Significant regressions for mid-range smartphones – but many users would welcome one old feature back

[Redaktion]

Rising RAM and storage prices could soon have noticeable consequences for mid-range smartphones. A leak suggests that manufacturers in the roughly $400 segment may increasingly return to older technology such as 90 Hz waterdrop displays, plastic frames, and hybrid SIM slots. The microSD slot, which has long been on the decline, could make a comeback as a result – much to the delight of many users.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Significant-regressions-for-mid-range-smartphones-but-many-users-would-welcome-one-old-feature-back.1258651.0.html

[Jet]

Well ❗❕....Such interesting news.😁
I am in agreement with this article as I too lambast sheep who ask if this is bygone years with when people ask for Micro SD and the head phone jack ESP now the AI has fucked up the technological world.
You are sheep if you accept Bluetooth buds and cloud storage by manufacturers shoving those options down your throat and with no privacy with cloud storage.
I always check the newest cells for Micro SD and headphone jack.
I Don't EVER buy new cells without those options❗❕😉💪
Their supposed return who be great news and give me more options to choose from as I stuck @ Poco M6 PRO 4G which has those options. 😁

[Sunil Deshbhratar]

When buying a phone, the very first thing I do is choose one that has an SD card slot. Whereas many people look at how much internal memory a phone has and then buy it. When I saw my friends buying phones, I asked them why they buy a phone just by being satisfied with high internal memory? Why do you buy a phone ignoring the utility of having your own storage room, meaning a memory card slot? Their response is that just having an abundance of internal memory is enough for their needs. So what is the need for a memory card slot! But after saying this and relying solely on internal memory, my friends who bought phones came to their senses as soon as their mobile broke down and shattered to pieces. That if their mobile had its own storage room, their files would have been safe, and they could have taken that memory card out of the damaged mobile, put it in another mobile, and used it! I bought a Samsung Galaxy A26 mobile last year on May 13, 2025, not just for its features, but by looking at the 2 TB memory slot it supports!
Yes, if a phone does not have a headphone jack and supports earbuds, then this new-age invention is acceptable! Anyway, I have seen mobiles and headphone pins get damaged due to having a headphone jack in the phone and the action of repeatedly plugging and unplugging the pin! Earbuds are a good alternative to get rid of wire problems! Earbuds are the result of a fairly good modern invention! But every phone must have an SD card slot! Because an SD card slot makes the consumer the master of their own choices!

[RobertJasiek]

Isn't making regular external local backups an alternative?

[Worgarthe]

When buying a phone, the very first thing I do is choose one that has an SD card slot. Whereas many people look at how much internal memory a phone has and then buy it. When I saw my friends buying phones, I asked them why they buy a phone just by being satisfied with high internal memory? Why do you buy a phone ignoring the utility of having your own storage room, meaning a memory card slot? Their response is that just having an abundance of internal memory is enough for their needs. So what is the need for a memory card slot! But after saying this and relying solely on internal memory, my friends who bought phones came to their senses as soon as their mobile broke down and shattered to pieces. That if their mobile had its own storage room, their files would have been safe, and they could have taken that memory card out of the damaged mobile, put it in another mobile, and used it!

Because of system-wide encryption you can't really use that microSD in another device; when a phone is broken or "shattered to pieces" as you said, its encryption key is effectively lost, so the data on the microSD won't be accessible to any other device. The data is still there on the card itself, but it's like it's gone. Or it will be - but then it's not encrypted and not safe at all, meaning that only media files (videos, music, pictures, PDFs/EPUBs, and such) can be stored there, as the OS will simply refuse to use it for anything important or sensitive, including apps' cache.

Then again, how many movies do you really need to have on your phone? 300 GB? 800 GB? 1.5 TB? MicroSD cards still have a pretty high failure rate, they are not really meant to be used for frequent writings, so it's not wise to rely solely on them for important backups. Why not get something like an external SSD with a much higher transfer rate, superior reliability, far greater TBW, and far better price per GB value? This is what I use with my phone: https://imgur.com/a/3pGkGYU

The other phone I used to take that photo has a microSD slot with a 256 GB card inside, but everything I said above applies to it, so it's either encrypted (meaning it's not usable on any other device including my laptop), or it's not (which is how I use it). As I don't have it encrypted I only use it to store unimportant random videos from Reddit, some offline music and movies, etc. For everything important, an SSD is superior in every single regard, plus it can have its own encryption so your data remains safe while still being readable by your other devices. Or just connect your phone to your PC and pull the data quickly through the USB cable ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Isn't making regular external local backups an alternative?

Exactly this 👆

Edit: The point of the whole comment above is that while having a microSD is definitely good, relying on it as a primary backup solution for your important stuff/data most definitely isn't.

[Unban NikoB initiative]

Why not get something like an external SSD

No clue why companies aren't doing internal SSD yet in phones. The tech is already there in small form factor.

We have (a) microSD Express (used in switch 2) (b) miniSSD (used in Chinese handhelds such as gpd win 5, onexfly apex and more)

For me the biggest issue is speed. I've zero interest with a storage medium which is slower than downloading from WiFi onto internal storage. There's no point even backing up regularly if it's going to take 12 hours.

Unsure about encryption on microSD Express / miniSSD but I assume it's largely the same as a real SSD since they use the same underlying tech. If there is a limitation it's probably with how the android OS itself handles external encryption.