread really illustrate the whole "vocal minority" nature of those wanting SD-Card in modern smartphones. A single proponent of SD-Card like WelshBloke posted something like 26+ times in this thread alone.

If there are truly so many people putting a lot of value into removable battery and SD-Card slot then surely the manufacturers would have built these features into their phones. Do people really think that these multi-billion dollar companies did not do their marketing research ?

Not to mention that they ignore the two best selling Android phones, the SGS4 and Note 3 which just so happen to completely discredit their claim that you have to choose between good battery life and a removable battery.

I think the real issue is if they have to admit these things have value they have to acknowledge that Samsung is giving consumers what they want

No, those are spurious relations. There are many confounding factors. Most obvious one being Samsung's ridiculous marketing prowess. I was bombarded with Samsung ads while I was in the US, then I moved thousands of miles away to a third world country and if anything, their marketing is even more thorough. Billboards, tv ads, huge banner on buildings, Rows of Samsung logo decorating just about every single cellphone shop. There are many other possible factors in play ranging from Samsung's TouchWiz features to the saturated AMOLED colors all the way to Samsung's excellent distribution channel (especially in third world countries, where the likes of HTC are basically no show).

If removable battery and sd-card truly rank high on many consumer's priority list then every manufacturers would include them in their phones. That's just how the supply and demand of market economy works.

I'd respect them more if they were just more honest about it. Just say that they like the unibody design above some of the functionality that other people want. Rather than trying to hide it under a bunch of rationalisations that don't stand up to examination.

And I respectfully disagree. Here's what I get from 30 seconds of google:

Jerry Hart, Nokia's senior product manager of Windows Phone, told CNET: [snip] "the unibody design made possible by the embedded battery makes the phone "seamless," "extremely rigid," and "free from split lines that disrupt the feel in hand and the visual purity of the design."

Slimness is absolutely part of the equation, since phones without the small grooves, nooks, and air pockets needed to make it so you can open a back cover and pull out a battery have the potential to be thinner.
In fact, when you don't have to design a product around popping out its battery, you have far more options. Engineers can use batteries in shapes, sizes, and configurations that deliver the requisite charge but are impractical to remove. That, in turn, can allow the industrial designer to create phones with creative contours.

Here's some arguments from Google for not including SD card in their nexus line :
- Multi User Support
- The lack of proper filesystem permissions.
- Complicating the UI i.e. Google wants users to be able to get everything they want without using File Manager
- Many users using cheap SD-Cards and slow down the phone, blame Android for it (Windows Phone and IPhone dont have sd card)
- API Problem ("you stick in an SD card with photos on it, do you add those to the system media content provider? If you do, you will screw up apps because they aren't designed with the concept that photos can come and go.")
- and a lot more but you just gotta have to read the articles yourself.

I have not been able to find manufacturers directly saying they did not include sd card to reduce RMA although this is one of those things where they could be shooting themselves in the foot if they say it so I am not surprised.

 

[TerryMathews]

If removable battery and sd-card truly rank high on many consumer's priority list then every manufacturers would include them in their phones. That's just how the supply and demand of market economy works.

Wrong on so many levels. Supply and demand only works absent outside forces.

Does Google have a financial incentive in not offering you a phone with the ability to add new storage? Do they offer a pay service for more cloud storage? Where do you think they make more money at?

I buy the argument on unibody batteries as long as manufacturers do their part and use quality cells. My concern is that it would become a planned obsolescence avenue by less scrupulous manufacturers using cells only good for 300 cycles or some other low number that averages out to a 1 year life span.

There really is no excuse for excluding a micro SD. Not one problem you listed is insurmountable. Not sure on how to approach issues like whether to integrate SD storage with the Media Scanner? If only someone had invented some sort of application where we could capture the users wishes on decisions like that. We could call it, something authoritarian sounding. How about Settings?

 

[nOOky]

Not having a removable battery due to design features listed above I can agree with. Not having a removable micro sd card I have trouble with. While I may not need one and I can manage my storage needs around it, I may still want it. And I don't see how it can't fit right alongside the sim card.

And, annoyingly enough, the trend is towards tiered data plans instead of unlimited, so storing media on the cloud looks even less attractive to me. Yes wifi is an option, but 4g is more useful and more available for a mobile device imho.

One of the cons of my LG G2 is the lack of additional storage, it has only 24 gigabytes available. Another 16 gigs at least via micro sd card would have been so much better...

 

[s44]

If removable battery and sd-card truly rank high on many consumer's priority list then every manufacturers would include them in their phones. That's just how the supply and demand of market economy works.

Nope. Since everyone who wants these can and will just buy a Samsung, other Android manufacturers (who are *dwarfed* in sales) attempt to use what they can get from not having these things as differentiators.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

There's two things at play now - concerning the response from Brian and Anand on the main site: SD cards and removable batteries.

First of all, from a technical perspective the whole sd card bullshit is... well that. You can't tell me that people accept larger and heavier phones than ever, but can't afford the added weight and absolutely minimal volume of a microSD card. OS compatibility is an issue, yes, but that doesn't explain away the validity of a niche (or even majority) of devices with SD cards. You don't need a removable back for SD cards. It can just go in like a microsim; through a rubber-covered door or something.

The other issue is removable batteries and in general having removable or serviceable parts. The engineering response is definitely true; you WILL incur a significant volume and/or weight penalty for including removable parts vs. fixed. But this is where lifetime comes into play. Right now, we are still at - arguably the tail of - extremely rapid improvements in phones that render any phone over 2 years old essentially worthless. People and businesses have no desire to keep old phones and other mobile devices in service. This will end very soon, maybe we are already at the point where it has ended. Devices will be powerful enough and software will be optimized to the point where it is 'good enough' for most people. PC has been here since halfway the 2000s and we've seen what this has brought about: 3 year purchasing cycles have gone up to 5 or even 7 years, making the longevity of devices MUCH more important.

People saying 'at some point we will have 128GB in phones and that is enough' - come on, you know this is a bust. Did you say the same about 512MB storage in your mp3 player in 2006? It's not enough. People will always want to store and manipulate more data, and from a technical perspective this is also desirable. At some point people will want the convenience of shooting at 4 or 6k resolutions and zooming in while playing a video to highlight something. At such points we're talking about gigabytes per minute of footage. And that's just one little use case. There's always going to be a need for more data.

Also, batteries are getting better pretty fast, but we will always have physical limits on batteries preventing long term use, at least as long as we're using lithium electrolytic chemistries. Long story short: your battery will die after 1-3 years, and you will want a replacement. It had better be serviceable, or you have a very expensive brick.

This ties into another thing: until recently, basically all over the world it was fairly common to get a 'free' phone with a ~$2000 contract (i.e. 2-year couple tens of dollars per month contract). At least on my side of the Atlantic, this is changing very rapidly. Data plans (and kind of unimportantly: call/sms plans) are increasingly getting decoupled from the actual devices. When people have to actually pay for their little bricks that cost their weight in gold, they tend to keep them in better shape and try to keep them longer - even if their actual expenses are lower!

I see SD cards (or whatever new standard we will get) as well as removable batteries as a cornerstone of the new mobile paradigm in this respect. Longer device lifetimes will enable so much more than what we have now. Instead of toys, mobile devices can get established platforms, they can become productivity devices.

Case in point: HP iPaq HX2x00. Workhorse of the industry for over 10 years! This device started out with a stock 16/32MB memory (!) but near the end of its lifetime gained SDHC support besides the obviously obsolete CF card slot. Windows CE/mobile 5 was a mature platform with very easy development tools and enabled many companies to adopt this model for basically any mobile notetaking task: railways used (and still use!) them extensively, the majority of warehousing companies around here used them for inventory tasks, a multitude of SDIO/IR accessories were made for very niche tasks as well as more modern battery packs, NFC and authentication/battery combo's. Many companies still feel like there is no good substitute for these devices right now, although I've seen the earlier HTC phones being used for this task (Desire (S), Dream).

But also aside from productivity, for everyday use you will get to the point where it's possible to make a phone that lasts 5 or 7 years. That in turn allows other entertainment and content consumption industries to release compatible peripherals; standardized big-screen interaction, proper interfaces to local clouds and NAS storage, interfaces to domotics and remote management. Imagine Google Now or Siri properly responding to the question to dim the lights? That's a proper human interface if you ask me.

Excellent first post! Bravo!
I agree wholeheartedly with these observations.

I would also like to add that too many manufacturers are simply lazy copying Apple and Google. And these two have a mission: one sees the computer as a throwaway sealed box, the other one wants to speed up the usage of Internet-based services. Neither one of this is economically sound in the short-term, but that's what an agenda is.

 

[turn_pike]

Wrong on so many levels. Supply and demand only works absent outside forces.

Does Google have a financial incentive in not offering you a phone with the ability to add new storage? Do they offer a pay service for more cloud storage? Where do you think they make more money at?

And is Google the only company offering an android phone ?
While Google has many reasons not to include sd card, among others being that they sell almost at cost meaning anything that could increase the RMA rate should be a no no, it is ultimately a rather small player compared to other phone manufacturers. In any case, the Nexus line sell like hot cakes.

Nope. Since everyone who wants these can and will just buy a Samsung, other Android manufacturers (who are *dwarfed* in sales) attempt to use what they can get from not having these things as differentiators.

Again. Ignoring the confounding factors.
Apparently in your mind all those 81 million buyers of Samsung phone bought it because of the sd card slot. Of the dozens S4 ads how many of them even mentioned that the S4 has sd card slot ?
If that is what made them sell, then the other Android manufacturers would be idiot not to at least include some flagship models with sd card slot.

Basically what I am saying is that as a user I certainly want more storage and juice in my phone, that said I can understand why so many manufacturers choose not to include removable storage and batteries. I too was a zealot for sd card and removable battery until I saw the HTC One. It was a trade off and quite a painful one. But at least for me it was worth it.

 

[Dentons]

After reading Anand's and Brian's latest diatribe against microSD and removable batteries, my esteem for both has truly plummeted. Anand and Brian know their technology, but no longer even pretend to advocate for their users.

They clearly consider themselves to be marketing arms of the mobile device industry rather than advocates for the users that keep the lights on here.

As for why they spend more time fetishizing the outer encasements of mobile devices rather than actual hardware features, well, perhaps both were jewelery aficionados in a prior life. It's really odd and sad to see such a well respected technology site devote so much energy on the fashion of devices, while overtly triumphing their disdain for actual hardware features.

Come on guys. Get back to the hardware, away from the fashion, and far, far away from the mobile-device marketing drones.

 

[blairharrington]

Samsung isn't the only major OEM still offering an SD card slot. The recently released Xperia Z1 has one. The One Max which was just released does too. Perhaps the M8 will continue that trend.

I found the podcast I was referencing to begin with. It's episode 19. Fast forward to the 1:04.00 mark. Brian and Anand are both very dismissive about the quality and reliability of SD cards in general. I'm not sure Brian could have been more dismissive here regarding the topic.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6896/the-anandtech-podcast-episode-19

 

[deputc26]

First off I'm a huge fan of Anandtech, and particularly of Brian and Anand. AT's Mobile device reviews have better technical data by far than the other tech-review sites and for this reason I rarely buy or recommend a device before I've seen an AT review.

That said, any mobile device that doesn't have a removal battery is a mobile device with an expiration date. Batteries are temperamental, leave you're phone in the sun a few times while it's charging or quickly discharging and you take an unacceptable, and unfixable hit in battery life.

Brian and Anand don't have to care about the possibility of temperature extremes reducing the cell's energy density, or about the certainty of the cell's cycle life expiring because they upgrade to the latest and greatest every other month (or at least every other 6 mos). But I'm quite sure there is a large slice of the market (20% at least) who want a phone that will last as long as a desktop PC, this may not be realistic (though it may be as the market matures), but there definitely exists among most consumers the desire for a device they don't have to worry about replacing until some satisfyingly-distant point in the future.

My sister and brother in law just this month asked me to recommend a decent, moderately priced phone that they could buy outright and wouldn't have to worry about replacing for a long time (3+ years) what to recommend? GS3 hands down. The battery (which will almost certainly not last 3 plus years) can be replaced, the storage can be upgraded, it supports trim and if you put a half decent case and a screen protector on it you can drop it 100 times.

While the objective content of AT's mobile device reviews Is great I have to say I think the subjective content is getting out of touch with the main stream user. Like a wine connoisseur who turns his nose up at anything but the finest vintage (I promise no more metaphors), Brian and Anand have developed a taste (or so it seems to me) for precision machined aluminum that those not counted among the technophile cognoscenti don't relate to. Most people could care less (at least most people I know, and I teach at a very engineering-oriented left-brain-centered university) about whether or not the phone is unibody aluminum (they don't even know what that is) or how precise the manufacturing of that unibody is (will they subconsciously like it? Probably, but it still won't be, and I think shouldn't be, a primary consideration).
What matters is that the device doesn't break when you drop it, it more or less fits in your hand, and it's not an attention-grabbing level of ugly (which very few devices are, and most of them have cases on them anyway). It seems to me that the subjective portion of many recent AT reviews has biased the tone of the review one way or another without a kind of justification that would be recognized as valid by a majority of consumers (or AT readers).

The response to this thread on AT struck me as uncharacteristically incomplete. Yes they are totally and utterly right when it comes to people like themselves who don't mind spending a lot on cell phones and data plans and believe that their devices should also be fashionable accessories. But a significant percentage of people (I would guess the majority) don't fall in this camp, and insulting them on twitter as "cheap" (or "poor" or whatever it was) is unhelpful and snobbish.

 

[deputc26]

You can't tell me that people accept larger and heavier phones than ever, but can't afford the added weight and absolutely minimal volume of a microSD card

Exactly, the response posted by AT was rushed and weakly argued.

 

[cheezy321]

This thread is a perfect example of a very vocal minority.

Sorry guys, but its absolutely true.

 

[Zaap]

That seems like a fair bit of hardware to include for the sake of selling a $10 device. It would seem more sensible (in bottom line terms) to not include the socket, save the money on R&D and building the sockets, possibly use the space for something else.

I'm sorry, but this point makes no sense to me. Samsung sells tens of millions of phones with a microSD slot. It's not like they spent massive R&D on each individual slot in each phone. It probably works out to a few pennies per phone, in both R&D and materials. And "use the space for something else" (???)

Um.. like what?

Presumably most using their microSD slot aren't spending $10 on an SD card (which would imply fairly small < 16GB sizes) let alone 32 and 64GB.

I'd love to know what else they could "use that space for" that would pack the same profit potential into as small as space as a 32GB or 64GB mSD card.

Your argument would make more sense if Samsung required (one way or another) that their devices ship with MicroSD cards (or that the devices were noticeably hobbled without them).

You mean like leaving the user with only 8GB of internal storage in the S4?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/3/4298230/samsung-microsd-makes-up-for-lacking-galaxy-s4-storage

-------------------------

And that BTW reminds me of another issue I have with this subject. Internal storage potential is often misleading with these devices. Something (either system files or data) often ends up eating away at the internal capacity until the user is robbed of a large portion of it.

I remember when B&N thought it would be cute to reserve 15GB of internal Nook storage for itself, and leave the user with a whopping 1GB! (Gee, thanks!) So a 16GB tablet was really a 1GB POS.

My wife currently has 5GB of her 16GB iPhone 5 eaten up with 'other' data that she has no clue what it is. I've looked into this, and it's a common problem with iOS.

She also doesn't have any of the most common causes for this- like sending videos via iMessage that end up never getting deleted, or any of the other usual causes. It's just 5GB of storage magically unavailable from her phone. I've read through Apple's forums, and other guides around the web for how to reclaim this space, and most sources list the usual causes (none of which fit her use) and then end up throwing up hands and saying: Just do a complete system restore and start over, keep fingers crossed it doesn't happen again.

Great! So until she can resort to that, she's enjoying her 11GB/supposedly 16GB iPhone.