They are incredibly biased for the industry. I suppose it is unrealistic to expect for them to evaluate things from users/consumers/enthusiast's perspectives at this point. It is an inevitable journey for majority of the tech bloggers who become known over time, from my observations. There are a few exceptions (e.g. Gary Key who does not write for AT any more), but they are, well, exceptions.
Given that SD cards not capable of 10 IOPS are still being sold, that SD card incompatibilities exist with some phones, that exFAT loses data too easily, and that even FAT32 will get unmounted and need a chkdsk all too often (luckily, you can get apps for that on Android),
and that they are physically internal...their biases have some grounding, though I think they go a bit far (I don't recall exactly what they said, but I did listen to what the OP is talking about). Even those that can handle 100+ IOPS can't handle more than a few MB/s of writing, without a special card reader*. Even if you root an Android phone, the speed hit ruins it for some apps you thought would be OK to move, because they end up waiting on the SD as they try to edit their data. But, the reliability issues are more important. I don't need an extra disk management app for my phone's internal storage to stay readable**.
Since we already have battery covers, and SIM slots, I don't think it affects build quality much.
I don't want no expansion options, but SD, in all its forms, has consistently been a pain, IME, compared to other types of storage. Its sole advantage was being small, and that still is the best feature it has. All the problems they have used as PC supplemental storage, they have in phones and tablets.
But, given that it's SD or nothing, I would want a SD slot
even with a large internal storage.
I don't feel the need to have every mp3 I have on my phone
Nobody sells
microSDXC cards that big, and probably won't for years. So, even if you wanted to do that, it's not yet possible. It can be done on a tablet, but $500 seems like a bit much, to me (TMK, the Lexar is the only one yet available).
* With a Sandisk Ultra 64GB, I get 18MBps sequential read, and 11 write, in my USB readers (none UHS). But, only 13MBps and 4.5MBps in my phone. Both get about the same 4K CDM score, around 0.6MBps about 150 IOPS). It was cheaper than the non-Ultras when I bought it, before you go there
.
** I tried EXT4, but of course, Windows compatibility was gone, as I expected, on top of needing an app just for the phone to mount it on boot
. I tried NTFS, too, but that made it where it only worked as USB storage.
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