As far as I’m aware there has never been an Apple product that runs iOS that has had expandable storage. Apple realised that by fixing the storage amount, they could make a lot of money by selling versions of their devices with more storage built in. Even with the original iPhone which released in 2007, there was a 4GB model and an 8GB model, with a £100 difference in price.
In contrast a Micro SD slot in an Android phone was almost a given up until around 2020. Using Samsung as a reference point the Note 9 was the last “Note” device to have an SD slot, and the S20 was the last “S series” device to have one. Just as Samsung copied Apple when they removed the headphone jack in an effort to sell wireless earbuds, they eventually stopped offering a Micro SD slot to push buyers into more expensive models with higher storage. Pixel’s have never offered expandable storage, pushing buyers towards their “Google drive” cloud storage instead.
Excuses are made by manufacturers that SD cards are slow, SD cards are insecure, they’re unreliable etc etc. None of these points are false, but it doesn’t justify not giving us the option. For me a Micro SD card is a perfect solution. I don’t need fast storage, I keep photos, videos and music on it so I don’t need blazing fast read and write speeds. It doesn’t need to be secure for me, it’s holiday pictures and music… The portability saves me a lot of time, rather than having to wait for all this data to transfer I can simply swap the SD card into a different device.
Fortunately there are still some new smartphones being released that still have a Micro SD card. I’ll list below in groups of brands, devices released this year that have one. Note I’ll only include phones in this list that are readily available in the UK. If you’re in the market for one, hopefully this can help steer your purchase:
- Fairphone Gen 6 – £499
- All Motorola Moto G range. Pricing from £79.99 – £299.99. Moto Edge 60 – £349.99
- Nothing CMF Phone 2 Pro – £219
- Oneplus Nord CE5 – £249
- Samsung A17 – £169, Samsung A26 – £299
- Sony Xperia 10 VII – £399, Xperia 1 VII £1399
It’s immediately apparent that we haven’t got many choices here, especially if we were looking for a premium offering. This is now a feature aside condemned to the budget market segment, where getting the customer is more important than how much they spend, aside from the Fairphone 6 and Xperia 1 VII which are niche devices anyway.
For me I would be avoiding the cheapest devices on this list, those with dated chipsets and 4GB RAM are going to cause more frustration than they’re worth. Some of the higher end Moto G range are good, as is the CMF 2. However, if I were paying full retail price and had to choose one phone with a Micro SD slot I think it would have to be the Oneplus Nord CE5. It’s spec sheet way surpasses the other devices on this list bar the £1399 Xperia, and also has a fairly substantial update promise (4 OS, 6 Security).
I would be purchasing now with the intent to keep the device for a long period of time, so choose one with a good update promise, over the next couple of years Micro SD slots will become more and more scarce.
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