I know i will get a lot of negative reactions to this topic, but the thing is, I see removable batteries and sd cards as a big scam. In particular by Samsung. They are the only ones releasing flagships with removable batteries and external memory cards in this year's line-up. Nokia, HTC, Nexus Series, Blackberry, Sony, Apple and other big names don't bother with removable batteries with their flagship phones anymore.
Heres the thing with batteries:
Flagships today dont last a day on heavy usage, its natural to have the ability to switch batteries right? I don't think so. I had that mentality last year that's why I got the GS3. I never changed the battery on it on a year's use. There is just no chance for me to change batteries. When I go to work, I bring along my charger, when I am using it at home, I can always plug it in when it is about to run dry. When I go out and I know I won't expect to find a plug, I bring a powerbank. Powerbanks offers more convenience than bringing a spare battery. #1. It is easy to charge up the device by just plugging it. Changing batteries is a bit of a problem, most of us have protective casing to remove first, plus removing the back side of the Galaxy S series isn't pretty. The back is made of plastic, everytime I open it, I feel like the tiny bits of plastics on the sides of the back that hold it to the device are going to break. I want to avoid taking the plastic back off and on to prevent it from breaking. And most of all, I hate turning the device on and off just to change batteries. There are times when I am in the middle of a video conference and turning the phone on and off just to swap batteries is being a bit more of a nuisance. #2. Unless you bought a separate charging unit for your extra battery you'd wind up doing the whole process of changing batteries on your phone just to charge your extra battery. So how does removable batteries become an integral part in people's choice for their next smartphone? The only benefit of having a removable battery is you can change it personally when it starts to age. The most annoying part of the whole removable battery fiasco is that Samsung charges a hefty price for the Galaxy S line of battery because they said it has NFC in it. Why did you put NFC on the battery Samsung???? I dont get this part at all.
Removable SD Cards is a more tricky situation, people want SD Cards because it is an assurance of seemingly unlimited storage. But for me, I began to see it as something which can be omitted. Removable SD cards have been problematic for me with my GS3, normally you can only put media files on it and apps would go on the phones memory. Like all average consumers I thought its an awesome deal to get a 16gb model and upgrade it with a 32gb sd card. I discovered that SD cards write too slow making transferring large media files a bit too long, it is sometimes unreliable calling out a need to reformat it. These are just small details I can live with. My biggest problem is battery drain. Try to google media server battery drain problems. It is still unresolved (correct me if I am wrong) and it points to the external memory card as a culprit as the device constantly scan the SD Card. It takes 20-40% of some people's battery drain per day. Some suggest that removing media on the card solves the problem. But the thing is, if you can't put media then what's the point of having a sd card? You can't normally put apps in the card.
Unibody designs without removable sd cards and battery doesn't seem so bad considering these points. Without removable batteries, phones can be constructed with more focus on designs that can be seen in the Iphone series, xperia series, One series and Lumia Series which make the Galaxy series look like a toy. As for extended memories, 32 GB is the sweet spot. You get all the apps and media in a single storage. For tv series and HD movies I'd like to watch on my phone on long trips, there is the most under-appreciated feature on android phones(except nexus) people forget, USB OTG. Put all your HD movies in flash drives and plug it in when you want to start watching. It is whole lot easier than swapping a external sd card.