Nexus 7: Is lack of SD card port a deal breaker for you?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Harry, it is really very simple. There are many possible uses and always a number of possible workarounds. But why don't we just insist on getting something that should be included in the first place? Even for those who now think they won't need it --- if you don't buy now and let them know that you want a better device for the same money (i.e. with an expansion slot), what do you have to lose?

SD cards seems to me to be an inconvenient solutiuon and this is the workaround. SD cards are not free to buy and takes a lot of time to prepare and administer. To me then is seems much more convenient to use a NAS with WiFi for all cases were you really need a lot of data and have electricity available.

And whay should be included in the first place on a computer? Serial port? Parallell port? Floppy disk? DVD? Bluearay? CF-card reader? ...

And I really like to be able to buy a tablet and not having to give any money to Microsoft.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

SD cards seems to me to be an inconvenient solutiuon and this is the workaround. SD cards are not free to buy and takes a lot of time to prepare and administer. To me then is seems much more convenient to use a NAS with WiFi for all cases were you really need a lot of data and have electricity available.

When you're at home, then sure, I agree. It's when you go away that a storage card comes in handy. I know you can get portable drives with WiFi, but personally I find SD cards to be much more convenient. And it's not even as if I can plug in an external hard disk with the Nexus. At least with my Tab I can do that to load files from it.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tompe

SD cards seems to me to be an inconvenient solutiuon and this is the workaround. SD cards are not free to buy and takes a lot of time to prepare and administer. To me then is seems much more convenient to use a NAS with WiFi for all cases were you really need a lot of data and have electricity available.

NAS is cheap?

The same card can go from phone to media player to tablet. I already have cards and management is very easy. No further investment needed.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

When you're at home, then sure, I agree. It's when you go away that a storage card comes in handy. I know you can get portable drives with WiFi, but personally I find SD cards to be much more convenient. And it's not even as if I can plug in an external hard disk with the Nexus. At least with my Tab I can do that to load files from it.

But you can plug-in an external hard disk using e.g. Pogoplug Series 4 Multimedia Sharing Device (or use the mobile variant for $40). The NAS device can also be used from you laptop or from your phone. Handling 10-20 SD cards seems to me not to be convenient at all instead of handling one hard disk.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

NAS is cheap?

Yes, $40-$80 plus cost of a hard disk if you need to buy it is pretty cheap.

[HarryT]

It boils down to personal preference at the end of the day. I'm sure that the Nexus will be enormously successful. Personally, I prefer to have a device with a card slot. There's room in the marketplace for both.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Harry, it is really very simple. There are many possible uses and always a number of possible workarounds. But why don't we just insist on getting something that should be included in the first place? Even for those who now think they won't need it --- if you don't buy now and let them know that you want a better device for the same money (i.e. with an expansion slot), what do you have to lose?

Originally Posted by HarryT

It boils down to personal preference at the end of the day. I'm sure that the Nexus will be enormously successful. Personally, I prefer to have a device with a card slot. There's room in the marketplace for both.

I agree with Harry. The problem with Hans' reasoning is that anyone might make the same argument for ANY piece of hardware that THEY can't seem tot fathom that anyone can live without....camera, GPS, fingerprint scanner, Capuchino maker, whatever.
The simple fact is, leaving hardware (and even, just 'features' really, for less concrete reasons) is cheaper than putting them in. It adds money, it adds complexity, it adds support issues, it adds points of failure, and people will and should choose to spend their money on the particular hw or feature set that is important to them.
Hans, you seem to be missing that the success of the Fire and the iThing line proves that many MANY people simple could not care less about an SD card slot, and they should not be forced to subsides the including of one just because YOU (the set who think it's critically important) say it should just be there always. You say there is nothing to lose, but there is. Even if the directly observable losses are negligible, the real loss would be market forces pushing in a direction that other people just don't want or need it to go.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ApK

Hans, you seem to be missing that the success of the Fire and the iThing line proves that many MANY people simple could not care less about an SD card slot, and they should not be forced to subsides the including of one just because YOU (the set who think it's critically important) say it should just be there always. You say there is nothing to lose, but there is. Even if the directly observable losses are negligible, the real loss would be market forces pushing in a direction that other people just don't want or need it to go.

The Fire proved you don't need a camera, GPS, a mic, or Bluetooth to be successful. So why include this complexity and these points of failure? Why force people to subsidize these features when the Nexus would be cheaper without them?

[HansTWN]

I see the success of devices without an expansion slot are the result of marketing campaigns that managed to pull wool over people's eyes, convincing them that this is not needed. Especially considering that we (the users) could easily have this included for the same price. Of course, device makers like to save money, however insignificant it may seem. And it gives them a chance to lock a lot of users into their cloud.

It is a slippery slope, if we let them get away with this they will take that strategy further. Some ideas:

1.Reduce onboard memory to 4 or even 2 GB
2.No Bluetooth
3.Old WiFi modules

For me it is like reducing the size of a milk carton from a quart to 0.9 quart for the same price. And people's response being: "oh, that is enough for me. If I have more I will get too fat, anyway."

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, $40-$80 plus cost of a hard disk if you need to buy it is pretty cheap.

Not as cheap as cards I already own. Plus, I can shove cards in my wallet. Can't do that with NAS.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

For me it is like reducing the size of a milk carton from a quart to 0.9 quart for the same price. And people's response being: "oh, that is enough for me. If I have more I will get too fat, anyway."

My favorite was the ice cream vanishing act. Original size was a half gallon or 64 ounces. Then one day, it was 56 oz. We lost 8 oz. The rectangular carton didn't look any different than before - same length and same height. After all, that's all you see when it's displayed. But the sneaky manufacturers made it thinner. You don't see this dimension when it's displayed. Now we had 56 oz selling for the same price as 64 oz. How many shoppers noticed this?

Then later on, another 8 oz were shaved off and we had 48 oz selling at the 56 oz price. Anyone notice this? Again, the cartons got thinner. Displays looked the same. In total, consumers took a 25% hit on ice cream, as it went from 4 pints to 3 pints.

Don't you just love sneaky price hikes?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I see the success of devices without an expansion slot are the result of marketing campaigns that managed to pull wool over people's eyes, convincing them that this is not needed.

At some point you are going to have to move beyond the belief that everyone who doesn't share your values is stupid.
There are many people who actually don't care about it.
Now because big bad Apple has clouded their minds, just because it isn't something they care about.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The Fire proved you don't need a camera, GPS, a mic, or Bluetooth to be successful. So why include this complexity and these points of failure? Why force people to subsidize these features when the Nexus would be cheaper without them?

The Fire proved that not EVERYBODY needs those things, which is precisely the point.

[RHWright]

I may be threading the needle, but ...

The dealbreaker for me is more the dependence on Wi-Fi. I live in an area where there just aren't many public wi-fi spots (free or otherwise). So, the next tier of dealing with content would be to have removable storage, which it also lacks.

Admittedly, there are other strategies that would make the Nexus livable for me, but when I'm on plan C right out of the box, I'm not considering it a top contender for me in this category.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by tompe

And I really like to be able to buy a tablet and not having to give any money to Microsoft.

There's like 2 or 3 Android device companies who haven't caved to Microsoft's extortion and paid up for a license they don't actually need to buy, so finding a tablet that doesn't pay Microsoft is going to be difficult.