A Post about Removable Storage, Removable Batteries and Smartphones
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on November 25, 2013 8:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
There's been a lot of talk lately about our position on removable storage and removable batteries in smartphones. Most of the discussion has centered around what we've said in podcasts or alluded to in reviews, so we figured it's a good time to have the complete discussion in one central location.
Let's get through the basics first:
All else being equal, removable storage and user replaceable batteries aren't inherently bad things. In fact, they can offer major benefits to end users.
The key phrase however is "all else being equal". This is where the tradeoff comes in. On the battery front, the tradeoff is very similar to what we saw happen in notebooks. The move away from removable batteries allows for better use of internal volume, which in turn increases the size of battery you can include at the same device size. There are potential build quality benefits here as well since the manufacturer doesn't need to deal with building a solid feeling removable door/back of some sort. That's not to say that unibody designs inherently feel better, it's just that they can be. The tradeoff for removable vs. integrated battery is one of battery capacity/battery life on a single charge. Would you rather have a longer lasting battery or a shorter one with the ability the swap out batteries? The bulk of the market seems to prefer the former, which is what we saw in notebooks as well (hence the transition away from removable batteries in notebooks). This isn't to say that some users don't prefer having a removable battery and are fine carrying multiple batteries, it's just that the trend has been away from that and a big part of the trend is set based on usage models observed by the manufacturers. Note that we also don't penalize manufacturers for choosing one way or another in our reviews.
The tradeoffs are simple with an internal battery, the OEM doesn't need to include a rigid support structure on the battery to prevent bending, and doesn't need to replicate complicated battery protection circuitry, and can play with alternative 3D structures (so called stacked batteries) for the battery and mainboard as well. Personally, I'd rather have something that lasts longer on a single charge and makes better use of internal volume as that offers the best form factor/battery life tradeoff (not to mention that I'm unlikely to carry a stack of charged batteries with me). It took a while for this to sink in, but Brian's recommendation to charge opportunistically finally clicked with me. I used to delay charging my smartphone battery until it dropped below a certain level and I absolutely needed to, but plugging in opportunistically is a change I've made lately that really makes a lot of sense to me now.
The argument against removable storage is a similar one. There's the question of where to put the microSD card slot, and if you stick it behind a removable door you do run into the same potential tradeoff vs. build quality and usable volume for things like an integrated battery. I suspect this is why it's so common to see microSD card slots used on devices that also have removable batteries - once you make the tradeoff, it makes sense to exploit it as much as possible.
There's more to discuss when it comes to microSD storage however. First there's the OS integration discussion. Google's official stance on this appears to be that multiple storage volumes that are user managed is confusing to the end user. It's important to note that this is an argument targeted at improving mainstream usage. Here Google (like Apple), is trying to avoid the whole C-drive vs. D-drive confusion that exists within the traditional PC market. In fact, if you pay attention, a lot of the decisions driving these new mobile platforms are motivated by a desire to correct "mistakes" or remove painpoints from the traditional PC user experience. There are of course software workarounds to combining multiple types of storage into a single volume, but you only have to look at the issues with SSD caching on the PC to see what doing so across performance boundaries can do to things. Apple and Google have all officially settled on a single storage device exposed as a single pool of storage, so anything above and beyond that requires 3rd party OEM intervention.
The physical impact as well as the lack of sanctioned OS support are what will keep microSD out of a lot of flagship devices.
In the Android space, OEMs use microSD card slots as a way to differentiate - which is one of the things that makes Android so popular globally, the ability to target across usage models. The NAND inside your smarpthone/tablet and in your microSD card is built similarly, however internal NAND should be higher endurance/more reliable as any unexpected failures here will cause a device RMA, whereas microSD card failure is a much smaller exchange. The key word here is should, as I'm sure there are tradeoffs/cost optimizations made on this front as well.
The performance discussion also can't be ignored. Remember that a single NAND die isn't particularly fast, it's the parallel access of multiple NAND die that gives us good performance. Here you're just going to be space limited in a microSD card. Internal NAND should also be better optimized for random IO performance (that should word again), although we've definitely seen a broad spectrum of implementation in Android smartphones (thankfully it is getting better). The best SoC vendors will actually integrate proper SSD/NAND controllers into their SoCs, which can provide a huge performance/endurance advantage over any external controller. Remember the early days of SSDs on the PC? The controllers that get stuffed into microSD cards, USB sticks, etc... are going to be even worse. If you're relying on microSD cards for storage, try to keep accesses to large block sequentials. Avoid filling the drive with small files and you should be ok.
I fully accept that large file, slow access storage can work on microSD cards. Things like movies or music that are streamed at a constant, and relatively low datarate are about the only things you'll want to stick on these devices (again presuming you have good backups elsewhere).
I feel like a lot of the demand for microSD support stems from the fact that internal storage capacity was viewed as a way to cost optimize the platform as well as drive margins up on upgrades. Until recently, IO performance measurement wasn't much of a thing in mobile. You'd see complaints about display, but OEMs are always looking for areas to save cost - if users aren't going to complain about the quality/size/speed of internal storage, why not sacrifice a bit there and placate by including a microSD card slot? Unfortunately the problem with that solution is the OEM is off the hook for providing the best internal storage option, and you end up with a device that just has mediocre storage across the board.
What we really need to see here are 32/64/128GB configurations, with a rational increase in price between steps. Remember high-end MLC NAND pricing is down below $0.80/GB, even if you assume a healthy margin for the OEM we're talking about ~$50 per 32GB upgrade for high-speed, high-endurance internal NAND. Sacrifice on margin a bit and the pricing can easily be $25 - $35 per 32GB upgrade.
Ultimately this is where the position comes from. MicroSD cards themselves represent a performance/endurance tradeoff, there is potentially a physical tradeoff (nerfing a unibody design, and once you go down that path you can also lose internal volume for battery use) and without Google's support we'll never see them used in flagship Nexus devices. There's nothing inherently wrong with the use of microSD as an external storage option, but by and large that ship has sailed. Manufacturers tend to make design decisions around what they believe will sell, and for many the requirement for removable storage just isn't high up on the list. Similar to our position on removable batteries, devices aren't penalized in our reviews for having/not-having a removable microSD card slot.
Once you start looking at it through the lens of a manufacturer trying to balance build quality, internal volume optimization and the need for external storage, it becomes a simpler decision to ditch the slot. Particularly on mobile devices where some sort of a cloud connection is implied, leveraging the network for mass storage makes sense. This brings up a separate discussion about mobile network operators and usage based billing, but the solution there is operator revolution.
I'm personally more interested in seeing the price of internal storage decrease, and the performance increase. We stand to gain a lot more from advocating that manufacturers move to higher capacities at lower price points and to start taking random IO performance more seriously.
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Tams80 - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
I used to use a N900 and always had a couple of spare batteries on me. I could go a full weekend though.bleh0 - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
The benefits of external memory and replaceable batteries just plain outweigh the need for a unibody ultra thin design.Reclaimer77 - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
Article Translation:We like iPhones, so features it's missing simply don't count.
1. Why would internal storage prices ever decrease when you're already willing to pay exorbitant upgrade fees? By campaigning against microSD, you are ACTIVELY asking to be bent over a barrel now and for all time.
2. You seem to live in a world where Samsung, the largest smartphone OEM in the world, doesn't include these features on nearly every phone. Sure if you throw out the largest statistical outlier, any feature can be viewed as insignificant.
3. How can you NOT view expandable storage and user replaceable batteries as added value, and not count it as a strike against models missing these features? This dismissive attitude is not commensurate with the high level of detail I've come to expect from Anandtech.
4. Build Quality? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
5. Bringing up the speed of microsSD while advocating the merits of cloud storage is...ironic. Are you also on a planet where you get perfect data signal at all times and have no data caps?
All things being equal, it's not that your arguments don't have merit. It's just that you are being so dismissive about the other side, which lets be clear, is the dominant one!
Erid - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
Yeah. This piece is outrageous, well as outrageous as a hurriedly written piece in a tech blog can be. It's strange because it's basically a position statement when one wasn't necessary and that's throwing a lot of the readers off. What's the purpose of codifying in Anandtech review law that removable batteries and microSD cards are not desirable? It's supported by half-hearted arguments and the fact that two people co-wrote it makes it sort of sad. It's also irrational. The desirability of any feature in a phone is determined by how it affects the usability of the phone and whether it adds value. Anything else is a matter of taste.Malih - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
Are you reading different page and commenting on this page?If you don't see usability and added value being mentioned in the article, then you must be searching the exact words and unable to find it.
Spunjji - Wednesday, November 27, 2013 - link
I have come to accept that on this site, "build quality" is a subjective assessment referring to how far a device deviates from the norms prescribed by Apple.Brian Z - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
I see the points of having both removable batteries and storage. But like usual the die hard fans of them just completely ignore all the negatives of them. And will pull out the good old B word like usual, oh you so bias.My post will mainly be about sd cards. What I have not seen mentioned at all in the comments are some of the hugest draw backs to them. Yes they are good and useful to be used at media storage. For anything else they are complete pain in the you know what.
As Brian and Anand pointed out it is not officially supported by google. While that alone doesn't mean much the result is a mess. You will install some apps that will automatically move stuff aka install to sd. If you then swap out the card your app is screwed. This is also disaster for the average user to go through their app list and look for and then move the apps that allow it to the sd card. You will also loose the widgets for said apps once you do so. It is just a flat out mess period to deal with all that nonsense.
Also I see some folks are stuck on carrying around massive amounts of data. You're a very small minority people. Hardly anybody wants to carry around 100s of gb of data on their mobile device. You dont need 20k mp3s on your device. Nor do you need your entire movie collection. You are really just digital hoarders.
While there is definitely a need for expandable storage a device like a Samsung phone with 16gb on internal, That really ends up about half of that thanks to touchwiz. If you install your apps and game or two you could easily run out of space for media. Once you get up to a device with 32gb internal that really goes away for the most part.
Yet the few that are the most vocal are the ones that want to walk around with multiple sd cards caring over 100gb of data always with them seem to make the biggest fuss. Your usage case is really rare for cell phone.
Also you die hard fans of sd cards no exactly what they can and cant do with android. The average consumer has no clue. They will see the spec list at the store or on the box and see the expandable to 64gb via micro sd or whatever but have no idea how it actually works. Most will think their device will then perform as if it was a 64gb device. Which of course its not.
In closing it seems that no matter what the die hard fans of sd cards just will never except or will completely ignore all the drawbacks of them on android. Then there is also that fact the OEMs want to reduce as many things as possible the general public can break. There are some very good reasons to have a micro sd slot / card for some users. There are also very good reasons to not include them as well.
But for telling it like it is in the real world this crowd tosses around the B word and nonsense that the site is this and that.
vortexmak - Wednesday, November 27, 2013 - link
I have always used microSD cards in my phone,I don't know why people can't wrap their heads around a simple fact: If DON'T have to use a card. If it looks complicated to you don't use it. Why do you not want the phone to even have a slot
Debunking:
- No apps automatically install to SD, name one
- Only google camera app does not support it. All apps (including file manager and gallery apps) support SD
- I want to carry my music and movies , all 100 GBs of it. Why do you have a problem with that ?
Borh - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
Your argument ar non sense. Samsung use micro SD and removeable batteries and their smarpthones (like the Galaxy Note 3) have very good stock batteries without increasing the size (when compared to Xperia Z1 or HTC One Max).You have your theories, but in the real world, you don't have to choose between removeable battery and longer battery life.
User.Name - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
I think it's very short-sighted to be using fixed batteries and no external storage options.Maybe if you are the kind of person that replaces their phones every year or two to have the latest thing, it doesn't matter to you.
My mother has an old iPhone 3GS - it was handed down to her when my sister upgraded to a 4s.
The phone is in excellent condition and does everything that she needs - there's no reason at all for her to upgrade to something newer.
But the battery is failing and often runs out before the end of the day now. Apple no longer services these phones and has just offered her a deal on buying a new phone instead.
When the only thing wrong with the device is the battery, this just seems so wasteful. (I know you can do a DIY repair, but I don't trust those cheap Chinese batteries)
Another example would be when I recently repaired an original MacBook which had problems with its backlight turning off, and the battery lasting less than an hour.
I swapped out the inverter cable (a $5 part) which fixed the backlight, and calibrated the display so while it's not the brightest screen, it looks better than new.
I swapped out the 60GB hard drive with a 1TB SSHD, maxed out the RAM (I think it was 2GB) and bought a new battery for it.
After cleaning it up and polishing the case, it almost looks as good as new, and is a surprisingly responsive computer now. There's plenty of storage for media playback with the SSHD, and using the YouTube5 extension in Safari to replace Flash, it can even handle high quality YouTube videos just fine.
Without spending much money on it, that 7 year old computer is now faster than when it was new, and totally serviceable for lightweight tasks, rather than being more plastic junk sitting in a landfill.
You won't be able to do that to any of the new MacBooks with their soldered-on components and non-serviceable batteries.
Especially with tablets, but also phones, there's no real reason they couldn't have a micro sd slot.
The cellular iPads already have a slot for a sim card, so you could just replace that with an SD slot on the other models, and make it a bit larger to accommodate a sim and a microsd card on the others.
The internal flash is typically not actually that fast on these devices anyway, but even so, 8-16GB of faster NAND is more than enough to store all my apps on. The reason most people buy high capacity devices is for media storage, not apps.
The current limit of 64GB in a phone, and 128GB in a tablet is nowhere near enough for all my media. I have hundreds of gigabytes of music because I buy CDs and rip to lossless files. (and I have successfully ABX'ed between high bitrate lossy and lossless in Foobar, before you tell me just to compress everything)
Even with a MicroSD slot, a 64GB phone (a $200 upgrade over 16GB) and a 64GB MicroSD card ($40) still has less capacity than the old 160GB iPod classic I have to carry around.
Something else to consider is that while we may only have 64GB cards today, SDXC supports up to 2TB.
Simply as a music player, things like upgraded processors are not important, so with an SDXC slot, in a few years time you could potentially upgrade to a 128GB or even 256GB card instead of replacing the whole device.
Maybe it's because you get free devices to review and do not have to pay for your own that an $850 device (64GB iPhone 5s) is disposable to you when the battery dies in a couple of years, or you need more storage, but for many of us that is not the case.
Even if it were not a financial issue, I am fundamentally opposed to the amount of waste this generates.