Why I think no removable batter/MicroSD is a good thing.

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eshropshire

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I am not sure why I need a fast SD card. I use the extra storage in my phone for music, movies and audio books. I have zero interest in streaming media from the cloud. I don't see any point in carrying around a separate media player. I also don't want to spend data to pay to download material I already own from a cloud device while traveling.

I moved from the iPhone 4 years ago for a larger screen size, storage space for my media and for a removable battery. The important option to me is still the expanded storage. I can live without the removable battery. I do prefer a phone with 32GB of fast memory for applications. 16GBs get really tight on Android.

I realize my needs are not everyone's but I still believe the main reason the s4 outsold the m7 in 2013 was the support for microSD cards. I would have bought the m7 had the NA version not removed the SD card support. HTC realized this and added support back in the m8 and m9. Now that Samsung has decided to play the Apple game and is forcing users to pay through the nose for extra storage it will be interesting to see how well the s6 sells. I do know I will not be upgrading to a s6.

Personally I don't see what is really all that great in the s6 that will not be available on other flagship phones. I have been willing to put up with junk from Samsung - tons of bloat, Knox, and the need to remove Touchwiz (has to be the worst part of Samsung) to have some of the features I prefer from on my phones. Now Samsung has added even more completely useless apps on the s6 and removed the reasons I purchased their phones. Moving on from Samsung is a pretty easy choice for me.
 

Pdarnall

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Excellent and concise about the Note 4 and "journalist" groups. Bottom line if you don't use many of the Note 4 feature like, optional extra battery, S-Pen, SD card etc you probably bought the wrong product. I hope Samsung keeps the Note line separate from the consumer S6 line.

Posted via the Android Central App
 

shanghaichica

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I can understand why Samsung now have a non removable battery. It's because of all those who moaned about the build quality of their devices being rubbish. They had no choice but to make a unibody metal device with a sealed in battery. I personally never had a problem with the way their devices looked, I preferred to have a removable back and replacable battery. I used to carry around a spare and I never had to worry about the battery dying. Now I wouldn't be that confident unless the battery life is good. I have an iPhone 6 plus. The only reason why I don't care that it doesn't have a removable battery is because it has great battery life. If it didn't then I wouldn't have bought it. I wouldn't have bought the iPhone 6 because the battery life is rubbish and the battery can't be removed. So I'm hoping that S6 has good battery life, at least as good as the S5.

The SD card is less of an issue for me because they are offering 128GB of onboard storage. Onboard storage is always better than external storage imo. I've had SD cards fail on me in the past. I've never experienced this myself but I know for some people they have caused performance issues. Additionally, not everything can be stored on an SD card, like certain apps. When I had my S5, I had a 128GB micro SD card installed yet I was always running out of memory because I didn't have enough space for my apps. Also SD cards represent a security risk. Unless you encrypt them, or password protect it, if you device is lost or stolen people have access to all the stuff on your SD card. Your device itself maybe protected by a password, but there is nothing stopping someone from popping out the SD card and getting a look at all your information.

It's a shame. It will be interesting to see if LG do away with the removable battery and SD card on the G4. I think SD cards and removable batteries will become a thing of the past. I wouldn't buy the G4 as I didn't like the G3 when I had one. I also found it hard to buy accessories for it.
 

anon8380037

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I agree with all the negative points of an sd card. I won't use one again.
It's just we're in this short era where OEM's want to make a killing on double or triple memory storage. It cost them about $10 dollars extra for 64gb a year ago. If no phone had sd cards, maybe they would have to make 128 gb devices more realistically priced.
 
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Carrtman

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I've seen it in other forums already Samsung is hiring people to talk down sd cards, removable batteries and of course advertise the marketing gimmick known as Ufs..

I'm not saying everyone who doesn't care is a Samsung employee but I'm surprised that the company had sunken down to that level. What's next stupid fans jumping and screaming during the presentation?

If Samsung screws up the Note line too the Note 4 will be my last Samsung and I'd go project Ara or LG or hope Samsung is coming to their senses and releases a "pro" model instead of a sealed toy

I've been willing to put up and put in a ton of work to debloated my lovely Note 4 only because I love that productivity beast and the removable battery is an essential part of productivity for me. In terms of smaller phones there is no reason to choose a non expendable fingerprint magnet ..What's next removing the LED?

But there is hope maybe the s6 Active will bring back Samsung down to earth...I mean it's their outdoor bulldozer so it needs to have a removable battery and sd card support
 

npaladin-2000

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I've seen it in other forums already Samsung is hiring people to talk down sd cards, removable batteries and of course advertise the marketing gimmick known as Ufs..

Ok, I think you're going to have to explain that last part, how exactly is UFS a marketing gimmick over eMMC and MicroSD storage? Especially when most benchmarks are showing a drastic improvement in storage performance on the GS6 over everyone else.

Remember, HTC probably is hiring people to talk down removing SD slots and using glass. Of course, with their budget, they can't really hire many people...
 

Carrtman

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Ok, I think you're going to have to explain that last part, how exactly is UFS a marketing gimmick over eMMC and MicroSD storage? Especially when most benchmarks are showing a drastic improvement in storage performance on the GS6 over everyone else.

Remember, HTC probably is hiring people to talk down removing SD slots and using glass. Of course, with their budget, they can't really hire many people...

Because one isn't exclusive to each other. Yes, UFS may win every possible benchmark test out there good and nice but guess what my sd cards are used for music, videos and pictures I don't need benchmarks for that stuff because I know from real life experience that my carss are more than capable enough.

100 $ gets me two first class 128gb cards that alone is two times the storage capacity of the ISung 6 top model.

Let me use the desktop as an example here: people are buying ssds for their speed but they are only putting the operating system and some heavily used programs on it because normal hdds are offering more storage for the same price and a better reliability. It's not a matter of ufs versus emmc it's a matter of principles and user friendliness.

Htc, LG really don't need to hire anybody I'm not a PR guy but even I could make that campaign "Latest Ufs technology plus up to 200 emmc only with...others thought you can't well...WE can" you get the idea.
 

smooth4lyfe

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Yeah, but then they have to wait for it to charge because clearly they can't carry it anywhere with this battery attached, it's just too heavy to carry around additional power cells...oh, wait. :)

Guys, there isn't much sense arguing, these are simply excuses used to justify getting a phone with a removable battery, and should be treated as such. They're not problems to be solved, they're justifications invented to excuse a personal preference and disguise it as established fact.

Its not even an excuse really, I think its more of a personal preference. I used to be a person that was so "pro-removable battery", but when I had my S5, I wasnt even changing my batteries as often. Now that I have a Z3, which has no removable battery, I don't even think about battery because the phone lasts long. I charge my battery every night before I sleep anyways and it lasts me through the day. So long as the S6 does the same I will be happy.
 

KJ78

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If you can find a charging point that is. Can't on a plane and most trains. Also the battery is slimmer than a charger. And the wireless pads aren't too small either.

Posted via the Android Central App

Exactly. I often take a train into a city, spend hours there, using gps, camera, various other apps, usually a call and some texts too. After a few hours a normal battery is running too low for comfort.
 

P_Devil

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The removable battery wasn't a big deal for me. It's come in handy with my S5 after upgrading to Android 5.0.0 as I was able to take the factor battery out and install a 7500 mAh one (I had to) so that my phone can now get through a work day. Having a non-removable battery was never a big issue for me. I sometimes take advantage of it like I am with my S5 or I did with my Droid X but it's not something that I absolutely require.

The SD card is though and I see no value in taking that out. Right now I have 7349 songs on my S5, over 2500 photos, and a couple of movies. My 128GB microSDXC card has 10GB of free space and I'll be looking to buy the 200GB microSDXC card later this year or early next year when it drops to $150. All of my content is backed up to the cloud (music through Google Music All Access and Photos through my One Drive account) but I would never want to rely solely on the cloud as a means of media consumption. I'm not always in an area with solid reception and I would be chewing through my data pulling up pictures for people to look at or playing songs (I listen to about 4 hours of music a day). A phone with a fixed capacity means to 200GB microSDXC card and it also means that I would have to spend an arm and a leg (probably $34 a month through Edge) just to get a smartphone with 128GB of storage.

Sure, the built-in storage is faster and more reliable but SD cards are perfectly adequate for storing and playing media. Using only built-in storage, for me, is just not an option. I did that for two years with my 64GB iPhone 5 and it was awful. I had to sync content off and onto my phone at least once a week, I was always running out of space and deleting apps, I was constantly restoring my phone to get rid of excess data (though that's more of an iOS bug), etc. I refuse to ever do that again. It's why I haven't purchased a Nexus device, a modern Motorola phone, another iPhone, and it's why I am going to stay away from the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge.

I realize that I'm in a small niche of smartphone users compared to the mainstream consumers but, if I'm going to be paying ~$40 a month extra for my phone, it damn well better do everything I want.
 

atakin77

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Its not even an excuse really, I think its more of a personal preference. I used to be a person that was so "pro-removable battery", but when I had my S5, I wasnt even changing my batteries as often. Now that I have a Z3, which has no removable battery, I don't even think about battery because the phone lasts long. I charge my battery every night before I sleep anyways and it lasts me through the day. So long as the S6 does the same I will be happy.

This ^. Phones today are not like the Droid Incredible or the Thunderbolt or the GNex where you couldn't go more than 6-8 hours from a charger. God forbid you were playing a round of golf and using a GPS - you'd need to swap a battery at the turn with one of those phones. Most days I unplug my phone at 5:30 when I get up and plug it back in at 10 when I go to bed, and don't do anything in between. I have a Jackery power bar - the 5600 (good enough essentially for three full charges assuming I'm fairly low) and its maybe the size of two cigarette lighters. Is it as convenient as a changing a battery? No. But honestly I go weeks without using it and I just carry it in my computer bag with everything else.

Bigger picture on phones these days, if manufacturers are going to abandon the user-removable battery I wish they'd stop trying to make the phones as thin as possible. Make them 1 or 2mm thicker and give me a battery that has 30% - 50% more capacity so I never have to worry about it, even under heavy use and when the phone is a year old.
 

Almeuit

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I could see how some will miss it if they put a ton of shows and stuff on their cards since they may not have unlimited data.

I will miss the removable battery as a 30 sec swap to full is nice .. but .. you can go by other means to charge (such as a battery pack).
 

KJ78

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I've seen it in other forums already Samsung is hiring people to talk down sd cards, removable batteries and of course advertise the marketing gimmick known as Ufs..

I think the paid posters are in the S6 forum. I made some comments re: the additional costs of owning a seal battery device and no sd card and my comments were flagged and dismissed, the same comments that are rampant in the S5 forum.
 

jcp007

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It all depends on the user. I used to be in the removable battery and micro SD card camp as well. After having purchased a 64GB card for my GS4, it is hardly full. I got mainly because I got 16GB model on the two year contract. I am planning on getting the 64GB GS6 so I don't think I will miss the additional storage. Of all the smartphones that I have owned, BlackBerry and now Samsung, I have never had a need to swap out batteries. Never been a wall-plugger. Always charge at night and sometimes in the car. As long as the GS6 battery lasts all day, I am fine. Otherwise, I would get a Juice Pack case for those times when battery charging opportunities are limited.

Posted via My Samsung Galaxy S4 Handheld Device
 

Coney718

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I've been a iPhone user for years and currently with a iPhone 6 so I'm used to not having a removable battery and SD card. That being said when I was looking to make the move to Android expandable memory was one of the reasons. But I also don't see it as a deal breaker since they raised the internal storage. 32gb is enough..im not one of those ppl that keeps every single song or video I ever had on my phone. I dont know who these ppl are that needs 128gb of storage on a phone.

As far as no removable battery I have a charger at work and in my car so I dont need to carry a spare and swap out. Even if I didnt have chargers available I still wouldn't carry spares.I think most of the general public are the same way. The phone geeks in these types of forums make up a very small percentage of phone purchases. Samsung gave the ppl what they wanted with the new design and a more premium look and feel. The S6 will sell like crazy.
 

icwhatudidthere

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I agree with all the negative points of an sd card. I won't use one again.
It's just we're in this short era where OEM's want to make a killing on double or triple memory storage. It cost them about $10 dollars extra for 64gb a year ago. If no phone had sd cards, maybe they would have to make 128 gb devices more realistically priced.

I've always had a problem with ridiculous storage costs on phones completely on principle.

This has been Apple's MO for nearly 10 years now. And the biggest problem I have with this model is that you have to keep paying that additional cost every time you buy a new phone. So over the lifetime of the iPhone, if you bought every other model year, you'd have spent enough extra to almost buy an additional phone, just to have the 32GB model every time.

Also, if no phones had SD cards then they could get away with charging even more because you'd have no choice.
 

shanghaichica

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The removable battery wasn't a big deal for me. It's come in handy with my S5 after upgrading to Android 5.0.0 as I was able to take the factor battery out and install a 7500 mAh one (I had to) so that my phone can now get through a work day. Having a non-removable battery was never a big issue for me. I sometimes take advantage of it like I am with my S5 or I did with my Droid X but it's not something that I absolutely require.

The SD card is though and I see no value in taking that out. Right now I have 7349 songs on my S5, over 2500 photos, and a couple of movies. My 128GB microSDXC card has 10GB of free space and I'll be looking to buy the 200GB microSDXC card later this year or early next year when it drops to $150. All of my content is backed up to the cloud (music through Google Music All Access and Photos through my One Drive account) but I would never want to rely solely on the cloud as a means of media consumption. I'm not always in an area with solid reception and I would be chewing through my data pulling up pictures for people to look at or playing songs (I listen to about 4 hours of music a day). A phone with a fixed capacity means to 200GB microSDXC card and it also means that I would have to spend an arm and a leg (probably $34 a month through Edge) just to get a smartphone with 128GB of storage.

Sure, the built-in storage is faster and more reliable but SD cards are perfectly adequate for storing and playing media. Using only built-in storage, for me, is just not an option. I did that for two years with my 64GB iPhone 5 and it was awful. I had to sync content off and onto my phone at least once a week, I was always running out of space and deleting apps, I was constantly restoring my phone to get rid of excess data (though that's more of an iOS bug), etc. I refuse to ever do that again. It's why I haven't purchased a Nexus device, a modern Motorola phone, another iPhone, and it's why I am going to stay away from the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge.

I realize that I'm in a small niche of smartphone users compared to the mainstream consumers but, if I'm going to be paying ~$40 a month extra for my phone, it damn well better do everything I want.

I would have jumped all over that 200GB micro SD card. I got a little bit excited when I saw it announced and then I realised that I'd never get to use it as Samsung are doing away with SD cards. I'm not really interested in the other android OEM's that offer SD card storage (HTC, LG). I was holding off getting a note 4, mainly because I needed to buy a new laptop (which I've done) and also because I wanted to see what the S6 had to offer. I may just get the Note 4 at the end of the month, if only to hold onto the legacy features. It sounds stupid as, I can rationalise the changes and see how they would be beneficial but I'm not sure if I like the new direction Samsung is going in. They didn't even have many gimmicks at the presentation. I like gimmicks lol I also like touch wiz and they are toning it down.:(
 

shanghaichica

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Aren't they installing Clean Master from Cheetah, and McAfee by default now. Crazy.

Not sure about clean master, but McAfee is a good move, a shame it's so bloated though. However having a pre-installed anti virus programme is a good move imo. I always install one on my android devices.
 
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