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2012-10-31
, 01:47
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Posts: 2,448 |
Thanked: 9,523 times |
Joined on Aug 2010
@ Wigan, UK
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#22
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Let me play devil's advocate here...
Wondering about if the terms and conditions will change around the storage is the same as wondering if your favorite phone will be supported through tomorrow.
It all may change at their whim, not with any thought whatsoever of our convenience. Just our pockets.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to marxian For This Useful Post: | ||
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2012-10-31
, 02:51
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Posts: 1,225 |
Thanked: 1,905 times |
Joined on Feb 2011
@ Quezon City, Philippines
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#23
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2012-10-31
, 03:26
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Moderator |
Posts: 6,215 |
Thanked: 6,400 times |
Joined on Nov 2011
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#24
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No SD card slot, apparently. It's a no-buy.
Why, Google? Did not enough people ***** when the GNex came out?
At least this device is relatively cheap.
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2012-10-31
, 03:40
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Posts: 2,427 |
Thanked: 2,986 times |
Joined on Dec 2007
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#25
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No SD card slot, apparently. It's a no-buy.
Why, Google? Did not enough people ***** when the GNex came out?
At least this device is relatively cheap.
The Real Cost of Adding Removable Storage
Those of us puzzled over the move by Google (and other vendors like Amazon with their Kindle Fire line) have trouble coming to terms with the apparent reason microSD storage isn’t put into these devices; added cost.
After all, how much can adding a microSD card slot really add to the overall price of the product? The answer is a bit deeper than you might think and spans three areas of discussion.
Hardware Cost
The competition in the portable device market is fierce – and every penny counts when you’re moving hundreds of thousands – or even millions – of units. My research shows that in retail dollars, a microSD slot costs about $2.50. That’s raw material costs – and in quantity, surely they would be cheaper. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the cost is about $2 per unit for hardware and assembly. If Google sells one million Nexus 7 tablets, they are out $2M in profit. That’s not a small sum. The SD slot would roughly represent 1% of the cost of the unit.
There is also the “hidden” costs of support; give an end user another moving part and that has a negative effect on the “simplicity” factor which then in turn adds to support staff requirements.
Licensing Cost
Here is something a lot of people don’t consider. When you give someone a slot, they want to put a card in it. Without being able to control the content of the microSD card, they have to worry about the wildcard factor of the OS the card was formatted with; FAT(16), FAT32, NTFS, etc.
Unfortunately, Microsoft holds the rights to many of the common formats – which means if Google wants to use them, they would have to pay for it. I was unable to find an exact price per unit that licensing costs but I’m sure it is enough to cut the profit margin down on competitively priced electronics. While open source projects exist to “get around” official licensing, Microsoft aggressively pursues questionable usage of its intellectual property in the file system world. Doing away with a removable card slot eliminates this headache and cost.
Reduction of Ecosystem Profit
Most people assume the reason that removable media isn’t part of the equation for devices coming from ecosystem giants like Google or Amazon – is because they don’t want you having space to store your own stuff. After all, if you can store your own media files like TV shows, movies and music, it might reduce your*dependency*on purchasing (or repurchasing) this content from your friendly neighborhood ecosystem like Amazon Video or Google Play.
I’d like to believe this too – I love a good conspiracy theory. I’m sure this is a nice “side bonus” of leaving the card slot off the devices, but in the end – I believe it is all down to costs; hard costs and soft costs.
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2012-10-31
, 04:31
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Moderator |
Posts: 6,215 |
Thanked: 6,400 times |
Joined on Nov 2011
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#26
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2012-10-31
, 04:36
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Guest |
Posts: n/a |
Thanked: 0 times |
Joined on
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#27
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2012-10-31
, 05:04
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Posts: 2,427 |
Thanked: 2,986 times |
Joined on Dec 2007
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#28
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to daperl For This Useful Post: | ||
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2012-10-31
, 05:12
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Posts: 2,427 |
Thanked: 2,986 times |
Joined on Dec 2007
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#29
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daperl,
I'll disagree with you on that...
- You can pass on the additional costs ($1-5) to the consumer and not a single dissident voice will be heard...
The plain truth is Google and Amazon want you to use their cloud services and make you dependent on the cloud even more... In the long run it gives them information about you for selling ads as well as giving them an option to charge you whatever nominal charge for their cloud services...
its simply giving you storage now in exchange for your dependency to them in the long run...
To believe anything else or the costs argument is exactly what they want you to believe; FUD...
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2012-10-31
, 05:27
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Moderator |
Posts: 6,215 |
Thanked: 6,400 times |
Joined on Nov 2011
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#30
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And then there's Google's explanation.
Why don’t Nexus devices have SD cards?
Everybody likes the idea of having an SD card, but in reality it’s just confusing for users.
If you’re saving photos, videos or music, where does it go? Is it on your phone? Or on your card? Should there be a setting? Prompt everytime? What happens to the experience when you swap out the card? It’s just too complicated.
We take a different approach. Your Nexus has a fixed amount of space and your apps just seamlessly use it for you without you ever having to worry about files or volumes or any of that techy nonsense left over from the paleolithic era of computing.
With a Nexus you know exactly how much storage you get upfront and you can decide what’s the right size for you. That’s simple and good for users.
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'Men of high position are allowed, by a special act of grace, to accomodate their reasoning to the answer they need. Logic is only required in those of lesser rank.' - J K Galbraith
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