anyword on SD card support in tango or apollo?

[shingi_70]

was wondering?

went to the store today to gt a replacement G2 today and got to play with the lumia 710. its a great little phone and beyond a a few apps nit being on the platform it could be my next phone

only issue is the only 8 GB of memory. its annoying and kind of gets in the way. my upgrade isn't until next teat but ill probably buy a venue pro or hd7 over the summer to hold me off. however when i go to get a new phone next expanadable memory is a huge selling point for me.

 

[ljkelley]

Well the HD7 and Venue Pro have internal MicroSD cards that can be replaced at the expense of warranty but not all cards work as well.

For the future built on flash memory is always gonna be faster and more stable. And it seems all the OEMs have moved away from MicroSD. And that they are pushing the cloud.

I think having expandable memory is not a future I see for WP, as it didn't work well in the Focus the only device that officially supported it due to the way WP doesn't use MicroSD cards the way a computer or Android uses them but rather adds them to the whole OS.

Sure this is a very Applesqe approach, but its better for most consumers. I just hope we get more choices so that consumers can first choose a device and then have 8, 16, 64gb versions available based on their needs.

 

[Reflexx]

I doubt that we'll see any official SD card support within the next year.

The way the OS works, any expandable memory that is added to it isn't seen as expandable memory. It's all looked at the same. And it's a static amount. So if you add any memory, the OS must be reset and all data wiped. Upon reset, it will see the new amount of memory and that becomes the new static amount. It cannot be removed unless you want to do a reset again.

The way the OS uses memory is also a little tricky. It needs pretty fast random access and retrieval. But pretty much all consumer SD cards do not measure the speed of random access on their cards. They measure the speed of sequential access (the Class rating). If a card is optimized for sequential access, it may make it even worse for random access.

Without any consumer cards measured for random access speeds, we have no way to determining what cards will work. Two seemingly identical cards might perform differently.

In order for makers of consumer cards to start testing for random access speeds, optimizing for that, and printing it on the boxes, they'd need to know that there's a large enough demand to warrant the costs associated with doing it. I'd also expect cards released with a different optimization process than everything else would cost considerably more. And at this point, that demand isn't there. We'd literally have to see close to iPhone numbers. Which WP isn't predicted to hit until 2015.

And even if WP sold iPhone numbers, we'd also need the equivalent number of users demanding SD card expansion from the OEMs.

 

[shingi_70]

so i have to pretty much hope for nokia and the other oems to start making 16GB and up the standard for phone memory.

 

[bigkevbosky]

The original Focus can use up to a 32 GB card without a problem.

 

[Reflexx]

The original Focus can use up to a 32 GB card without a problem.

It's been a problem for a lot of people.

Most cards don't work for more than a short while.

 

[jeremyshaw]

Yet it's almost a moot issue for the android handsets that support it.

Google, too, has a music, movie, and book service, yet android still supports removable storage. I wouldn't have a problem with fixed storage (because it's normally faster than good uSD cards, anyways), however, I would much prefer more storage to begin with. 16GB should, IMO, be a dead minimum for cheap phones, and 32GB for better ones. mS already has chassis requirements, why not up the minimum storage for higher tier devices?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Major]

I wouldn't be surprised if Android handset makers started to phase out expanded storage. Cloud storage means more data usage (and more money) for carriers.

While the iPhone has shown incremental increases in onboard storage through the years (now up to 64GB), the advent of iCloud will probably see these increases come to an end.

 

[Reflexx]

Yet it's almost a moot issue for the android handsets that support it.

Google, too, has a music, movie, and book service, yet android still supports removable storage. I wouldn't have a problem with fixed storage (because it's normally faster than good uSD cards, anyways), however, I would much prefer more storage to begin with. 16GB should, IMO, be a dead minimum for cheap phones, and 32GB for better ones. mS already has chassis requirements, why not up the minimum storage for higher tier devices?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Probably because there aren't separate minimums for low and high tier devices.

When all is said and done, the amount of memory made available will depend on demand. The best selling models of most phones tend to be their low GB versions. They're cheaper for the same experience, minus some space.

People who need a lot of space are the exception rather than the rule.

I'm sure there is some sort of calculation in the industry to measure demand of higher memory. Is X number of 8 GB units are sold, then they would be able to sell Y number of 16 GB units and Z number of 32 GB units.

So until they hit the target numbers for the low GB units, they may not release the high GB units.

With that said, it does look like the standard for medium-level units is becoming 16 GB. And I would imagine that by this time next year it would be 32 GB. At least for the high end.

 

[palandri]

I wouldn't be surprised if Android handset makers started to phase out expanded storage. Cloud storage means more data usage (and more money) for carriers.

While the iPhone has shown incremental increases in onboard storage through the years (now up to 64GB), the advent of iCloud will probably see these increases come to an end.

I think Android started it with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Someone correct me if I am wrong. I thought I read that the Galaxy Nexus did not take a memory card.

 

[jeremyshaw]

I think Android started it with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Someone correct me if I am wrong. I thought I read that the Galaxy Nexus did not take a memory card.

Galaxy sii, and many other android devices before it didn't have a microsd slot, either.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[enahs555]

I have a 32gb SD card in my Focus and its been rocking for nearly a year now with no trouble.

But really, Microsoft should just slightly modify the system and support extra storage. Instead of making it a part of the OS, have it dedicated solely to media. Music, pictures, and video. This would not be that hard to do (to modify the os and ZUNE to manage it); and it would solve the problem relatively easy.

 

[jfa1]

logical very logical enahs555 hopefully MS would see it that way as well It could certainly solve the problems many had with the sd card not working properly!

 

[Reflexx]

I have a 32gb SD card in my Focus and its been rocking for nearly a year now with no trouble.

But really, Microsoft should just slightly modify the system and support extra storage. Instead of making it a part of the OS, have it dedicated solely to media. Music, pictures, and video. This would not be that hard to do (to modify the os and ZUNE to manage it); and it would solve the problem relatively easy.

I'm not so sure about the "This would not be hard to do" part. It might be extremely hard to do without messing up what's already there.

 

[Rodolfo#WP]

I'm not so sure about the "This would not be hard to do" part. It might be extremely hard to do without messing up what's already there.

Winning Guy, I understand the peculiar way that WP7 treats memory and your explanation above is very helpful. But, if it works fine for some -I too have a successful 32gb install which has worked pretty much flawlessly for >5 months- it can't (shouldn't?) be all that diffficult to tweak the code (he says as if he knows what he's talking about) to improve its compatibility, since it's capacity has to be there or we would have no successful cases. Of course, Sandisk may also have to tweak its chips, and I suppose that's where your market-size arguments come in.

 

[Reflexx]

Winning Guy, I understand the peculiar way that WP7 treats memory and your explanation above is very helpful. But, if it works fine for some -I too have a successful 32gb install which has worked pretty much flawlessly for >5 months- it can't (shouldn't?) be all that diffficult to tweak the code (he says as if he knows what he's talking about) to improve its compatibility, since it's capacity has to be there or we would have no successful cases. Of course, Sandisk may also have to tweak its chips, and I suppose that's where your market-size arguments come in.

Yeah. Tweaking the code so it changes how it actually sees memory would be a pretty challenging task.

I think it's more about getting memory that works.

OEMs have access to memory that is tested for random access times. I actually asked Windows Phone Support a few months ago if that was the case and they responded, "Yes."

But the problem is that we don't have access to those cards. And the only reason I can think of for that is that it doesn't make sense financially for companies to do that mass testing for consumers.

 

[gerrymad]

Well the HD7 and Venue Pro have internal MicroSD cards that can be replaced at the expense of warranty but not all cards work as well.

HD7 has a card that can be replaced? I didn't know that. I'm looking at a video now. Interesting.

 

[freestaterocker]

WP7 oems are switching over to nand memory, which runs faster. It's not compatible with flash memory. Basically you're trading the possibility of expandable storage for everything loading faster.