At this point in my life; I am ready to challenge any design team of any mobile device which decides to leave out expandable [micro]SD storage to a bout of the fisticuffs.
There is absolutely NO reason any mobile device should lack this. [This is ESPECIALLY aimed at Mr. Smug; Ive]
How else would they up sell to the 64GB model? What if a device I bought 3 years ago could be still relevant by just upgrading an inexpensive flash card?
Not only is so restrictive as to be insulting, it harms the environment by forcing devices to die a premature death, I know my iPad 1 would be a whole lot more useful with a 64GB SDHC card in it.
I was super stoked to buy a Google Nexus tablet, after finding out there was no SD card slot, I forever declined that purchase.
now, had i been using stock image on that device... first it would be full of crapware that i couldn't uninstal. and since the available space is something like 250mb for apps, i wouldn't even be able to install 2 apps.
now, i've spent $500 on it. why should i already replace it if it does exactly what I need? just so i can have NFC? ha! no SD? ha! even less, non replaceable, battery life? ha! (i use an extended SEIDIO battery). no trackball with extremely visible and customizable full color alert led? ha!
the only thing it misses is a better screen some time. but i like the size, so i won't be switching to a fullHD phone with a phablet screen size. to fix it. Also the OLED screen is awesome to read at night. Ironically because of software, by features REMOVED on android after 2.3. on 2.3 on my custom roms i can have smart inverted colors in the browser. I don't have to choose between white on black pages with inverted images or bright pages with correct color images. i can have both! Also i can enable night mode render effects. Good lucky doing any of that on your shinny nexus 5.
I have a Galaxy Nexus that is barely supported by Google now, and its just a little over 2 years old. Going to recycle it and buy a Nexus 5.
I'm just a bit too old (31) to care anymore. No SD card? Whatevs. I'll use Dropbox/Evernote/Amazon's MP3 Player with wifi to get whatever I need onto the phone.
(1) We have more and more things we'd like to carry with us that take up more and more space.
(2) Fewer and fewer people in America and other countries have unlimited data plans.
(3) Lots of us take things like subways which have no internet access.
(4) Cloud privacy is a disaster thanks to the NSA, poor security implementations at cloud companies, regular intrusions of providers, regular intrusions of network infrastructure (example: ASUS and Netgear routers), etc
(5) Obscene markups of memory sizes above base by manufacturers
(6) Inability of consumers to get many phones with more than 32GB of storage and artificial limiting of supply on some providers (see: the incredibly stupid decision to make the HTC One 64GB an AT&T exclusive)
(7) etc etc
Yes, Google wants you to use the cloud and have everything in your Google Drive. For most of us, it's a bad idea from a financial, convenience and privacy perspective.
According to [1], a 3.5" floppy has a volume of 27828.9 mm^3 whilst the volume of a MicroSD is 132 mm^3. That's a ratio of 210. Biggest MicroSD I can find that's commonly available is 64GB; that gives you
(27828.9/132)*64GB = 13492GB or ~13.5TB
Which is an astonishing data density when you eventually wrap your head around it.
Cheapest MicroSD 64GB I can find is GBP36.98 which makes that 13.5TB a mere GBP7,765.8. Compare with 3TB drives at GBP87.12 (the current sweet spot) - 13.5TB would be GBP392.04 (~20x cheaper).
There is absolutely NO reason any mobile device should lack this. [This is ESPECIALLY aimed at Mr. Smug; Ive]