Which is an irrelevance to the question of whether an external dangling storage device is useful "expanded storage" for a tablet (or phone, although that's already expanding the scope beyond richardd and my point of disagreement about whether that's a useful form of expansion as opposed to only loading/backing up).

For that matter, any tablet with battery life as limited as most laptops' would be an absolute dud in the marketplace.

Plug in external storage, copy files to tablet, unplug external storage.

I understand the various arguments such as the cloud being sufficient, that you can use external removable storage to meet your needs, etc. However, I don't think there is a valid argument against a tablet having a mini SD slot to provide the *option* of internal removable storage. Some say it needlessly adds cost, but that cost is negligible. You could say that the cards can get lost, but if this is a concern, you can just leave it in place all the time and it would function just like non-removable internal storage. You can argue that most people don't need to expand or remove storage, but given the negligible cost, why not provide those who might differ the option?

Because the space of the card slot is needed for other things like a bigger battery. Apple wanted to do without a SIM slot on the new iphone for space savings, but the providers talked them out of it (going to a virtual sim instead)

I should have said microSD. You're correct that space is at a premium, but a microSD card is 11x15x1 mm. It wouldn't be taking up much space.

I'm still trying to figure out why I can't install apps on the microSD card in my GS3.

That's what I thought too, but apparently even the nano sim slot in the new iphone was an issue. I would guess it also alters the strength of the case. though they could just be cheap and not wanting to spend the cost to put them in.

You are running out of space?

I have 150 apps, and don't have the need for that

Need isn't the point. I should be able to put the apps wherever I want.

There's an app for that.

DirectoryBind

I agree - very Applesque of them to try to protect you by requiring apps to be where they want rather than where you want. On the other hand, given that onboard memory is more than sufficient to hold thousands of apps, I'm curious what you're gaining by moving them to the removable card anyway. How much space are they taking up in total?

It's not the point. I would like to keep as much onboard free space as possible. I can't do that with arbitrary rules in place.

I wish someone would make a form-fitting card reader, USB port etc for these tabs ,
it just needs to follow the contour of the side of the tablet , then it cannot get damaged,

the one Apple sells and are made for my Samsung Tab just gets in the way.

Soarer

It's not arbitrary; they are trying to make the device more reliable, but again, I agree with you that they should give you the choice. At the very most, they should pop a warning that your device will be less stable if you save to removable memory, then allow you do to it if you wish. I'm just curious how much damage is done by prohibiting your preference. If you'd gain a third of a GB out of 16GB available, it's less of an issue than if you're losing 4GB.

Sure, although you're missing the step of "delete something off the tablet to make space first." It works, but it's a lot less convenient than just having the storage internal in the first place.

(For that matter, most of the file managers for Android are pretty terrible; ghost commander is the last bad I've found, and that's not saying much.)

If you're Apple, it's because it's much more profitable to sell larger space at a premium of $2-$3/gb than it is to let people pay $0.50/gb for an SD card.

If you're Google and not making your main money from hardware, it's rather inexplicable.

That makes sense on a phone as compact as the iPhone 4+, although clearly Samsung and others make it work with their larger phones -- not every company is as obsessed with thinning down as Apple.

For a 7" tablet, that does not hold any water; the MicroSD slot takes very little space relative to the larger footprint of the tablet.