Why is there no micro SD card slot on the Nexus 5X?

[Grabber5.0]

I bought this one, and it has worked great so far.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01A...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU5083821

 

[scottysize]

I'd appreciate a clear explanation as to why Google branded devices have no SD card expansion.

I worry a bit about the 32gb limit.

Posted via the Android Central App

A lot of companies, not just Google, went away from the SD Card slot in 2015. It wasn't a good move, and some are already moving back to the slot.

As for the 5X, it was a cost saving move by LG. Google wanted a cheaper option than the 6P (why the 6P doesn't have the SD Card slot is beyond me), so they commissioned LG to make a cheaper phone. The limited storage was one solution. Smaller processor another. Slower camera another. Etc. It's not a perfect phone, and I hate the fact that I fill up the 32GB a lot, but it's still a great phone and for the money, it can't be beat. Let's see what HTC offers later this year with the new Nexus line phones. I'm sure they'll bring back the SD Card, just like Sammy did.

 

[LeoRex]

Well.... there was a lot of discussion about this over the years, and at first I thought it was a matter of Google looking to lean on its own cloud offerings, but I think the explanation is a little bit more simple. I think Google weighed their benefits against the cons and came to the conclusion that they aren't worth the trouble, and then figured they could lean on things like Google Photos and Drive and Music to extend storage.

SD cards are a bit of a pain... First, there's the hardware involved in adding the reader. Most are combining it with the SIM tray now, which cleans things up a bit. But then its a matter of supporting. There are a TON of junk cards on the market. And more often than not, people just pick the cheapest one they can find... and with SD cards, you really DO get what you pay for as the cheapest ones are media that Samsung and Sandisk (the two main manufacturers of the memory chips) tested and determined that there might be some quality control issues. So rather than toss them in the trash, they sell them in bulk at a reduced cost to the cheaper SD card brands. So that cheap SD card you buy is basically a like buying from the 'scratch and dent' section of your local furniture store. And if a phone goes haywire due to a bad card, people most likely blame the phone, not the cheap card.