Nokia Claims a Memory Card Slot Would Have "Defiled" New Phone 371
nk497 writes "Nokia unveiled its flagship Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset today, but it doesn't feature an SD card slot. There's a reason why: Nokia's designers didn't want to 'defile' the design. 'We started with the premise that we wanted an uncompromised physical form,' executive vice president Kevin Shields, said. 'To put an SD card slot in it would have defiled it.' He said most people don't use the storage in their phone, although the Nokia Lumia 820, which has only 8GB of storage, does include a micro-SD card slot behind its removable cover, which Shields claims doesn't compromise the design."
New meaning for "defile" (Score:5, Insightful)
Defile, in this case, means "make useful for longer than the two years of the carrier subsidy". Nokia doesn't want to kill sales of their next phone with this one. Just like Apple.
Except that Apple will be here two years from now. We can't be that sure about Nokia.
I still have my n900. Gee, what could have been, if they hadn't been such cowards!
So what about the SIM card slot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what about the SIM card slot? (Score:5, Insightful)
How come a SIM card is blended perfectly with the case but a Micro SD card -which is smaller- "defiles" the design?
Because the "design" is to sell 8, 16, and 32 GB variations for $499, $599, and $699, respectively.
Re:New meaning for "defile" (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at Nokia's official stat-sheet, I don't see any mention of a Micro-SD card, although it does have the memory at a much more usable 32 GB of internal storage.
Re:Quite stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Call the lawyers (Score:2, Insightful)
They are pretty stupid. The first thing I did when I bought my phone was spend even more money on the biggest SD card it would take. I will, in all probability, never remove it from the phone - or at least, I never have removed them from my previous phones.
That means for me, the SD card just makes the phone bulkier, more expensive, and more prone to failure. I'm sure there are people who actually use the removable storage, but certainly it appears that I'm not alone.
Re:My happy little Droid Razr Maxx... (Score:5, Insightful)
has a microSD slot on the side under a cover next to the SIM card. Ingenious design.
IMHO, the only thing that could defile a phone these days would be the name Nokia on it. Or Blackberry.
Or Windows 8.
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Buyers don't care! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, this is yet another example of why the tastes of slashdot readers are basically irrelevant for any manufacturer today. Users don't care about MicroSD slots, the lack of one does not hurt sales and most people who have MicroSD slots in their phones have no idea what to do with them. Yes you can get cheap 64GB SDXC cards for $60 or so, and it's criminally stupid to not have MicroSD slots (or just offer large storage at a reasonable cost). But users don't care. Google realized that, so did Nokia.
Re:Call the lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
They are pretty stupid. The first thing I did when I bought my phone was spend even more money on the biggest SD card it would take. I will, in all probability, never remove it from the phone - or at least, I never have removed them from my previous phones.
That means for me, the SD card just makes the phone bulkier, more expensive, and more prone to failure. I'm sure there are people who actually use the removable storage, but certainly it appears that I'm not alone.
How is it making it more expensive? When there is no external storage, your phone price jumps in disproportionate amounts to the memory it has onboard. I suppose if you like paying $100 extra to get an extra 16GB on your phone, then having an "undefiled" phone will make you happy.
I'm also a bit baffled how a slot makes the phone "bulkier" - SD slots don't really add much to the thickness, and if anything, we've learned that phones CAN get too small (form factors for most things don't tolerate being shrunk too much).
What I'd prefer to see is all smart phones come equipped with SDXC slots, perhaps one internal (battery slot) and one external.
Re:Good idea Nokia (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, you are doing so well you should definitively make-against the-grain decisions for your customers. I mean, no one uses storage, right? Why would you want to put more memory in there. I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with saving a few bucks.
I think it has NOTHING to do with saving a few bucks, and everything about locking customers into a windows phone ecosystem.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN oops, it's the story! (Score:4, Insightful)
32GB of flash is super cheap, I got a Sandisk 32GB microSD (more packaging than an OEM chip) delivered for $18. The fact that so many OEM's want to tier phones based on internal flash just proves why we need standard removable storage, they're ripping off every customer who buys the higher end model for $50-100 more.
Re:Call the lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that you either wouldn't have as much storage with a fixed internal memory or would pay a huge premium for it.
Phones come with expansible memory because each one wants a different capacity, and the manufacturer would be stuck selling a low capacity high volume model and a high capacity low volume one, satisfying nearly nobody.
Re:Buyers don't care! (Score:3, Insightful)
Lol really? That's your example?
First of all, the people who hang out on bargain sites looking for gadgets to get cheaper are by definition geeks. Gadget geeks aren't necessarily technical, they're just people for whom gadgets hold great importance, and will be concerned about stuff like MicroSD and unlocked bootloaders and Cyanogen support, stuff the vast majority of consumers don't care about.
People who don't just visit bargain sites but actually comment on them are even more likely to belong to that category.
Ask any of your friends who're waiting for the iPhone 5 (I am sure you have a few) how badly they want it to have a MicroSD slot. In fact, they don't even know what they want in an iPhone 5. They just want an iPhone 5 because it's the new iPhone and some features Apple can throw at them to dazzle them.
Re:Call the lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
When my friend's Android phone broke, she or he was able to transfer all the data to a new phone with a simple physical process. When I broke my iPhone, I was screwed.
Of course, iCloud makes that less painful now. It horrifies the parts of me that value privacy, so I keep them away from the smartphones.
Uh, your friend should have had backups in iTunes of their settings and all of their content in iTunes.