It’s official: Samsung is ditching the microSD card on all three of its Galaxy S21 models.
We asked Samsung about this, and the company’s rationale seemed to be that it doesn’t think it’s necessary. A spokesperson told us that it only costs $50 to upgrade from 128GB to 256GB and that this is cheaper than what competitors are charging to step up storage. They also noted that cloud storage is an option.
That’s all well and good, but it’s still likely that this change will be a bummer for some potential customers. It means the maximum amount of storage you’ll be able to get on the S21 phones (without wrangling up additional cloud storage) is the 512GB configuration of the S21 Ultra.
As Samsung’s website advertises, the microSD slot on last year’s S20 lineup gives users access to potentially over 1TB of storage. That means for customers who are already using high-capacity microSD cards with those older models, the S21 line will be a storage downgrade.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22233313/cgartenberg_210111_4369_0004.jpg)
Samsung has toyed with removing the microSD slot before. It attempted to pull the port from its Galaxy S6 but brought it back to the S7 in response to customer complaints. Some modern flagships are also SD-less, though, including the Galaxy Fold, Note 10, and Note 20.
