"Storage Anxiety" and nexus devices

[fuzzybabybunny]

I'd say it is a very small minority who wants 2GB video games on their phones. The majority either do not play at all, or only play quick timewaster games like Angry Birds which take almost no space. On the other hand, I'd describe myself as a gamer, but I don't want 2GB videogames on my phone either. If a game with that level of scope and assets is worth playing, then it's worth playing from a big screen and with good controls, not from a tiny phone screen.

Kind of the same thing with 4GB 720p movies. For a pocket-size screen, 480p would be perfectly fine and would save battery power in addition to storage, and 720p is a waste. Having the power/storage/battery capacity to run the 720p material as-is may be more convenient, though, if it removes the need to re-encode your stuff and/or store multiple res copies on your PC.

The trends do not show this as true. In fact, if we compare computer technology with mobile technology, adequate storage will always be an issue.

GPUs and CPUs are getting better and better in mobile devices. That means games that require large textures and huge amounts of space are inevitable, even simple ones like racing. Why doesn't STEAM just run all their games off the cloud? They can't. Mobile won't be able to either.

Screens have better and better resolution. 720p is the minimum nowadays with Retina 300 DPI displays becoming standard. Considering 300 DPI is at the limit of what a human eye can discern, video of this standard is what storage is going to have to deal with. It just has to.

 

[Jinny]

Slimmer phone than what? You have to show the damage to thickness that SD card causes. If it's a 6mm vs 10mm phone yeah I can bet you people will care. But people obviously don't mind Motorola going 0.5mm thicker for 30% more battery.

Thinness and SDcard are not mutually exclusive. You won't get the thinnest phone, but there are tons of thin phones out there. It's a red herring to talk about thickness and how people are willing to sacrifice sdcard.

agreed. i use a galaxy s2 , quite an ancient phone. it is very slim yet it does have a microSD slot. i dunno.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

price anxiety is worse than storage anxiety

 

[dagamer34]

The trends do not show this as true. In fact, if we compare computer technology with mobile technology, adequate storage will always be an issue.

GPUs and CPUs are getting better and better in mobile devices. That means games that require large textures and huge amounts of space are inevitable, even simple ones like racing. Why doesn't STEAM just run all their games off the cloud? They can't. Mobile won't be able to either.

Screens have better and better resolution. 720p is the minimum nowadays with Retina 300 DPI displays becoming standard. Considering 300 DPI is at the limit of what a human eye can discern, video of this standard is what storage is going to have to deal with. It just has to.

This is why I hate marketing. This fact is only true if you remember completely what Apple said including the part about distance from your eye. That statement is only true at a ~300 PPI at 12 inches. If you're using your phone in bed, you can still see pixels, and people who have seen the HTC J Butterfly at 440 PPI still noticed a difference.

 

[Concillian]

I use my phone as my car's head-unit. I need ~32GB of storage... ~16-18 GB for music and the rest for apps, photos and everything else.

I don't really care how I get that 32GB, as long as it's reasonably economical... and paying an extra $100-200 for the handset is not reasonably economical. Sandisk Ultra 32GB micro SD is $28 shipped right now... so $50 extra to move up to 32 GB is what the handset needs to be or I'm gonna buy something else... that has an SD slot.

I'm sure I'm not like most users. But as long as there is at least a couple handsets to choose from that suit my needs, I'm happy.