A microSD card slot is a feature that some buyers love to have, yet while it was once standard on Android phones – including Samsung ones – it’s now becoming increasingly rare, so you might understandably be wondering whether the Samsung Galaxy S22 will have one or not.
Having a microSD card slot means that you can expand the storage beyond what’s built in, which can be very useful, as you might find you ultimately need more storage than you expect when you buy a phone, or you might not want to spend big on the top storage capacity model, or simply need more storage than it’s even possible to get.
Yet there are some downsides too, including microSD card storage often being slower and less reliable, and the slot itself taking up space that could be used for other components.
That’s perhaps why many companies no longer offer them, but will Samsung with the Galaxy S22? While we can’t be certain just yet we have a very good idea of the answer, so read on to find out.
Samsung’s situation with microSD cards
Looking at Samsung’s history, it doesn’t seem likely that any model in the Samsung Galaxy S22 range will have a microSD card slot.
No phone in the Samsung Galaxy S21 range has a microSD card slot, and nor does the regular Samsung Galaxy Note 20 (though the more premium Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra did – actually the last to do so). The trend away from a microSD card slot is a rather recent change; every phone in the Samsung Galaxy S20 range does include a microSD card slot, as do most Samsung phones older than that.
So it’s possible that Samsung would go back to offering one, but generally, when a feature like this is removed it stays gone, especially as the whole industry is trending in this direction.
What do the leaks and rumors say?
So far, no leaks suggest that any phone in the Samsung Galaxy S22 range will have a microSD card slot. With the phones not expected to land until January or later there’s still time for microSD rumors to emerge, but it’s not looking promising.
That, coupled with the lack of such a slot in the entire Galaxy S21 range, means it’s very unlikely that the Samsung Galaxy S22 range will include a microSD card slot.
Does the Samsung Galaxy S22 need a microSD card slot?
So the Samsung Galaxy S22 probably won’t have a microSD card slot, but does it need one? Obviously, that’s subjective, but rumors point to there being the same amounts of storage as in the Samsung Galaxy S21 range.
That means 128GB or 256GB in the Samsung Galaxy S22 and Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus, and 128GB, 256GB or 512GB in the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.
For most people, those top sizes will probably be plenty, especially in the case of the 512GB Galaxy S22 Ultra, but there will be those who need even more.
It’s a shame too that – if these leaks are right – the basic models top out at a much lower level than the Ultra, that none of them have been boosted on the S21 range, and that none of them can match the 1TB of storage offered by the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max.
1TB really is an amount of storage where you could make a convincing argument for a microSD card being superfluous. But then you pay a lot for these higher storage capacities, so a microSD card slot could still at least be a cheaper option – especially if you already have a spare microSD card.
So in those senses, the Samsung Galaxy S22 range probably could do with a microSD card slot, even though it probably won’t get one, and most people probably wouldn’t use it if it did.
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