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Tablet and micro SD cards

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NickiG

Lurker
I'm hoping someone technologically inclined can help with this: We bought an 8GB Thomson tablet for the kids to play games on, which apparently you can use an up to 32GB micro SD card with. Silly me, I thought I'd just be able to put a card into it and store apps on it. I got an 8GB one but as well as having some problems like messages coming up saying the card had been removed or was damaged, we still couldn't download a lot. I bought a more expensive brand 16GB SD but although I uninstalled some games it still said there was insufficient storage when I tried to download something else.

I rang the Thomson helpline and they ended up saying you can't download or transfer apps onto the SD, you have to download them from a computer or something. I said, like a laptop? She said, you need another device; maybe someone could help you with it. I went onto Google Play on the laptop and saw that it comes up with the devices I have that apps could be installed on (the tablet and my phone) but I'm lost as to how to get them onto the SD card so I can use it. Thanks if you can explain this simply!
 
Hi NickiG, Welcome to Android Forums. :)

This does come up a lot and there are a lot of technical reasons why it may or may not be possible, and what options you're going to have. First let's make sure we're all on the same page. Do you know what version of Android the tablet runs? It makes a difference!

Go to menu>settings>about and post the android version back and we can go from there.
 
Okay. While having newer versions is generally thought of as better, in this case it's not. :(

With an 8gb Tablet, even their top model only has 1GB RAM allocated for apps. This could cause problems with a lot of games that are memory hogs.

If you are so inclined, there's a bit of explanation here : http://androidforums.com/android-lounge/852209-sd-card-help.html#post6599510.

If you read and understood most of what we are trying to explain, the options available would entail rooting (gaining administrative access) the tablet. These off brand devices can be problematic that way.
 
Thanks, I had read that thread before - I sort of get it; but since I can't transfer apps onto the card within the tablet, is there some other way I can do it (with another device or whatever as the helpline person said) so I can then use the card with the tablet? Or were the cards a waste of money? It shouldn't say for example in the instructions 'you can extend the memory capacity of your device by adding a micro SD memory card' if you can't actually do anything with the card. In the apps information it lists the ones that are on the SD card but I didn't realise that was referring to the internal card, so I couldn't work out why nothing changed when I changed the external card.

Just out of interest, since that other thread was about phones, was that referring to the SD card that goes inside the phone behind the battery or whatever, or do some phones have a slot for another one? I've got an LG Optimus One which doesn't have much storage but I can live with that. It would be nice though to have a variety of games on the tablet for the kids.
 
It's not that you can't do anything with the card: you can use it for storing media, and some apps will let you choose where they store some of their data. The problem is that you can't use it for the thing that you want to use it for. :(

If it is storing apps to the "internal sd card" (a term I hate, because it causes confusion and is technically incorrect as well) and you have media on there as well maybe you can give yourself some space by moving the media to the removable card? Apps will store their data in the same place too, so if you have some apps which are storing a lot of data you may be able to free some space by cleaning their data up (if it's stuff you don't need). You can use Settings > Apps to see which apps are using the most space.

I don't know what they meant by "use another device", but suspect that wires got crossed. If the tablet's operating system doesn't support moving apps to the removable card then nothing other than rooting the tablet will let you change that.

No phone I've ever heard of has 2 removable SD cards - they either have one removable card or none at all. What Luna was describing in the other thread was that "/sdcard" now refers to part of the phone or tablet's internal storage (not actually an sd card at all, but labelled as such by the operating system for historical reasons). Devices which do have a removable card in addition (i.e. an actual SD card) then give that a different name - Luna gave some examples in that other post, which varied between manufacturer, though in the latest versions it should be more consistent in the naming.

Sorry I can't propose a solution, but unfortunately the sd cards are only intended for storing media, and while manufacturers could make this clearer (e.g. by saying you can store music, pictures and videos on the SD card, rather than "expand your memory further") the people who write that stuff may not actually know how the devices work themselves (e.g. just after the Galaxy S4 launch Samsung made it very clear that the parts of their company who speak to the public and press did not know about this limitation).
 
Thanks for that - I don't think there's much media to move because the tablet's been used for very little except games. I might see if there are any game websites which work; the kids used to like playing games on the Friv website but when we look that up on the tablet it comes up with games to download - hmm. Thanks anyway.
 
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