"Storage Anxiety" and nexus devices

[cmdrdredd]

If they take away my SD slot at least give my a 32gig+ option. These new phones are giving me neither and it's pretty f'ing irritating.

That's what I was thinking. Maxing out at 8GB is pretty small. Flash memory isn't that expensive. Plus I can fill over 16GB with just my local music and I like streaming with Spotify but it doesn't help when I cannot access the internet at all. You can download from spotify to play songs offline but that still requires local storage.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

That's what I was thinking. Maxing out at 8GB is pretty small. Flash memory isn't that expensive. Plus I can fill over 16GB with just my local music and I like streaming with Spotify but it doesn't help when I cannot access the internet at all. You can download from spotify to play songs offline but that still requires local storage.

HTC seemed to learn their lesson with the HTC One X+. You can't sell a flagship phone at 16gb. 32/64gb FTW.

 

[vi edit]

HTC seemed to learn their lesson with the HTC One X+. You can't sell a flagship phone at 16gb. 32/64gb FTW.

Which is totally why the 8x is 16 gig with no SD card. Bleh.

 

[openwheel]

trust me, SD card is not the way to go.

The more we get squeezed this way, the more the carriers have to give. I'd rather have more data than sd card slot. BTW SD cards causes many issues too.

 

[cmdrdredd]

trust me, SD card is not the way to go.

The more we get squeezed this way, the more the carriers have to give. I'd rather have more data than sd card slot. BTW SD cards causes many issues too.

I fail to see how being able to copy my iTunes library to my SD Card with a few movies I own is going to impact the carrier's data in any way/shape/or form. Plus, it's handy for doing nandroid backups.

 

[ChronoReverse]

trust me, SD card is not the way to go.

Enlighten us. I've owned three devices with an SD card slot but I've not seen the reason why it's not the way to go.

 

[LostPassword]

don't understand. if people are too confused to use a sd card. then don't put a SD card in it. simple as that. give people who want expandable storage, the option to put one in.

same thing with battery. if you never remove your battery. then no problem. if you want to use another battery, give people the option. its marketing BS.

 

[lothar]

I don't care about SD storage...If they offer 32GB NAND, I'm sold.
16GB is managable, but I'd prefer not to have it.

32GB NAND or more, I don't give a damn about SD storage.
16GB NAND or less, I do care about SD storage.

 

[Eug]

8 GB is too small, except for basic users.
IMO for the mainstream, 16 GB is a good compromise.

However, for users like me, 16 GB does give me a bit of "storage annoyance". When I expect to be away from home for several days, I actually carry a 64 GB USB drive and a USB OTG cable for my Nexus 7, with double-digit GB worth of videos on the drive. This works fine on a stock Jelly Bean install, with Nexus Media Importer for video playback. Having microSD would be soooo much more elegant though. External USB drives on a tablet (or phone) is just irritating.

At 32 GB, I would still care, but at 64 GB, not so much.

 

[QueBert]

trust me, SD card is not the way to go.

The more we get squeezed this way, the more the carriers have to give. I'd rather have more data than sd card slot. BTW SD cards causes many issues too.

16 gigs is shit, I had an HTC One X and when I syned it with my Google account the 1st time it couldn't even download all the apps I bought. There are tons of Android games that are close to, if not over a gig. 32 gigs really isn't even shit either. Doubly so when you can't install or run apps from this cloud. I don't like SD cards, but if you're suggesting cloud as the future I gotta disagree.

 

[Capt Caveman]

I had trouble giving up micro SD, but at this stage I've come to expect that from Android (sad).

What troubles me more now is how Google is limiting the internal storage and still charging a hefty premium for higher capacities. No 32GB option just seems criminal for anything now.

I saw someone comment that maybe Google is doing this more to make OEMs happy, since Google is selling their hardware much cheaper, they maybe feel obliged to gimp it in some way to that it's partners can still sell their more expensive phones with more storage.

Or it could be Google just pushing hard on Nexus owners to be more loyal to Google cloud services.

If the cloud was more reliable, I'd be all for embracing it completely. But I just don't find it reliable enough. Sometimes I don't have a good signal strength, sometimes I have great signal strength and still the cloud lags and buffers. The cloud just isn't good enough yet.

I can manage with 16GB. But I would prefer more breathing room from having 32GB of space. Yet I won't pay $100 more for that extra 16GB of storage either. It already annoys me that I have to pay $50 for 8GB more, but it's impossible for me to live on 6GB of storage, so I'll have to pay that premium.

But... for $350 for a Nexus 4 16GB or $400 for a Nexus 10 16GB, I can get over it.

I would have been happy to pay $50-75 more for a 32gb Nexus 4. The $100 for 16gb more on the Nexus 10 is outrageous. I thought Google would be the anti-Apple in that regard.

But yes, with only 16gb on the Nexus 4, I will be forced to use the cloud for my music.

 

[Mopetar]

I would have been happy to pay $50-75 more for a 32gb Nexus 4. The $100 for 16gb more on the Nexus 10 is outrageous. I thought Google would be the anti-Apple in that regard.

I think that they'll probably shift toward's Apple's model. If they're selling the base model at low margins (or even at cost, but it doesn't seem like that in this case), they need a way to make a profit. $100 markup for an extra $10 in cost is a pretty easy way to do that.

 

[bonkers325]

packaging Nexus products with an SD card is a sure way to piss off OEMs.

 

[poofyhairguy]

My big issue with not having a SD card slot is that cloud streaming simply isn't good enough.

Right now I have two 32gb MicroSDs that go in either my tablet or phone filled with 720p mkv movies. That way when I travel I can watch movies on the hotel TV without paying the ridiculous PPV prices.

If I go the cloud streaming option (and I have tried) my video get transcoded down to SD quality. That is fine for the actual phone screen, but on a 32+inch hotel TV that sucks.

Add in the fact I hate to delete apps I have paid for (and so I find my SGS2's 16GB onboard is too small) and my dream phone is one with 32gb internal for apps AND a Micro SD slot.

 

[Timorous]

It's not a user experience thing. It's a gouge customers by charging $50 for 8gb of additional storage thing.

8-16gb leaves almost no space for my music, movies, apps/games and HD picture/video recording. Maybe $2-300 phone bills are nothing to Google engineers but there is no realistic way a working person can afford to use "cloud" to fulfill their needs. It's insulting.

Well I don't know about no working person can afford to use the 'cloud'. Last month I used 160GB of mobile data and that cost me £25.00. This month I have used 65GB which is quite low for me. It depends on your data tariff, I get unlimited data for a fixed price.

I like having the option to expand my storage but I have not used it yet. I would not want to use cloud storage because, as others have said, you do not always have access to it when you need/want it.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Good luck with using 160GB in the USA for $50.

 

[Reliant]

When I had phones with SD slots, I hardly used them. I may have a different usage pattern than some, but I don't load my phone up with a lot of apps unless I use them fairly frequently, and for music I tend to just have an iPod in my car at all times. I can see how having it all in one would be nice, but each time I have that option in a phone with a huge amount of storage, I never end up using it.

 

[gorcorps]

Well I don't know about no working person can afford to use the 'cloud'. Last month I used 160GB of mobile data and that cost me £25.00. This month I have used 65GB which is quite low for me. It depends on your data tariff, I get unlimited data for a fixed price.

I like having the option to expand my storage but I have not used it yet. I would not want to use cloud storage because, as others have said, you do not always have access to it when you need/want it.

My plan is for 2GB of data. Yes, just 2, though I rarely use more than that. I pay around $75 USD per month for my entire plan. I don't have the option of an unlimited plan.

The US is simply not in the same boat as the rest of the world. The population density just isn't there to make it worth while for any company to invest in the infrastructure that's needed for cloud based systems to work well. It sucks and we hate it.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

They've done polls to show that people would rather have a slimmer phone than expandable storage. Sells have also shown that people don't care about expandable storage either. Do I like expandable storage? Yes, but I wouldn't totally dismiss a great phone because of that.

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.

 

[deputc26]

Well some good discussion but the only reasons that look credible to me are the "force people to the cloud" answer and the "don't piss off the oems" answer. A nexus with sd card would be my perfect device but I guess I'll go with Sammy

 

[Timorous]

My plan is for 2GB of data. Yes, just 2, though I rarely use more than that. I pay around $75 USD per month for my entire plan. I don't have the option of an unlimited plan.

The US is simply not in the same boat as the rest of the world. The population density just isn't there to make it worth while for any company to invest in the infrastructure that's needed for cloud based systems to work well. It sucks and we hate it.

I can totally understand that. My provider is one of a couple who offer unlimited data. The thing is their network is 3g or nothing so rather than 98% coverage it's about 90%. Where I live is so good that it is 3x faster than my ADSL and more stable with lower ping but there are a few very poor spots near by.

That is the trade off I guess but it still means cloud storage is by far inferior to on phone or SD card storage and I can see why the removal of sd card storage coupled with the absurd premium for extra capacity does not sit well with some people.

 

[Red Storm]

Google wants your data. They don't want you using local storage that doesn't help them data mine people. By removing the SD slot you encourage people to try/use/rely on cloud storage (and they hope you pick Google Drive).

 

[WelshBloke]

Google wants your data. They don't want you using local storage that doesn't help them data mine people. By removing the SD slot you encourage people to try/use/rely on cloud storage (and they hope you pick Google Drive).

I'm going to go with this. If it was just about the 'user experience' they would stick a decent amount of storage in there.
Mind you it could be a deal with the carriers to get us to use more data and charge us for it.
/tinfoilhat

 

[lothar]

Take off your tin foil hats people...This has little to do with mining data, or forcing people into the cloud.
The reason that there's no microSD slot on recent Nexus devices is because Google doesn't want to have to pay for Microsoft's FAT patents.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Take off your tin foil hats people...This has little to do with mining data, or forcing people into the cloud.
The reason that there's no microSD slot on recent Nexus devices is because Google doesn't want to have to pay for Microsoft's FAT patents.

I thought cost related but didn't consider additional cost, the patent fee as well as the animosity between the two. The average user populating only a fraction of what power users do isn't helping either, they are the baseline OEM's cater to.