microSD Returns To The Samsung Galaxy S7. Here’s Why It Was Removed In The First Place.
The microSD slot on Samsung’s Galaxy range returns with Samsung’s new flagships — the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge.
Launched at the Mobile World Congress recently, both the S7 devices offer 32 GB internal storage and an option of expanding memory via the microSD slot that cohabitates with the nano SIM. This expansion allows you to have up to 200 GB on the device.
This reinstatement of the coveted microSD slot was celebrated by all Samsung aficionados, especially since the outgoing Galaxy S6 did not have expandable memory.
With the Galaxy S6, Samsung had removed the microSD slot from their phone, thus subscribing to the Apple, Nexus and HTC’s model of storage i.e. providing phones with multiple fixed-storage options. You could choose from three versions of the phone: with 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB internal storage.
The lack of expandable storage had been a huge disappointment for Samsung users as they felt it was an arm-twisting ploy to forced them to unreasonably pay more for storage (microSD cards are significantly cheaper than the difference charged by most brands for higher-memory variants). This absence of expandability not only became a huge bone of contention for a lot of people, Samsung was panned far and wide, and it is also said to have affected the Galaxy S6’s sales the world over.
Why did Samsung do so, especially when all its competitors (except for Apple, Nexus and HTC) were offering expandable storage?
Was Samsung trying to ape Apple in providing a range of devices with multiple storage options? Samsung clarifies:
“At the time we launched the S6, we upgraded all the performance within the device. We upgraded to UFS 2.0, we upgraded to DDR4 RAM… we believed that having a memory card slot would slow down the performance of the device” explained Kyle Brown, Samsung’s Head of Technology, Content, and Launch Management.
Was it the issue of space, since Samsung was trying to make its phone sleeker and lighter?
Perhaps not. Removing the SD card could have given them substantially more space to make a difference in the construct of the phone, but let’s be honest here, microSD cards are tiny and they can’t really be taking enough space for the company to decide to remove them altogether.
Another issue with the microSD slot that was the suspected overheating. That problem though, was later pinned to the phone’s processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 which was noted to heat up under certain circumstances and uses.
Panned for the unilateral decision, albeit on the back misconstrued and misunderstood reasons, Samsung invested heavily in innovating the best-case reimplementation of the microSD card especially since the S7’s were pushing a huge envelope — both devices were being designed to be water resistant, with no flaps for their various ports and buttons.
“A lot of people were very disappointed we didn’t have a (memory card) slot in the S6, and (its return) has been one of the most positive reactions to the S7. We’re really proud of what managed to achieve, adding a microSD slot and water resistant IP68 rating. It’s a really massive achievement for engineers,” said Brown.
It’s good to see proof of Samsung’s open mindedness to customer feedback and its determination to meet and exceed expectations, even at the cost of immense R&D and product innovation. Kudos, Samsung!
Side Note: Some advice from Chip-Monks:
While the microSD enables you to “overflow” apps (and their data) and other internal programs from the phone onto the SD card, we suggest you don’t “overflow” stuff. Having apps on internal memory and their data not he card sometimes causes performance issues while opening those apps up as accessing data saved on the SD card takes longer, even if only by a fraction of a second.
Opening up music tracks from an SD card is still not as cumbersome as using an app that is stored on the SD card.
We advice you to ensure that your apps stay on the phone’s memory, and other “item” data like music, videos and even photos reside on the SD card.
Originally published at Chip-Monks.