Why Nexus phones don't have a SD card slot

[Slug]

Google is also the primary representative for Android in my mind anyway. So, I think their opinion may weigh heavily on manufacturers future decisions.

How many Nexus devices have there been so far with no microSD slot? Samsung show no sign of ditching it, and both HTC and Sony appear to be in two minds. I think expandable memory will be available, for those who want it, for some time to come. The manufacturers recognise "unique selling points".

p.s. similar threads merged to keep discussion unified

 

[gone down sout]

Remember when the first computer without a floppy drive came out? Or the first one that didn't have an optical CD drive? People freaked out then, too, but technology moved forward and we adapted.

 

[bigdrew]

I think a year ago, I would have agreed that an sd slot is a priority on a phone. In that time, I've become more comfortable with cloud storage and keeping stuff on my own personal ftp server. I also had a 16gb C10 card fail on me, and I lost everything stored on it. So my viewpoint has somewhat changed. Internal eMMC is definitely more durable and at least twice as fast as the fastest sdcards. I still don't see the rationale for 8gb if the price difference is only $50, and a 32gb option should have been available at launch; and I have to believe we'll see that sold at some point like the N7, but I personally think that eliminating expandable memory is being overblown.

 

[Crashdamage]

One thing that hasn't been brought up is multiple user profiles.

Many believe this feature is only a small update away, and its already shipping on the nexus 10.

A sd card with the way most of them are formatted have no sense of ownership. They cannot be used in s device with more than one owner. It's not feasible .

Exactly. Users cannot 'own' info stored on a FAT partition. I don't understand why Google hasn't pointed this out in their explanation.

I prefer having a SD slot but it's not a make-or-break feature, especially since I have 105GB on Dropbox and a full terabyte on Google Drive.

I understand Google's reasoning and don't hold their decision against them. We still have choices.

 

[Ze Veteran]

The Nexus 4 will have an 8 Megapixel camera. Jpegs will be about 2MB. Usage of Photo Sphere will generate a what size end result? A 3 minute 256kbps song is approx 5MB. Android apps are getting bigger.

Choice would be an 8G version, a 16G version and an 8G version with a microSD slot.

 

[Slug]

Choice would be an 8G version, a 16G version and an 8G version with a microSD slot.

That's a rather 'fruity' way of looking at things. Fortunately this is Android, where choice is determined by more than a single company.

 

[jerofld]

Google drive is what...5gigs per email address? Another 30 gigs would be 6...play their game
You get free cloud storage and they get more emails to data mine. Only issue would be if you need w/e file on your device.

There's an accounts menu at the top. You can just switch to another account and your file list re-syncs. It's easy to switch accounts on mobile.

 

[Ayhio]

Oh great,I just knew that the official price of the nexus 4 outside google play is 549 euros so I will actually have to pay more than double the actual price of a phone that got 16gb non expandable storage.And if I bought it online,I will have to sacrifice local warranty.It just looks like google is doing their best to force me not to get their nexus devices,lol.Guess I will just go for the note 2,at least it's feature-rich and got an sd card slot.

 

[mikedt]

Remember when the first computer without a floppy drive came out? Or the first one that didn't have an optical CD drive? People freaked out then, too, but technology moved forward and we adapted.

Yup, internal storage becomes larger and cheaper, and so does removable solid-state storage, e.g. SD-cards. Optical CDs and DVDs were mainly for installing software, watching movies, and doing back-ups. Software is usually delivered via the internet now, and so are movies. It's a long time since I bought a CD or DVD.

We might have confidential materials that just can't be stored in the cloud, because of various data protection laws. Certainly can't use Google or Apple's iCloud, if you have to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 in the UK or be HIPAA compliant in the US. Cloud storage for music only seems to be available in the States, go anywhere else you have to store it locally. And if there's no internet for whatever reasons, you can't get at anything.

TBH I think SD-cards or similar removable solid-state storage are going to be with us for a while yet.

 

[T.M.M.L]

We are constantly reminded that we, "Power Users", are the exception to the rule. I agree to this. We are a small group compared to the normal users out there.

But, I think that this makes our disappointments with manufacturers all that more important.

Who, if not us, are more qualified to stand, shake our fists and rattle our sabers (Oh so melodramatic,LOL!!), at manufacturers to let them know our displeasure.

I think that many of us are the "goto advice givers", when the normal users are looking for their next device. We are told to speak with our wallets, and this is true. But, we must also inform the uniformed about the consequences of their purchases.

Many of us are clinging on our fading unlimited services, and it's no secret that they will be fazed out soon. Using Cloud services, streaming radio and such may not be that big a deal now, but soon these may become unaffordable. We already see the data crunch that the phone companies are putting us through, and they are only going to get worse.

Edmund Burke said ""All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." While the overall weight of this quote is much too heavy for what I'm applying it to, it's the context that I'm after.

If we, Power Users, don't make noise, inform the uniformed and allow the manufactures to continue on their course uncontested...then we will have no one to blame but our selves when we have nothing but 8/16 gig devices with no expansion options at all.


/ End Rant. LOL.

 

[Satires]

So I fully understand that Google wants you to put all your pictures, music, movies, and documents in their cloud, got it. But that doesn't work for me. While I have all my music located on Google Music I still have to keep it on my SD card because DLNA servers don't understand the file type that Google Music saves it under.

Also, this is 2012, space is cheap. I can not for the life of me understand why they are still offering 8GB and 16GB models. It should stand as 16gb and 32gb or even better 32gb and 64gb.

And while we are at it, why not just include an SD card slot? This would solve the issue of increase cost (if there is one) of putting more space on the phones/tablets. It's crazy that Googles premier phones are coming out with a max of 16GB of space.

Lucky for me I see that they are finally putting out a 32GB Nexus 7 which finally allows me to seriously consider it. 13GB are already accounted for my music.

I had played around with the idea of getting a Nexus smartphone, but the lack of an SD card slot was a deal breaker for me.

 

[masterlin]

As brought up before, the main/real reason behind Nexus 4 not having SD card slot is to keep the cost down...

However, it is *not* because it would cost much to include an SD slot, and it is *not* because selling cloud storage would offset the production cost. One word: Microsoft.

SD cards use the FAT/FAT16/FAT32 storage system, the license of which are owned by Microsoft. And now more than ever, Microsoft is pushing their own Windows phones; so, Android phones being Window phones' main competition, there is not the slightest chance that Google can negotiate a remotely reasonable licensing deal with them for Android's flagship products (which are mainly for marketing the Android brand) to keep the cost down near $300.

Remember that Nexus devices are here to sell the Android brand, so Google is perfectly happy you go out and buy another Android phone with SD slots; the low price is aimed at converting iphone users (who are used to SD-less phones) and feature phone users (who are used to phones that have way less storage than 8GB).

 

[h4x0rj3ff]

The Internet is hard at work debating the merits of the Nexus 7 tablet, and the biggest arguments are about the lack of expandable storage, or an SD card, as you likely know it. It seems like everyone and their brother has a theory about why the hottest tablet to hit Android so far will be shipping without one. The most popular reason revolves around some conspiracy that Google is to forcing you to use its cloud services. While I'm sure Google would love nothing more than users depending on Google Drive or Google Music -- and there's certainly a big push for it -- that's not the reason devices have been trending away from expandable storage.

Wanna know what it really is? Sure you do.

The lack of an SD card in Nexus devices is nothing new, and we've been over this issue already when the Galaxy Nexus first appeared.

We got tired of seeing OEMs include many GB of internal storage for music, while users were still running out of space for apps and data. This approach lets us merge everything on one volume, which is way better.

-- Dan Morrill, Android engineer at Google

Google still supports removable storage in Android, but it is leading by example and providing phones (and now a tablet) with one big block of storage that users can use for anything they like -- be it media, documents, or apps. There are a couple of side benefits to this approach as well. The first one is a bit geeky -- it allows the device to use ext file systems instead of a mix of ext and FAT. This is faster and safer -- both for the data on the device and the way it's handled, and access to our own personal data. A journalized file system means fewer file errors, and ext preserves file system permissions so random code can't find your pictures or documents folder.

Another benefit is that the host machine (when your device is connected to a computer) can't muck things up and molest the file system, as it doesn't have block-level access to the files. Instead, a proxy FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) file system is used to mount a psuedo-SD card folder so that your computer can read and write to it via MTP. This means you won't get errors from incorrectly unmounting your phone, and the device still has access to all the data even while plugged into a PC.

Does Google want you to use Google Play and its cloud services? Of course it does. But there is no secret evil cabal in Mountain View that held back the SD card slot to force it on you. In fact, you're still free to use other cloud solutions like Amazon, Dropbox, or even a shared drive on your desktop PC. Nobody has to like the fact that Nexus devices ship with no SD card slot, but let's stop looking for conspiracies when we already know the answer.

Source: Why Nexus devices have no SD card | Android Central

 

[Liamo_210]

Even so i wich they would start implementing sd cards into nexus devices as for some 16gb is not enough.

 

[h4x0rj3ff]

i kinda can understand why they did away with sd cards but i still dont like it. i have a usb otg cable so i can hook a thumb drive up to my N7 but its inconvenient to say the least. and the mtp protocol sucks! they couldnt have came up with a worse form of communications!!!

 

[Speed Daemon]

Last night I launched my tiny microSDXC card across the room while trying to load it into my new GoPro camera. Hard to believe that this is the POV cam of choice for so many TV productions! I'd hate to track down a micro card that got launched into a field of grass! I can see why losing at least the micro version of flash storage would benefit a lot of users. But until fast AND inexpensive Internet service becomes widely available, no "cloud" will be a reasonable substitute for local storage.

Why the Android (and the larger Linux) community has embraced a Microsoft protocol is a mystery to me, but at least I can mount my Android devices as USB drives. Still not a substitute for expansion storage inside the device itself.

 

[Liamo_210]

I just wish a USB otg would work on my nexus 4.

 

[Rxpert83]

Google wants you to use their cloud services. Simple as that.

I've heard other reasons from Googlers, and they all sound like PR speak

 

[Speed Daemon]

Google wants you to use their cloud services. Simple as that.

Since Amazon hosts all of Google, and just about everything else, I'll eliminate the middleman and go straight to Amazon!

 

[Gmash]

Like they're going to admit its a conspiracy lol. Kind of defeats the purpose of a conspiracy, don't ya think?

 

[breadnatty08]

Not to rain on your parade, Jeff:
http://androidforums.com/android-lounge/640895-why-nexus-phones-dont-have-sd-card-slot.html
Aside from larger apps (mostly games) and Nandroid backups, I'm cool with 16Gb or so. 8Gb on my N7 really is super limiting. Can't imagine doing it on my phone.

 

[h4x0rj3ff]

Not to rain on your parade, Jeff:
http://androidforums.com/android-lounge/640895-why-nexus-phones-dont-have-sd-card-slot.html
Aside from larger apps (mostly games) and Nandroid backups, I'm cool with 16Gb or so. 8Gb on my N7 really is super limiting. Can't imagine doing it on my phone.

I haven't yet used the space on my n7 ether (o think I have like 9gb free) buy the ease of use with a SD card is what I want. I would rather take my SD card out and put it in my computer ands transfer large amounts of data (let's say 10gb of music. And yes I've done it ) then try to transfer it all thru the MTP protocol that it uses.

 

[jhawkkw]

Let's not forget about 1gb+ nandroids they can eat up space as well.

 

[breadnatty08]

Let's not forget about 1gb+ nandroids they can eat up space as well.

THIS!
We should start some sort of petition with Google for them to put in an SD Card slow in the next Nexus (if there isn't one already).

 

[Hadron]

Not to mention the problems we see with people trying to get important photos etc off devices without removable storage before sending them for repair. Removable storage may be less reliable in some senses, but there are big pluses too.

(BTW I have a very old dropbox app on my phone precisely because I don't want any photo syncing to anyone's cloud)