I have had a Galaxy S 2, the Galaxy Note and now a Galaxy S 3, all of them with the memory card slot in the same place roughly, near the battery. I have not had a card fail yet. My GS3 was purchased at launch.
SD cards can fail as soon as you put them in the device the first time. They are memory cards, and the circuitry in the cards is microscopic in nature. It only takes millivolts to fry a card. Have you ever touched a door knob and been shocked, well that is enough voltage to kill hundreds of sd cards at once. Memory chips for pcs used to be sold in anti-static bags to alleviate them being killed by errant voltage.
All this said, if a sd is dying an untimely death, look to possible spikes in power or surges. They could be dying because of your wall power coming through the charger cable. An overage of 0.1 volts can enter your handset and cause havoc if it strikes a poorly soldered connector or misaligned card.
But also as mentioned earlier, these sd cards are manufactured in the millions, and the testing of said cards may be non existant before they are boxed and shipped. These failing cards could be some of those.
Ever heard th e old saying that says to "never buy a car that was made on a friday or monday."
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