Would you have bought the S4 if Samsung didn't include SD card slots?

[Kiersten_Kress]

The one thing about cloud is that is it truly safe? Especially with the PRISM thing with the Government...that has always been my issue with cloud storage is that its not private. There is no privacy in it, no matter what claims any company says. Also all your information is being relied on someone else to take care of....so say their servers go down for some reason (which happened with Instagram during the hurricane i believe 2 yrs ago), then what???? lol

How do you know the government(US, Canadian, or otherwise) is not monitoring what you're posting here? You have just flagged yourself as a possible candidate for furthering monitoring. The gov't may already have access to AndroidCentral's server which will tell them your IP address. Since the government also has access to your internet provider, they probably already know who you are, what you drive, what newspapers you subscribe to, and which political parties(or lack of) that you belong to.

Tin foil hat off....

 

[smooth4lyfe]

How do you know the government(US, Canadian, or otherwise) is not monitoring what you're posting here? You have just flagged yourself as a possible candidate for furthering monitoring. The gov't may already have access to AndroidCentral's server which will tell them your IP address. Since the government also has access to your internet provider, they probably already know who you are, what you drive, what newspapers you subscribe to, and which political parties(or lack of) that you belong to.

Tin foil hat off....

Haha they probably are, I don't got nothing to hide....I was contrasting Cloud Storage to SD Card Privacy....the govt cannot monitor whats on your SD Card
There is no Privacy on the internet anyways...I'm a Law Student so I know

 

[Kiersten_Kress]

Haha they probably are, I don't got nothing to hide....I was contrasting Cloud Storage to SD Card Privacy....the govt cannot monitor whats on your SD Card
There is no Privacy on the internet anyways...I'm a Law Student so I know

Carrying data on memory cards does have its potential drawbacks, especially if you travel
internationally.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has the right to detain any electronic device
with internal/external memory anytime you cross the border. They can also force you to
disclose the passkey to any encryption scheme that you have on such devices. (phone,
tablet, laptop, anything) They can do it WITHOUT warrants and this "right" has been affirmed
by the SCOTUS. If your data is stored in the cloud, they can't force you to give them the
password. (at least I don't think they have this power yet)

Just to be fair, Russian authorities also does this to foreign visitors on a regular basis.

 

[smooth4lyfe]

Carrying data on memory cards does have its potential drawbacks, especially if you travel
internationally.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has the right to detain any electronic device
with internal/external memory anytime you cross the border. They can also force you to
disclose the passkey to any encryption scheme that you have on such devices. (phone,
tablet, laptop, anything) They can do it WITHOUT warrants and this "right" has been affirmed
by the SCOTUS. If your data is stored in the cloud, they can't force you to give them the
password. (at least I don't think they have this power yet)

Just to be fair, Russian authorities also does this to foreign visitors on a regular basis.

They don't need passwords for the cloud...they already have full access to it if needed. Companies like Dropbox, Skype, Google, Facebook, etc. are somewhat "Forced" to participate in the PRISM plan so the gov't can access it if they feel the need to. Of course they cant just do it whenever they want for the hell of it, but they still have access.

As for crossing borders, one could remove an SD Card from the device and hide it in their sock or deep in the luggage before crossing. If a government official searches are limited to a certain scope, and the person can retrieve the SD back if the gov't official found out by searching "outside the scope" of the search, if the person was protected under the 4th amendment...this is for the U.S.A. at least....I'm sure it may be similar in other countries

 

[sheepseaexplorer]

Nope, probably not.

 

[fulleraj]

Only if I could have bought a 32GB or 64GB configuration. I definitely would not have bought this phone without the removable /replaceable battery.....no matter how much the memory.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

 

[teamfoster03]

No WAY! I just purchased my S4 tonight. Expandable memory and removable battery are a must for me on any phone. Without expandable memory and removable battery its just a kids toy.

 

[Millzey13]

I love the s4 and its the fist android phone I've have,but I must say I'm quite pissed on the lack of internal storage otb and can't do anything about unless I root!

Posted via Android Central App

 

[jokout1]

We seem to be missing the single most compelling issue here...ECONOMICS!
As long as Samsung keeps raking in HUGE sales numbers for the Galaxy line of phones and in particular most likely the single best selling Android phone in history in the S4 with it's removable battery and SD capatibility your not seeing the demise of the SD slot any time soon! Actually you may see more manufacturers, (HTC), bring it back as they see the marketing clout these two little features carry with the buying public! You have to be impressed that these two little features overcome what everyone complains so vehemently about the S4, the build quality, (removable plastic back) that they actually required!
We all have to remember that in the big picture, these devises aren't designed and manufactured for people that frequent techy forums like this but for the mass public that these features are and will continue to be very popular!
Let's also not forget the ultimate end game of cloud storage and all the pockets that it is designed to line! Data charges are the new pot of gold sitting at the end of technology rainbow for all carriers as they see their traditional cellular revenues fall! Don't think for a moment that Google didn't explore the financial ramifications before dropping support for external storage! There is plenty of financial gain to go around in the new world of data consumption...it may be wise to think about how and where we use it!

Cheers

 

[Farish]

If it had a removable battery and 32gb baseline storage I would buy it.

Having a phone with 9gbs remaining and no SD slot would not have made me happy.

That being stated, I will probably never buy a phone with anything less than 16gb again.

After playing around with it, I would have been just as happy with a LG Optimus Pro G.

 

[monsieurms]

Carrying data on memory cards does have its potential drawbacks, especially if you travel
internationally.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has the right to detain any electronic device
with internal/external memory anytime you cross the border.

I'm not sure what you are saying here.

You say that they have the right to detain any device with internal or external memory, but you earlier said this was a drawback for SD cards. SO, if you buy an HTC 1 and have no memory card, they can still detain the device. What's the drawback of a SD card, then? How does that change any exposure to data review? So, you put all your data into the internal memory, and they look at that anyway, accepting as a given your statement of law, which I've not had a chance to review.

BTW, I travel internationally a lot. Not once has this ever happened. (Nor do I particularly have anything to hide, but that's another story.)

But they'll only find uses if it's there. They may not demand it.

There are so many things that I don't agree with in your rebuttal, this understanding of how extra space gets created and becomes a marketing tool just being one of them. Extra space gets created first and foremost by software and media makers' demand for it. They find uses for it. Like allowing consumers to bring entire movies with them. Then, there's a need and a demand follows. No surprise, most people demanding lots of space these days are people with tons of photos, videos and mp3s. Media junkies.

Your recital of how damaging it is to have SD card slots notwithstanding, the truth is that there is little downside to offering an SD card slot and quite a lot to gain for both consumers and manufacturers. And as an earlier post said, it's about the economics, meaning raking in $$$. Simply put, if someone can distinguish their devices from everyone's else's, someone will do it. And that, as I said, is why HTC is now again coming out with a device that DOES have SD card slots. Think they weren't hurt by failing to have one in the ONE? I think they clearly were. I know, despite having been an HTC customer, I automatically disqualified the ONE in my upgrade search. Wouldn't even look at it. Economics also has another slant to it that I mentioned---I think SD card space will be cheaper and easier than internal memory for a long time. Plus, when people go to buy a new phone, already expensive, and another $150 or whatever is added on to it to get the massive memory storage upgrade that they want, they may balk. Particularly when it comes all at once. Buying a card, however, that you can keep for half the price and flip into each upgraded phone you get every year or whatever--now, that's a good deal. Far more cost effective and far more efficient, saving not only money but time in setting up new devices.

I could go on, but I'm repeating myself. There are simply too many imperatives, from tech issues to market economics, that logically lead to SD card slots to ever think they are disappearing in any foreseeable future. The Apple model is exactly why I buy Android. If you want the last word, you can have it.

 

[skipatrol]

couldn't agree with you more!

Sams can be said about non-removable phone batteries. The manufacturers(iPhone, HTC, Motorola)
claim non-removable batteries make the phones thinner by 1mm or 2mm. Can most people really
tell the difference? I think not. The manufacturers are hoping that you buy a new phone once your
non-removable battery starts to die. Makes perfect financial sense to me.

One of the reasons I've always hated iPhones. It pains me to see android devices going that route. Meanwhile Sumsung didn't buy into it and was able to pull away from apple in the marketplace. They became the proverbial iPhone killer with a replaceable battery and an SD slot. So isn't it possible that consumers just might want these options? Also my S4 is thin enough and I can still toss another battery in when I'm watching movies on a cross country flight (stored on my SD card).

 

[skipatrol]

Long story short(er), you're making a lot of arguments for why we will get more storage in the future, but no real solid arguments for why that storage needs to be removable.

Scenario #1 - Lets say I have a 64 GB phone and 80 GB of music and video (and growing) what do I do? The cloud? The cloud is great but I travel alot and want to listen to my music or watch said videos on a plane or a train so now I have to go through the inconvenience of downloading whatever I think I may want to listen to before hand to my phone. If my phone is is filled with other things like apps etc then what? Also I would have to find wifi because DL'ing it over the air would chew up a ton of data on my now capped data plan. So now I'm going over my data limit costing me $$ pus the costs of backing ALL of my media to the cloud, plus the ridiculous cost of my monthly plan and all of this inconvenience because I don't have an SD card slot. So lets say I use wifi on the plane or the train. I'm now shelling out an additonal $10 or so to use their service. All of this is costly and extremely inconvenient when I can have it right there - on my phone on an SD card.

Scenario #2 - I get a new phone. All of my 80 GB of media is backed up on my SD card. Instead of simply popping the SD card out of the old phone and popping it into the new and viola its there!, I'm now without my music and videos because the new phone doesn't have the SD slot. So once again, I have to make sure I'm shelling out for cloud service to support that amount of storage (in addition to my monthly bill). That may be fine for some but this sh** can get expensive and for most people (with kids etc) the costs add up. I then have to go through the task of dl'ing stuff again to listen to offline because of data caps, areas with no data etc. It's simply not as convenient.

These may not be "solid" arguments for you, but they are solid to me.

 

[Haalcyon]

Would you have bought the S4 if Samsung didn't include SD card slots?

Yeah, as long as they still offered the removable battery. ...and I really would want a 64GB model if the SD card is to be gone. I can certainly live w/out an SD card but only if there's adequate on-board storage.

In fact, that gives me an idea. Mophie and its clones should make a battery case that includes an SD card slot so HTC One owners and other sufferers can have that expansion too.

Sent from me LTE Note 8.0

 

[gameaddict8]

Why would they. You can get it in 32gb form or 64gb dev. edition

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Haalcyon]

Why would they. You can get it in 32gb form or 64gb dev. edition

Posted via Android Central App

Hmmm...how much would it cost them to add that option? Shouldn't add any noticable bulk either...I think it would be an attractive feature to many. Imagine 128GB of total storage. Still couldn't contain all many folks music and movies but it sure could hold a lot.

Sent from me LTE Note 8.0

 

[gameaddict8]

The morphie is already $100. Maybe adds 20-30 to the price

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Haalcyon]

The morphie is already $100. Maybe adds 20-30 to the price

Posted via Android Central App

I could be wrong but IMO if you're willing to spend $100 on a Mophie as they are today you'd be willing to spend $130 on a "Pro" model with an SD slot (if that feature is useful to you). I could be wrong. Perhaps there's a good reason Mophie and her clones haven't offered this.

Sent from my Element Eclipsed S4

 

[mhinc]

I don't see the point of this thread at all. If Samsung was considering NOT including an Micro SD Expansion in the future then maybe, but otherwise this is just useless banter.

 

[skipatrol]

I don't see the point of this thread at all. If Samsung was considering NOT including an Micro SD Expansion in the future then maybe, but otherwise this is just useless banter.

Its a healthy discussion on the future of SD storage in phones. The OPs poll was to gage the importance of this feature in our current S4s. I actually enjoy this thread.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2