The 16 GB version of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 ships with roughly 8.5 GB of free space. The internet complained so much about this egregious fact that the company had to issue a statement that said people should be thankful Samsung spends so much time and energy making TouchWiz. And that if you need more storage, you should just buy a microSD card.
Oddly enough, DigiTimes published a piece today saying Samsung is going to “phase out [of] the microSD card market“. The logic behind the move is quite sound. There’s only so many flash chips Samsung can make, and they want to prioritize products like SSD drives and chips for smartphones. Samsung will still make wafers for microSD cards in small batches, but their customers will be the ones responsible for the actual manufacturing of the cards. The site goes on to say that making microSD cards used to be a hugely profitable business, but competition has made it unattractive. I’m not going to lie to you, I love having a microSD card slot in my phone, but at the same time I wouldn’t mind paying a bit more to simply have a device with more storage inside. There will come a point in the future where even Samsung will have to stop making smarpthones that have removable batteries and microSD support. It’s not a question of if they’ll do this, it’s a matter of when. If it happens in 2014, for the GS5, don’t be surprised. Update: According to a statement given to the Dutch website Tweakers from Samsung themselves, the DigiTimes article was the result of a poor translation from an earlier interview. Samsung has no plans to exit the microSD card market, and will continue selling cards with their brand on them.
