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
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.
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.