Xiaomi is against microSD cards in phones .. Here's why!

[swatkats]

Why Apple Xiaomi is against microSD cards in phones


"For high performance devices, we are fundamentally against an SD card slot."

Barra backed up his statement by pointing out that his team didn't want to sacrifice battery capacity, ergonomics, appearance and, in the case of the new Mi 4i, the second Micro SIM slot for the sake of letting users add a storage card. More importantly, microSD cards "are incredibly prone to failure and malfunctioning of various different sorts," and the fact that there are a lot of fake cards out there -- and we've seen it ourselves -- doesn't help, either.

"You think you're buying like a Kingston or a SanDisk but you're actually not, and they're extremely poor quality, they're slow, they sometimes just stop working, and it gives people huge number of issues, apps crashing all the time, users losing data, a lot of basically complaints and customer frustration. It's gonna be a while before you finally accept that maybe the reason why it's not performing is because you put in an SD card, right?
You're gonna blame the phone, you're gonna blame the manufacturer, you're gonna shout and scream and try to get it fixed, so many different ways until you say, 'Actually, let me just take the SD card out and see what happens."

"It is a trend: SD cards will disappear," Barra added. "You should basically not expect SD card slots in any of our flagships.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/06/hugo-barra-xiaomi-microsd-battery-mi-4i/

So Fake cards exist, so you should shouldn't buy MicroSD cards.

 

[nRiTeCh]

Very cheap explanation. And they got no right to insult other cos. if they got no concrete proof.

If they beleive so then why don't they provide 32gb inbuilt memory for even a 10k xiomi?
Shouldn't they make it a standard so that instead of their customers crying they will rejoice this move and this means more sales and market capture.

 

[Party Monger]

Oh the reason is very simple. Its the only thing you can upgrade in your phones. With an upgrade you can use it for some more time. Xiaomi deals in cheap phones. It wants you to use and throw and then buy another Xiaomi phone asap.

Cause if that was not the case, they could just bundle the card of your choice from the original company.

 

[Soyab0007]

I think this is the reason Apple doesnt provide card slot to any of their phones..

And xiaomi is an duplicate of Apple, in terms of OS, hardware and UI

 

[deepakvrao]

Never had a problem with a card. Ever. From the days CF cards to the Micro SD cards now.

 

[pauldmps]

Let's agree with Barra. He justified that the phone's compact size for lack of SD card. But the internal NAND flash is the same size regardless the capacity. Why they didn't go for a higher capacity instead?

 

[Spacescreamer]

"For high performance devices, we are fundamentally against an SD card slot."

Agreed.

"It is a trend: SD cards will disappear"

You are stupid.

 

[redhotiron2004]

How else would you give 50-100 or even 200$ extra for additional 16-32GB or 64GB of seperate space?

It's all marketing. There are all kinds of sd cards available. Speed too vary a lot. Saying that fake and cheap replicas exist doesn't justify abandoning use of sd card all together.
After all fake and cheap replicas exist for every single product on this planet which sells.

 

[raksrules]

They can bundle a card or mention a list of authorized retailers and recommend only certain brands (again only when bought through authorized retailers) and speeds.

 

[chiron]

I think it is because the name starts with MI.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

Sorry, I don't buy this reasoning whether its coming from Apple or Xiaomi. Its nothing more than a stupid excuse. If they want to claim that the phone becomes slower just by installing a card (without it being in use), I don't care if they show me charts, it simply means there is a problem in their implementation whether in hardware of software.

When I was using the Galaxy S3, I had a 64GB memory card installed containing a bunch of anime, e-books and other stuff. Never once have I seen it becoming noticeably slow as compared to when there is no memory card.

The fake cards excuse is even more laughable. There are a lot of fake iPhones and Xiaomi products too are widely faked. I don't see people stop buying these products just because there would be fakes.

The primary reason why Apple or Xiaomi or any of the other companies do not want to give memory card support in their flagships is the same reason Sony made so many proprietary formats for memory cards. It is to make a profit by restricting user to buy the memory from them at ridiculously high prices. Apple particularly uses a lot of proprietary stuff and they make a killing of it.

If an iPhone has a memory card sort in which you can install a 64 GB class 10 card for cheap, how many people would go out and spend $100~$150 more to get an iPhone with an additional 8 or 16 GB internal storage. It also often forces people to upgrade phones even in the same generation. I have seen people who upgraded their iPhone 3 times within the same generation just to get more storage.

My Vibe Z2 Pro has 32GB Internal storage and no memory card support. I miss the card support, but I am fine with the sacrifice because I can at least hook up a USB drive when required because of OTG support

 

[superczar]

Sorry, I don't buy this reasoning whether its coming from Apple or Xiaomi. Its nothing more than a stupid excuse. If they want to claim that the phone becomes slower just by installing a card (without it being in use), I don't care if they show me charts, it simply means there is a problem in their implementation whether in hardware of software.

Disagree strongly - SD cards, especially micro SD cards are highly prone to failure with sustained writes
If you are using it primarily in read only mode (e.g. write movie/music once and mostly read subsequently), it will work fine..
But in sustained read/write mode, its mostly a question of luck till it fails

That is also the reason many embedded device OS implementations cut down heavily on logging and other niceties and also advise to use a RAM drive for temp I/O calls
I have myself had two SD cards fail on RPis exactly due to this until i shifted to a RAMdrive setup

From a phone manufacturer's perspective, provision of a SD card is a hassle best avoided to prevent bad feedback press from users getting slow read/writes or getting corrupted blocks on their cards which inevitably would get pinned to the phone hardware rather than the actual cause

If in case you still disagree - just do a simple search for SD card failure rate

 

[ssslayer]

I find it laughable that customer who buy Apple or Xiaomi do not know that their phone comes with limited storage.
They make decision to buy the phones that do not allow expansion, in spite of there being a plethora of phones in the market that do allow expansion.

I also find it laughable that people still believe that companies out there do not want to lock the customers to their products and services only and milk them for upgrades.
And I also find it laughable that people find it hard to believe that most of the statements made by such companies are only in order to appear politically correct to the majority of the public.

 

[superczar]

I find it laughable that customer who buy Apple or Xiaomi do not know that their phone comes with limited storage.
They make decision to buy the phones that do not allow expansion, in spite of there being a plethora of phones in the market that do allow expansion.

Why do you find it laughable?
Why do you presume that every customer actually has a use case for expanding memory on their phone
I have never used more than even 8GB on any phone I have had
Does that make me a sucker for marketing speak?

In any case, as pointed above, expandable memory on micro SD cards is significantly prone to corruption and if Xiaomi chooses to eliminate that option altogether to avoid any whiplash on them due to a problem elsewhere, it's entirely their prerogative, isn't it?

 

[hotshot05]

Disagree strongly - SD cards, especially micro SD cards are highly prone to failure with sustained writes
If you are using it primarily in read only mode (e.g. write movie/music once and mostly read subsequently), it will work fine..
But in sustained read/write mode, its mostly a question of luck till it fails

That is also the reason many embedded device OS implementations cut down heavily on logging and other niceties and also advise to use a RAM drive for temp I/O calls
I have myself had two SD cards fail on RPis exactly due to this until i shifted to a RAMdrive setup

From a phone manufacturer's perspective, provision of a SD card is a hassle best avoided to prevent bad feedback press from users getting slow read/writes or getting corrupted blocks on their cards which inevitably would get pinned to the phone hardware rather than the actual cause

If in case you still disagree - just do a simple search for SD card failure rate

Were you running torrents on the RPi?

 

[Ranjith Sai]

Were you running torrents on the RPi?

The only reason I see for his card failure. I have used sd card from various companies on my Bpi, Rpi and none of them have failed so far and are chugging well from past 2.5 years. These solid state devices have limited number of write cycles and torrenting causes the failure.

 

[ssslayer]

Why do you find it laughable?
Why do you presume that every customer actually has a use case for expanding memory on their phone

Therefore you never cribbed about non-expandable storage, right?
My post was about people who crib about not getting expandable storage, yet they buy the very stuff that doesn't allow them SD card.

 

[superczar]

Were you running torrents on the RPi?

Nopes, In any case, the R/W from a torrent will probably be insignificant compared to the # of R/Ws made by the OS
The point being that expandable memory will work fine under light write cycles
However, if the OS (say android) uses the storage for activities like say indexing, the life /reliability of the storage will be subject to too many variables

For any large scale manufacturer, variability will be a pain area since it will shoot up the service/return rates

The only reason I see for his card failure. I have used sd card from various companies on my Bpi, Rpi and none of them have failed so far and are chugging well from past 2.5 years. These solid state devices have limited number of write cycles and torrenting causes the failure.

You guys take me for a n00b
If using for XBMC or similar, the SD card will run well because Rpi distros for XBMC are optimized for reduced writes
I have one Rpi running as a file server with Debian optimized for a SD card (storage on USB) and another running XBMC - These two will in all likelihood never develop a problem within the finite life of such hardware
The one I faced problems on was the one running my home automation software - All the logging from the temp/humidity/motion/power sensors took its toll

In any case, the point being that it is hard for a company to guess what usage will the end user put it to - With a RPI, the target crowd is the enthusiast crowd and they will try figure out a solution rather than claiming warranty/cryiing foul about poor hardware from the RPI foundation
A regular consumer oriented device (read phone) on the other hand cannot take these chances[DOUBLEPOST=1430993941][/DOUBLEPOST]

Therefore you never cribbed about non-expandable storage, right?
My post was about people who crib about not getting expandable storage, yet they buy the very stuff that doesn't allow them SD card.

Ha, misinterpeted your post and spoke too soon

 

[superczar]

The only reason I see for his card failure. I have used sd card from various companies on my Bpi, Rpi and none of them have failed so far and are chugging well from past 2.5 years. These solid state devices have limited number of write cycles and torrenting causes the failure.

You guys take me for a n00b
If using for XBMC or similar, the SD card will run well because Rpi distros for XBMC are optimized for reduced writes
I have one Rpi running as a file server with Debian optimized for a SD card (storage on USB) and another running XBMC - These two will in all likelihood never develop a problem within the finite life of such hardware
The one I faced problems on was the one running my home automation software - All the logging from the temp/humidity/motion/power sensors took its toll

In any case, the point being that it is hard for a company to guess what usage will the end user put it to - With a RPI, the target crowd is the enthusiast crowd and they will try figure out a solution rather than claiming warranty/cryiing foul about poor hardware from the RPI foundation
A regular consumer oriented device (read phone) on the other hand cannot take these chances[DOUBLEPOST=1430993941][/DOUBLEPOST]

Therefore you never cribbed about non-expandable storage, right?
My post was about people who crib about not getting expandable storage, yet they buy the very stuff that doesn't allow them SD card.

Ha, misinterpeted your post and spoke too soon

 

[Lord Nemesis]

In any case, as pointed above, expandable memory on micro SD cards is significantly prone to corruption and if Xiaomi chooses to eliminate that option altogether to avoid any whiplash on them due to a problem elsewhere, it's entirely their prerogative, isn't it?

Sorry, not believable and even if they state that is the case, its nothing short of utter nonsense. Yes memory cards cannot handle a lot of writes, but most people use memory cards for reads and nowhere as much for writes.

Also, I don't see either Apple or Xiaomi discontinuing their cloud storage options because of much bigger whiplash they had on account of security, reliability, performance and accessibility. If your logic is correct, it is much more messy to offer and handle cloud storage and they should be discontinuing those.

Of course, its their product and its their prerogative what they support and what they don't, but one has to be naive to believe the rubbish they are throwing for not having SD card support.

They simply stand to gain by not having SD card support by forcing users to go for their costlier versions with more storage and they can also push their cloud storage options. Do you remember how Apple after they release their cloud storage option, deliberately reduced the amount of internal storage available to the user through artificial means.