Flashback: the rise (and fall?) of the microSD card

04 December 2022
The microSD card grew to bigger and bigger capacities over the years and got faster along the way. So why is it waning in popularity?

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With smartphones nowadays that can do 8K video recording, it's an absolute crime not to have microSD card support. Samsung themselves said that one minute of 8K video takes 600MB of internal storage. Plus, mobile apps size grow bigger and bigger every day, especially when it comes to music and video streaming apps, so the last thing you want is limited storage space. That is why I look at Sony as my next phone after LG has exited the smartphone market for still keeping the microSD card support. Even though none of their phones can do 8K video, 4K/120fps video still takes a significant chunk of internal storage. Cloud storage will never replace microSD cards as it requires a stable internet connection all the time and there are still lots of places, especially in the rural areas, with little to no Internet coverage in the first place.

    • a
    • anon umba uno
    • X@h
    • 05 Dec 2022

    I'm happy to see most of the fellow users of this website sharing similar thoughts..

    It's absolutely sad that in name of useless quirks like "slimmer phones" companies shoved down lack of features such as no micro sd card and no headphone jack as "premium".
    Sometimes they argue it's about waterproofing but we've seen phones in past with headphone jack and IP certification.. So I don't know what game they are trying to play.

    I think we as consumers got absolutely played by these brands. Usually when buying something premium, it means to get all the features from lower segment phone.. Instead we get less for a premium price and expect us to buy inferior sounding and bugs ridden Bluetooth headphones or pay massive money for little memory upgrades.

      • s
      • swaraj
      • Hkt
      • 05 Dec 2022

      you all care about environment cz come on you took it like good little boys when apple didn't ship charger . tell me this, when your phone dies ( which is very often these days)what can you really scavenge from it ? anything ? display? cpu ? ram? Bluetooth? camera ? the huge 256gb storage? anything? some phone's display repair costs more than the phone . so you're bound to throw it in the trash .


      whatever you write here keep in mind that you are the tech literates , you represent all of users who are not educated enough to raise their voices . do not draw lines between what's old and what's new. ask yourself what's good for a poor smartphone user.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • uJA
        • 05 Dec 2022

        potato4k, 05 Dec 2022With cheap Android now have 128GB and mid rangers have 256G... morecan't be more wrong than that. mSD is still great for photos storage. Its hassle to access cloud not to mention the amount of data required.

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • uJA
          • 05 Dec 2022

          Mediatek sux, 05 Dec 2022I want to play 100% legal copies of my switch games on my p... moreBelieve its only legal if you play it on your switch.

            I am planning to buy a microSD now, since Xiaomi doesn't provide any more back up to Mi cloud.. I've been waiting quite a while for my photos to migrate from Mi Cloud to Google Photos because there are more than 2,000 photos (mostly WhatsApp photos). From here I have used google storage from 1.1GB to 4.3GB which means I have used 3GB.

              • S
              • Swaraj
              • Hkt
              • 05 Dec 2022

              micro sd cards are important when we live in an Era when phone manufacturers are deleting photo and video automatically without notice . this is happening right now in China. huawei is deleting riot videos from people's huawei phones . So I don't really get a lot of comments here. do you like being farmed like chicken ?

                • H
                • High storage Symbian
                • 0xU
                • 05 Dec 2022

                Vegetaholic, 05 Dec 2022Omg. You can litteraly back-up your entire phone data to PC... moreAs a person who has done that in the past it's not practical. It's like changing the battery on an ev for a quick recharge - sounds good on a paper, but it's a pain to impliment.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • 0xU
                  • 05 Dec 2022

                  DMX, 04 Dec 2022Sony brings all that they are asking for, come on, they onl... moreAlso Sony 21:9 display. Average human being "ok, i'm no alien so i'mma skip this"

                    I haven't upgraded my phone for 5 years now because of many lost features.

                    So saying "the average user doesn't care" is for some more like "we put up with it because of lack of choices".

                    Choices like 16x9 displays. Large displays. Thin bodies. 3.5mm headphone jacks. Memory card slots.

                    Sure you can find some of these features but the chipset or display is usually trash. So the result is some just stop upgrading. An oled 8inch tablet looks more appealing to me than 99% of phones out there. I realised this a few months ago when my old phone got severly damaged but after careful analysis of the market I STILL ended up buying the exact same one again.

                      not gonna lie even using a 64gb phone you will only get 19~17gb out of it after setting it up with your apps so 128 gb is kind of mandatory for future

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • qGv
                        • 05 Dec 2022

                        Interesting fact that was not mentioned here for whatever reason... The exfat format is/was owned by Microsoft until somewhere in 2018/2019 and due to patented IP in its design/implementation it was utilized by any piece of hardware/system that offers exfat formatting or any pieces of that technology when converting any removable media (i.e. SD cards/micros etc). I'm unsure how. much of Microsoft still has complete rights to... It was an inevitable occurrence for most devices to move away from that technology especially Android. Why do you think Huawei came out with their own twist on the micro sd card? Or perhaps we should ask even more interestingly why is this the only format most widely and approved by the SD association and used by handlhelds when there are at least a couple of reliable alternatives? Anyways.. I've been sharing this for years.

                          potato4k, 05 Dec 2022Majority of people are streaming music. With HEIF and Goog... moreI want to play 100% legal copies of my switch games on my phone. Not everyone is a pirate like you.

                            Corporate greed

                              • ?
                              • Anonymous
                              • uS%
                              • 05 Dec 2022

                              Thats why I stopped buying Samsung flagships & sticked to new midrange devices that have sdcard slot with decent specs & camera setup.

                              If ever I buy again a flagship, most likely gonna buy a Sony phone.

                              Need sd card as I constantly record videos or take photos due to my work as it also reduces read/write on internal that reduces its lifespan since you can save certain on easily replaceable sdcard & not the internal storage.

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • I@H
                                • 05 Dec 2022

                                it has been a convenient necessity for me...
                                i already have some media ripped from my own audio CDs and DVDs...
                                i also swap it among my devices - audio player, digital camera, other phones, laptop...
                                there is no need to copy or transfer files and wait eternity via bluetooth or usb...
                                ...
                                i do not understand why so much hate to people needing one though...
                                it is not as if it burdens one when there is that slot...
                                it is better to have one, though you do not need it...
                                than to not have it, when you need it...
                                especially when an sdcard slot needs only a very small space... that even giant phones got rid of...
                                ...
                                but, yeah, eventually people will get what most people let happen...
                                so, for those who needs microsd card like me, i guess we need external card readers... ha ha... ye, so inconvenient... for future proofing... which is a dark future... sadly, for us...
                                but as for now, i will never buy a work or personal phone that does not have it...

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • eBv
                                  • 05 Dec 2022

                                  my s22u fell into water and wouldn't charge via USB. brought it down to a samsung repair shop and got a loaner phone as replacement while my phone was being repaired. No issue there, great samsung customer service.

                                  immediately started up backup and restore to transfer everything from my phone to the loan phone. 1hr 45 mins was the transfer time.
                                  couldn't wait that long, stood in line for 30 mins before i gave up.
                                  lost all my photos except those that were backed up onto google cloud with reduced quality.

                                  wouldn't have lost everything if my phone had a micro sd card slot.

                                    https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/179412245
                                    Google intentionally broke microSD access about the time they raised prices on Google Cloud storage. Not only was access restricted, but the latency was pushed up into floppy disk territory. File utilities broke forever. Apps that use a lot of storage, like maps, lock up from the 10000x higher latency. Apps I paid for stopped working.

                                    Getting fast access requires special permission from Google, which they won't grant just because their API is broken, or leaving the Google ecosystem. Some apps moved to F-Droid and lost the revenue that keeps them going.

                                    I was hoping this would finally break Google's monopoly but now phone makers are dumbing down their phones to make Google happy. No more headphone jack (Google wants Bluetooth scanning on) and it's rare to see a new phone with more than 256GB storage regardless of cost.

                                    Phone makers should quit whining about poor sales when they're all making exactly the same boring phone. Yeah, Sony still has the microSD slot, headphone jack, and beautiful hardware but their engineering quality is dreadful. Sony can't even be assed to make their regional phones work with the regional carriers.

                                      lottery248, 05 Dec 2022for phones optimised for cameras and/or music, there is no ... moreMajority of people are streaming music.
                                      With HEIF and Google Photos, you don't even need that much storage for taking pictures.

                                      I can only think one purpose for microSD, ie if you are a pirate, having many pirated games and emulators.

                                        With cheap Android now have 128GB and mid rangers have 256GB internal storage, not sure why people still need an old and slow microSD. MicroSD was a good fallback when internal SSD was still expensive and slow. But that's not the case anymore. Furthermore, most OEM skin don't have good support of microSD anymore, and majority of apps don't even support being transferred to microSD anymore.

                                        Basically people who are still clamoring for microSD are probably those using cheap old phones with only 32 or 64GB internal storage.

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