Re: Huge disappointment, Samsung TOTALLY dropped the ball!
This.
I really don't get why this is so hard for people to understand. It's constantly parroted around here that SD support is some sort of silver bullet for all storage woes and that other manufacturers are evil for excluding it. As if there weren't reason they did so. Manufacturers do things for a reason. As I'll say again,
there is a tangible disadvantage BOTH for the manufacturer and consumer in including an SD card slot. It is a security loophole. It is prone to corruption as well as losing all your data (both by losing the card and it becoming corrupted). It is inherently less reliable and slower than internal storage. Search any Galaxy forum about errors relating to the SD card and you'll see that it is a customer-service nightmare for the manufacturer as well. Lastly, one thing which I have NOT seen mentioned anywhere else, is that Samsung is now adhering to Google's new SD card permissions in Android 4.4. Pretty much nerfing their utility overall. The article below has more info.
Samsung Galaxy S4, Note 3 Android 4.4 Problem hits Micro SD Card
Could any manufacturer like getting rid of them to make things simpler, cheaper and not wasting internal space, as opposed to anything resembling real "security" issues?
I go back a long, long, long way with SD cards in smartphones. I still note: 0 problems here. The advantages are simply endless, however. This isn't about getting some cool thing I never use. It is about getting something I use every day and that is central to my computing life. I'm still waiting for the first issue to occur, but the bottom line truth is that storage space is GROSSLY inadequate for me as things now stand without a SD card slot. So, I don't really consider it optional, but a necessity in terms of how I use my phone and enjoy it as an entertainment device. That's not a "rallying cry" as someone else said, but just practicality.
I could be wrong but a part of me wonders if the SD card / removable battery is a rallying call some fans use as a trump for their support of Samsung
Yes, I'd say you're wrong. I'm not the fanboy type. I wouldn't look at Apple because they lacked those features, no matter what I thought of Apple and how I yearned for the greatest and latest. I had an HTC. I dumped HTC when I upgraded because they moved to "no card, no removable battery" as a model.My first inclination was to get another HTC. They didn't have what I wanted. Buh-bye. Hello, Samsung. BTW, in terms of manufacturers knowing what they are doing, I hear HTC is now coming out with models with SD card slots. Hmmm.
This is the simple bottom line: I buy Samsung because it does what I want in those regards and meets my trilogy of most important demands for making my phone useable to me: screen size, SD card and removable battery, in that order. Plus, it has amazing specs always--it's well worth buying even so. So, there is not much downside. I'm less concerned with bells and whistles, but they are nice to have.
It is just a practical useability question with the card. I cannot function as well without it. Same with the battery issue--and I think I gave an excellent and real world example of how useful that can be. Why is that so unimportant and just a "rallying cry?" It was a lifesaver on my last vacation when the phone kept draining because I was using it as a GPS and MP3 player, but that wasn't a worry for ME. It has been critically important many times. You know, when you're popping around a city you can't always take out an external battery pack and sit there for 2 hours waiting for it to charge, and you don't always have time to sit in a coffee shop begging for an outlet. Maybe such things don't impact you as much. I travel a lot. It is a necessity for me. A spare battery is amazingly easy to have in the pocket. Light, cheap, quick change. (And you don't have to send the device back to the mfg. when the battery starts to lose capacity to hold charges, either. You spend $10 and buy a new one. If you don't have a removable battery, moreover, you are more likely to be draining the only battery you have constantly--thus, making it more likely that the fixed battery will have a short life span--a double whammy.)
If SD card slots have problems, so do phones in general. The goal should be to make them better, not eliminate the slots, given how useful they are. And still--no problems here.
To me, these are just simple, functional issues that make it possible for me to use my phone as I want to and need to, not theory or fanboy cults.
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