I am in the process of looking between repairing my phone or switching to a new one. And the no brainer evolution to the OnePlus 7 Pro I have is a Pixel phone. Pixel Phones are definitely not perfect, I know that the battery would fall faster than other phones but hey, that’s ok, google chip in it, possibility to go GrapheneOs, all good.
But the A versions only having 128 GB, and needing to pay 100 extra Euro on the Normal and Pro phone for 256GB is ridiculous, and not allowing me to add a SD card for that! Is insane I restarted my phone in December fresh from zero, and in the last 9 months I used 163 GB of memory. 48GB of it is my music on Deezer, for which I pay to be able to download “HIFI” files which I am not willing to trade for using less space on my phone, I work in a place with no 4G, I’ve got a few playlist I switch between. The rest is 25 GB of Pictures, 7GB of games. 44GB of apps.
Now the answer to this is “Well now with your Pixel phone you can use the Google Cloud, Google Docs blablabla”. Something insights by Google offering 3 month of Google one and 3 month of YouTube premium when you buy a Pixel phone. So much cloud that’s soo cool! And you can just redownload things when you need it. Well I don’t want to redownload my musics everyday when I listen to them, I don’t want to trade and limit what I would call normal use. I know not everyone will resonate with this, but the carbon impact on bandwidth used from cloud in 4G is important.
Normalise SD cards, Normalise not using the Cloud as a solution for everything
Update 2 Days later
Hey, writting here because this post has brought a lot of people to talk about storage of data on phone, which is quite nice. I am writting here just because a lot of comments are repeating certain points and It wouldn’t be useful answering to all of them if after their will be more comments saying the same thing.
I am not saying Cloud = Bad. It’s great we have a place out there where we can Store Data in case anything happens. I simply wish either brand gave us more choice on data capacity, seeing a Pixel 7a only at 128 gb ain’t cool, let me make a choice. Seing a Pixel & with 128gb or having to pay an extra 100€ for 256gb when a sd card is 30€ is not cool.
A personal server is in my plans, and it’s one of the projects I’m the most impatient to have.
I understand that I have a different use of phones then the average, I simply want to be able to adapt the tools I use to my different use.
I have taken the step to take a look at the storage in my phone by curiosity and to look with a different eye my consomption of Storage, and have deleted 3gb of games, and 3gb of apps that where useless. I’ve also started looking into my photos and took out 3gb of photos I had which where useless. And I think there is more photos I’ll delete, I am not done on that of course
My signal discussion are important to me, I am in a Long Distance Relationship, and discussions I have with my SO on Signal are the major part of my relationship, and I cherish them. I have set up signal so that it makes when charging at night a copy of my discussions, and when I have Sincthing, it loads the conv to a HDD Drive on my PC. That being said, in the floders I found bugged temp file from saves that did not end, for a total of 20 gb of Signal discussions (oof lol) which where deleted too. How ridiculus was it? Well in Storage>Files the weight of total files dropped from 20,68gb to 0,68gb
Anyway, I am now at 132gb :D! I’m not writting this because I am feeling attacked or to defend myself, just as a small update and because these are reocuring comment that’s all, i’m still anwering here and there if you arrive a bit latter to the post, it’s impressive from lemmy I feel to still be receiving comments and have a discussion that continues 2 day after a post. Usually on Reddit posts would die in 6 hours, and their where no dick’s in the chat. I’ve read every single message, and answers other people did
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Normalise SD cards
I never stopped. Any phone I buy must have an SD slot. Problem solved.
Same here, I don’t understand people buying phones without SD card and than complaining about it.
They sent a message to manufacturer that they don’t want SD cart slot and of course in the next year evel less phones will have it.
People call this “voting with your money”
And it doesn’t work unless it is done en mass. As individuals it just turns into a preference.
Reward Sony, they have low, mid, and high end phones that still have SD cards and headphone jacks.
While I respect them for their hardware, they need to up their software game. They’ve been left in the dust on update lifespan by Samsung and Google. I’m also miffed that they don’t have much care for specification accuracy (or at least didn’t when I got my US Xperia III).
Agreed, I wish they had longer update timelines and were easily available in the US. But they are easily among the best overall phones with a headphone jack and expandable storage.
I was so close to pulling the trigger on a Sony Xperia. Then I found out they only do 2 years of software updates.
Also, there were limited options for custom ROMS
As much as I’d love to, they’re simply too expensive, by far. Amd I’ve had several Sony’s compact models before that have each left me with a malfunctioning screen after about a year.
I bought the Xeperia 1iii for exactly this reason…and it was the worst phone I’ve ever owned.
The camera sucks, the phone froze all the time, many apps were incompatible.
It was a nightmare. I wanted so badly to love it and I tried and tried for 9mo, and the traded it in for a Pixel 7 pro.
IDK if I can trust Sony again, but I really want the SD card and headphone jack.
Have the 1 III and now 1 V (that case for the 1 III wasn’t as strong as I hoped, lol)
It’s a significant improvement, no more heat issues, the camera is legit great without messing with settings now (the previous generations were much too far oriented to people used to editing RAW), it’s what the 1 III should’ve been
Since the original PlayStation in the 90s, I have never owned a Sony product that didn’t disappoint, or just outright fail.
My wife had a Sony video camera. It broke in a little under 2 years. My Sony car CD player just one day decided to refuse to eject a CD. A place I worked at had Sony Viao laptops as standard, and were forever replacing PSUs and screens. I looked at buying a Sony smart TV, but looked at their forums first, and decided the firmware/software was so full of bugs which were never going to be fixed, that I’d be better off with a CRT display and a VHS machine than whatever they were selling. My brother had a Sony digital camera, which one day, decided it just didn’t want to power on.
I wouldn’t buy anything Sony if I expected it to last longer than a month.
It sounds like you have a very specific set of requirements that requires a specific type of premium phone. Not everybody needs 128 GB of storage eon their phone (mine only has 64). I agree that a lot of storage and SD-card slots are good features to have on phones, but the truth is that not everyone needs those. Each feature will add cost and require more resources to build, and for a lot of people not having them will work just fine.
I don’t get the arguments either way.
Buy the 512GB phone if you need it?
I think the problem is that those 512GB cost more than a 512GB SD card.
My mum is constantly complaining about not having enough storage on her phone but won’t switch away from an iPhone to and Android with an SD slot.
Some people just like to bitch about a problem not fix it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t sd card slots cheaper than 128GB of storage? Give me a phone with 32GB, allow me to pay for a 1TB SD card if i need it. Seems like a win-win. Hell, they can sell the phone with their own sd card in it already if they really want.
Are sd card slots cheaper than 128 GB of flash storage chips? I’m not sure, but yes, probably. You would also need to factor in the additional complexity of allowing physical access to the slot, which would take some additional designing and a few more components. The sd card itself will probably be a more expensive and slower than integrated flash storage. By contrast, it is probably extremely easy to just shove some flash storage chips in a phone. Still, I agree that it sounds like a worthwhile tradeoff for me.
Mid tier phones have sd card support, 3.5mm jack replaceable battery.
You only have to know where to look.
Ok, now which ones have all three, plus a metal frame?
I would throw so much money at such a phone. If you add “usable software/hardware”, i can maybe find 3 of the 5.
Or a decent camera.
Sony, except the replaceable battery part
The camera isn’t good enough on the Xperias. It’s getting there with the V, but still not up to par with the others.
Thanka for sharing the knowledge!
A lot of comments in this thread defending OEMs from customer’s benefits, which is disheartening to me, but I’m sure joyous for shareholders. I see comments saying you should buy premium phones that have SD cards, but there aren’t many options. The only one is a $1400 Xperia I V. I would love nothing more to have the SD card on only the “ultra” variants, if costs are too much of an issue for those who don’t use the feature, but there’s not much “ultra” in the “Ultra” variant besides an extra camera or two.
For those who are baffled by what we hoard on our devices, why does it matter? Do we ask what you do on your phone when there doesn’t seem to be anything on them? “I barely use 50GB on my device” and “128GB is more than enough for me” seem to be the prevailing notion here, and it’s frustrating since your demographic is already highly represented on the market. It’s similar to those who wish there wasn’t a selfie cam because they never used it, ignoring all the video calls millions use on a daily basis.
But maybe an answer might stop the “curiosity” of the sparse data hoarders, and they might understand our plight. On my 1TB SD Card, I currently have:
220GB Audiobooks 18GB Music 34GB Pictures 330GB Videos, Movies, and TV Shows 10GB Work and Project Files 12GB Podcasts 14GB Games
As someone who is frequently in low-signal areas, especially while driving, streaming is not an option. My media has entertained me during flights, public transit commutes, working out, jury duty, and the DMV. I also don’t want to transfer my media in and out of my device (I do back up my data wirelessly to my own server), nor do I want to bring an adapter when the technology is already embedded inside.
So OP, I feel you, and I’m hoping SD cards comeback.
It’s the same with people asking me why I don’t buy bluetooth headsets and insist on having wired headphones. I don’t want to buy something extra when I already have a pair of VERY GOOD headphones and audio signal is always better on wire - even with lossless audio on bluetooth (which is not yet supported by (m)any devices).
Exactly! I literally don’t know what to do with my SD card if I succumb to OEM’s wishes and get a phone without the memory expansion. Nor do I want to spend +$150 per phone to get the 1TB option if they even offer one. I already bought my SD card once, so why would I want to do it again and again and again?
Yeah, If Android Dap where good enough at a correct price I’d go with maybe pixel 7a and an Android Dap to use with my Dusks and sell my Qudelix, this would be an alternative Id like
And I am not writing this at all to say it’s bad to have only 64gb If you need 64gb, I simply want a solution that is not Cloud and that helps me get the amount of Storage I need. I’m also working in a low signal area. I’ve tried to listen to other songs and they just cut all of the time so I keep to the playlist I make
Yup. How much would it hurt you if your phone had a small space for a SD card slot? If you don’t use it, who cares. It’s not affecting you a single iota. The only people benefiting are the OEM’s, because god knows your phone hasn’t gotten any cheaper since they began removing hardware features.
premium phones that have SD cards, but there aren’t many options. The only one is a $1400 Xperia I V
There are other options too, like the fairphone or Galaxy A-series mentioned by others in this thread. They never disappeared, they just became less common because there is less customer demand.
If you need a phone with a lot of storage or extensible storage, you can get one. There will be a cost associated with that need, but it is not necessary to pay $1400 either. It is hardly anti-consumer to say that a lot of people don’t need this option.
What you do with your phone is your choice, and if you want to store 1 TB of pictures, audiobooks, or even porn, you should go ahead and do that. All I’m saying is that this is not a typical use case, and you can’t expect any random phone to support it. But there are phones that do, and you should get one.
In what way are any of those phones “premium?” You’re literally listing the two phones I can get to access an SD card. The $1400 Sony or low to mid-range ones. So I have to compromise my choice in my diminishing feature set so that the common man can have yet another Galaxy, Pixel, or even an iPhone that doesn’t distinguish themselves beyond their OS/skin, camera count, and folding screens? Pick any one of these phones in the last 3 years and tell me what makes them unique and more practical than my Note 20 Ultra.
Plus, at least in the US, the common man is going for an iPhone. Apple just got nearly 60% of the market share here, so no, there isn’t a plethora of choices, and Android OEMs aren’t exactly fighting tooth and nail to provide exceptions in their products. So if I want a phone with actual “premium” features - such as cameras that eat up storage - and includes an SD card slot, it’s down to Sony and Sony alone.
I agree with what you are saying, but 220GB in audiobooks? Isn’t that like ~1000 audiobooks? I admire the dedication, but damn 😂
I love audiobooks, haha. There’s also some by a studio called Graphic Audio, which is a dramatized version of audiobooks filled with a full cast of voice actors, music, and sound effects! It’s pretty cool, but each audiobook is like 4x the size of a normal book. I also read books that are part of a series. Each one is usually 5+ books long.
Can I ask what phone you are using and what SD card you have? Did you get a fast writing SD card?
Still on my Note 20 Ultra, since it’s the last real “Ultra” phone that Samsung has released, except for the headphone jack, but I’ve learned to adapt with this compromise. I think my SD Card was a SanDisk? I don’t remember, since I bought it years ago, and it has lasted me since I got this phone on release day. I didn’t really care about read-write speed, because everything I’m accessing doesn’t really require blazing fast transfers.
Imagine if we had this - physically tiny - and established standard how we could let the user add extra storage space to their small electronic devices.
I don’t know, maybe SanDisk could develop something like this, some Micro format storage device. That’s not a bad name, is it? Something with Micro, and SanDisk? Yeah, someone should create that!
well it’d obviously have to be digital, and it would be nice if it were secure as well
maybe down the line we could get a high capacity version, or even xtreme capacity
A Floppy disk?
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So you haven’t bought a phone in the last decade?
Come on, the A52s wasn’t that long ago. Only in 2022 did Samsung remove the headphone jack from their A-lineup.
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Samsung has low end cheap phones. You just nitpick everything to suit your damned argument.
Xperia I V. Using it rn
What options are there that don’t make a compromise on something like camera quality?
Every phone you buy these days is a compromise. The entire market went to shit around 2015.
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I really wish the Japanese camera companies have the ability to come up with a camera that can maintain a proper always-on connection to your phone, then auto-switch to the wifi connection to transfer photos (JPEG only) when needed. That way I’ll just get a small compact and decouple the camera quality from my phone purchasing decision.
Sadly the Japanese are even more incompetent, so that’s not happening anytime soon.
I have a smaller MILC that I love, but the reality is that nothing beats a camera that you always have with you.
The cameras I am saving for, the Fuji XT-4 allegedly offers this feature, over bluetooth though, I am hoping it is a smooth enough experience because what you describe really is the dream.
Take photos and have them instantly on my phone which auto uploads them to cloud storage.
Haven’t seen a camera that can do that. The Canons can’t, was trying in the showroom. The “Auto Transfer” feature shuts down when the app is not in the foreground, and has to be restarted manually each time. What rubbish. No wonder they’ve lost so much market share.
Never, where did you read that? :D
They hype 4k/8k recording capabilities but the average buyer is unlikely to realise exactly how fast this eats storage.
I had to buy a new phone when my last one broke. Needed S Pen & external SD so I opted for a used Note 20 Ultra in conjunction with the same SD card ive used since I first bought a smart phone.
I self host my own Nextcloud but cloud isnt the answer. Even in this day & age in a big city or driving, streaming is not available all the time. I insist that everything important is available offline: maps, notes, all media be it music, podcasts, audio books …even movies/TV shows seeing as these phones can easily be connected to a TV for use with Kodi or similar. Another thing is recording footage of holidays etc for editing. It all takes up space.
I’m of the opinion the external SD was only removed for profiteering reasons.
For Christmas I accidentally restarted my phone, and saw my nephews for the first time. Wanted to make some videos of them. Turns out for some reason the phone was in 4k 6fps (yay)
There’s no excuse for a lack of expandable storage, theres no excuse for a lack of a 3.5mm port. Phones have been stagnant for the last 3/4 years.
The new iPhones are coming out soon, and since they’ve likely replaced the silencer switch with an Bixby button, that’ll surely shake up and revolutionize the market with it’s yet another 150€ base price increase
SD cards are irreplaceable to me because my phone does its backups into it. If my phone dies, I still can pull it out and have everything I need. And I’m not going to give my personal data to someone elses computer in a datacenter.
If the phone is lost/stolen/damaged, your SD card could be inaccessible too. Your backups are your business, but you are opening yourself up to all kinds data loss if your only backups are stored within the device in question.
of course. I do copy my files once in a while, but my phone does app backups to the card every few days.
You might like something called Syncthing. It’s a FOSS data replication thing that doesn’t store stuff on other people’s servers but if you have a computer or some other place you want to throw files, it can keep things synchronised with your phone, without any cloud storage crap .
I highly recommend syncthing
Irs free.
You gotta set it up on all devices that sync anything but its very set and forget
128GB as the baseline is rubbish. Even 256GB is average considering the amount of high quality media we deal with nowadays. The amount of money these companies pull in from “upgrading” your storage is amazing, it costs dollars to upgrade from 128 to 256 but they’ll charge you a $100 premium for the privilege
Nah it’s fine for those of us who don’t live our whole lives inside the smartphone world. My desktop PCs, servers, and laptops are where I keep my important files, not on a phone.
You are intending to buy a phone from a cloud company whose phone making business is an afterthought.
Get a phone from a phone making company whose cloud is an aftertaught.
But the camera :( and GrapheneOs
I do a lot of torrenting on my phone, I’m very frustrated with the current market of flagships. I have to constantly purge my downloads
I used to store music locally and I can’t have 100gb of music any more because my phone is only 128. I used to download entire TV shows at once, and now I have to do it one season at a time and delete it as I watch.
Obviously it’s not a big deal because I’ve just settled for doing it, but ffs SD card slots are cheap as shit and most of these phone manufacturers also make lower end phones with SD card slots.
I used to download the top of the month musics only, to get a cool panel of music’s I liked only for when I’ll need them. Well in lossless they took after a year more than 110GB of storage. I stopped when seeing it so large
Why do you need 100GB of music? Get a Plex server and stream from that. You can still download stuff from your phone if you need to. But there’s no way you’re away from an internet connection for 100GB of music worth of time.
It’s a management problem, not a storage problem.
At the time I worked offshore, so yeah I was away from an internet connection pretty consistently.
Also stop recommending Plex, it’s going downhill. Jellyfin is better.
Also, this implies that I both own a spare computer and have both unlimited data and unlimited wifi.
I think for the majority of people 128 is plenty. If you need more than that you need to buy a phone with an SD slot. I’ve never had a phone without one personally.
What decent phones come with SD slots?
I currently have a Fairphone, and of course it includes a micro-SD slot. You’re supposed to use it for 5+ years, it’d be daft if you cannot expand it.
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Cloud service is the reason to homelab
I know I am moving in 1 month :( Than in 1 year, than a bit later again. And fianlly when I’ll be settled it’s one of my first goals!
