I want to use an SD card in my smartphone for video...What's with Android?

[soupking]

Hey everybody,

I'm in a situation where I want to be able to video things, nothing too important but as an "auteur" I take my video capture that I take out in nature after driving all day etc. rather significant. Furthermore, if I'm in nature, I don't want to have to worry about storage issues against reception issues. So, I need a device that can record video that uses an SD device where I can switch out storage.

I know, I could just buy a camera but I'm getting to the point where I might as well get a smartphone as well. I'm also on a budget so I'm not going to buy both.

My wife has a Samsung S4 and we really like it but I don't want to mess with her storage for testing and I I've heard from some place or another that Kit-Kat doesn't store things like it used to.

So...Bottom line? What's with Android? Can I use an Android phone to record video to an SD card without a lot of hassle or what? lol

Thanks for any help as I'm obviously a total phone luddite.

 

[wizzrah]

Hey everybody,

I'm in a situation where I want to be able to video things, nothing too important but as an "auteur" I take my video capture that I take out in nature after driving all day etc. rather significant. Furthermore, if I'm in nature, I don't want to have to worry about storage issues against reception issues. So, I need a device that can record video that uses an SD device where I can switch out storage.

I know, I could just buy a camera but I'm getting to the point where I might as well get a smartphone as well. I'm also on a budget so I'm not going to buy both.

My wife has a Samsung S4 and we really like it but I don't want to mess with her storage for testing and I I've heard from some place or another that Kit-Kat doesn't store things like it used to.

So...Bottom line? What's with Android? Can I use an Android phone to record video to an SD card without a lot of hassle or what? lol

Thanks for any help as I'm obviously a total phone luddite.

Hi there!

It depends on your phone. On the Galaxy S4, you go to the camera, then the settings, click on the gear icon, and change the default storage location from internal to memory card so it saves to the external card. Is there any specific phone you're looking at? Let me know if I can help you with anything else.

 

[JeffDenver]

So...Bottom line? What's with Android? Can I use an Android phone to record video to an SD card without a lot of hassle or what? lol

Short answer: No. Google is waging a ridiculous jihad against SD for some reason. They don't like SD and only grudgingly allow support for it in the OS. If they had their way, we would all be using internal memory for everything. We are lucky to still be getting any SD support at all.

You can either buy phones with more internal storage or just get used to manually moving videos over to SD with a file manager. Most of the limitations with SD only have to do with apps accessing it. It's still a viable storage medium on it's own.

Fortunately, pretty much all hardware vendors have decided to thumb their noses at google and include SD options on their phones. The Moto G LTE just added it, all Samsung phones have it, the One has it, and the LG phones have it. Only us Nexus users are SoL.

 

[soupking]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback on phones. REAL big help.

I don't mind if I have to record to the drive and move over data using the file manager. It would be a lot nicer to be able to just record direct to the actual drive. If I don't just get a camera I think I'm going to opt for the Samsung G5. It has an excellent camera and allows up to 128 GB of SD storage.

EDIT: I actually just recorded an mp4 to my flash storage? What's the big deal everybody's taking about? Am I missing something?

I'll have to do a bit more research on cameras as well but this is definitely where I'm honing in on the decision-making.

 

[wizzrah]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback on phones. REAL big help.

I don't mind if I have to record to the drive and move over data using the file manager. It would be a lot nicer to be able to just record direct to the actual drive. If I don't just get a camera I think I'm going to opt for the Samsung G5. It has an excellent camera and allows up to 128 GB of SD storage.

EDIT: I actually just recorded an mp4 to my flash storage? What's the big deal everybody's taking about? Am I missing something?

I'll have to do a bit more research on cameras as well but this is definitely where I'm honing in on the decision-making.

Samsung devices let you record and store directly to SD Cards.

 

[JeffDenver]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback on phones. REAL big help.

I don't mind if I have to record to the drive and move over data using the file manager. It would be a lot nicer to be able to just record direct to the actual drive. If I don't just get a camera I think I'm going to opt for the Samsung G5. It has an excellent camera and allows up to 128 GB of SD storage.

EDIT: I actually just recorded an mp4 to my flash storage? What's the big deal everybody's taking about? Am I missing something?

I'll have to do a bit more research on cameras as well but this is definitely where I'm honing in on the decision-making.

Some OEMs like Samsung have made their own modifications to Android to restore the SD access that should have been in the OS in the first place. Android itself does not allow direct access to SD anymore though.