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What the Nexus 5 BETTER have

2prevail

2prevail

Android Enthusiast
I have always loved the nexus phones and the perks behind them. But I cannot stand one trend specifically that has been following us since the Galaxy Nexus S... lack of MicroSD card expansion. If you are someone like me for example who has a lot of music, pictures, videos and so forth then you likely have an SD card. Google however keeps dodging the implementation of a microSD card slot in their phones. Why? I Don't know. Instead of just adding that little component they instead keep using their money on cloud services. It sounds nice but I have tried it first hand on the galaxy nexus and nexus 4. Truth of the matter is, unless your paying for a truley unlimited data plan that does not throttle you then you are screwed. 2 songs brought me up to 100mb and I get throttled at 2.5gb. What happens if I go on a 8 hour road trip and play my music in their car? And there's also that chance you may be on an airplane that does not have wifi or charges you for the service. Then what, you cannot use your data so the cloud service all together is useless. Pray you have enough games is my advice. If the nexus 5 could have an internal layout or spec sheet like the S4 combined with the software optimizations on the Moto X, then you've got a deal. I will sign up for that contract in a heartbeat. Also, LTE never killed anybody (I hope) :)
 
I dont understand the question.

But the reason the Nexus has no microSD and low storage is partially for cost reasons. It costs less to NOT implement a microSD and to have low onboard storage.

Secondly, it forces you to use your data more; as well as use apps from the playstore.

More internet usage = more likeliness to use Google and its services = more money for Google.

More app store usage = more likeliness you'll find something you'll buy from the app store = more money for Google.
 
There are other reasons for the lack of an sd slot:

1) In order to read them properly, it has to be formatted Fat32, which is a Microsoft proprietary format. Therefore, if Google wanted their device to be able to read this format, it would have to license the ability to from Microsoft.

2) Android always had issues mounting the SD card with near 100% reliability. Often times when changing SD cards on the fly or after disconnecting the device from the computer, it wouldn't properly mount the card correctly and it would require a reset of the device.

3) If connected to the computer, and mounted so that the computer could read it, the device could no longer access the SD card slot causing more issues.

These 3 along with the general ideas behind using their cloud storage are why the removed the SD card slot and as far as Nexus devices go, it's not coming back anytime soon. Because Google removed SD card storage from AOSP, it is by default removed from every other OEM's base for their devices. Some companies like Samsung alter the framework to re-add the support for it, but that takes extra time and thus extra money on top of the extra money it takes to support it hardware wise.

All in all, if you want a stock android like experience with SD card slot support out of the box, your options are exactly 1: The GS4 GPE.
 
Unfortunately I don't have $650 to throw around on a cellphone. But the point is, neither option is perfect. Both have their pros and cons. I'll be fine without the SD Card support but that's only if a 64gb Nexus is released. That's just me I guess. I am a big Android enthusiast and would love to dive into vanilla android with timely updates but I always have to give up something for it.
 
yea after initially putting an SD card in my phones iv literally never taken them out. never needed more then 16gb either so I really wouldnt mind a 16gb N5.
 
Remember that a 16GB phone includes the ROM, so the amount of usable space is less. Plus your apps live there too, whereas they probably weren't on your SD. So if you were only using half of your 16GB sd then you should be fine. If you were used to using most of it then you'd probably have to be a bit more careful with a 16GB phone.

Now I'm hoping that Google have joined the real world and will (at least) release the N5 in 16GB and 32 GB flavours (ideally 64GB), rather than the 8/16 of the N4. But given that they went backwards when they introduced an 8GB N4 I'm not betting on anything.
 
Hadron said:
Remember that a 16GB phone includes the ROM, so the amount of usable space is less. Plus your apps live there too, whereas they probably weren't on your SD. So if you were only using half of your 16GB sd then you should be fine. If you were used to using most of it then you'd probably have to be a bit more careful with a 16GB phone.

Now I'm hoping that Google have joined the real world and will (at least) release the N5 in 16GB and 32 GB flavours (ideally 64GB), rather than the 8/16 of the N4. But given that they went backwards when they introduced an 8GB N4 I'm not betting on anything.
Click to expand...

I have hope that it will come in the 16/32 options. The Nexus 7 last year started out only having 8/16 while this years model started with 16/32. So I'm hoping that trend continues.
 
Surely the reason that Nexus products have no expandable storage is because Google want to encourage the user to use their cloud based services. One of the great things about Google is that so many of their products are free to the end user - my business even comes up in second place on a google search, at no cost to me at all - but all of this costs a great deal of money. They have to make that money back somehow, and in years to come, when everyone is using said cloud based services, and being charged to do so, that money will surely roll in in big fat chunks.

The Nexus is a top phone at a ridiculously low price, so one can't really object to a lack of expandable memory as in my view it's part of the deal. After all, you could go out and buy an Apple phone, which has no expandable memory, and will certainly cost twice as much. Or you can buy many other decent Android phones which do offer expandable memory, but of course they also cost more than the Nexus.

As we say in the UK, you pays your money and makes your choice, or something like that..
 
I find it strange that playing/ downloading just 2 songs took 100mb of data. Maybe you have other apps that are eating your data allowance?

Do you use google play music? You can upload your music to your google play music account which can either be streamed or downloaded for offline usage, so you can listen to your hearts content while out of datas reach. This wont store all your music, but if you plan ahead you can take what music you want with you.

In the nicest possible way, I think you're overreacting to the lack of SD card slot. There's apps like dropbox, drive, box etc that you can save things to and then download on your device when needed.

Embrace the cloud :D
 
Hadron said:
Remember that a 16GB phone includes the ROM, so the amount of usable space is less. Plus your apps live there too, whereas they probably weren't on your SD. So if you were only using half of your 16GB sd then you should be fine. If you were used to using most of it then you'd probably have to be a bit more careful with a 16GB phone.

Now I'm hoping that Google have joined the real world and will (at least) release the N5 in 16GB and 32 GB flavours (ideally 64GB), rather than the 8/16 of the N4. But given that they went backwards when they introduced an 8GB N4 I'm not betting on anything.
Click to expand...

The leaked manual was for the 32GB, and the playstore leak showed a 16GB, so you have a fair degree of confidence we at least have the 16/32 options
 
SiempreTuna said:
:eek:

You don't know where it's been!

Re Hadron's* point about the amount of usable space on a 16GB: my N4 reports 12.92GB usable. And KitKat may need more space as - presumably - it will do more.


* just typed that as 'Hardon' :eek:
Click to expand...

I doubt it will take up a lot of more space. Most of the files will just overwrite current files and not add new ones. It's still better than the 8-9GB free on a S4.
 
I've got a nexus 4 & 10, so using the cloud services is a real benefit for me. But this would work just as well on any collection of android devices.
 
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