[SECProto]

And yet, my cheap android phone has two things that are infinitely more important to me: an aux port and an SD card slot. My phone would be fundamentally less usable (for me) without them, while quicker switching between apps etc would be a minor benefit at most.

Chasing statistics (Fastest processor! Most megapixels! Longest battery life!) becomes useless after a certain point. Processors and megapixels are long past being a deciding criteria, while battery life (and picture quality, for that matter) still are important.

[D13Fd]

Honestly, what do you use the SD card for?

Even with movies for flights, I haven’t filled a phone up in years.

[SECProto]

Carrier data for phones is expensive. I use it to store media (podcasts and music) so I can pay for minimal monthly data. I bought a 128gb microSD card 3 or 4 years ago, meant I could save several hundred dollars (twice now!) by getting a mid-range phone with 64gb storage.

Edit: for fun I did a quick cost comparison. I drive a lot and listen to music and podcasts. 40,000km a year. If I streamed, I would have to upgrade my plan (+$10 a month minimum) and my phone (+$150/2yrs). Purchase price at the time was $100. So over the 3.5 years I've had this sd card, I've saved a net $620.

[pensatoio]

I’m not sure this answers the question. I understand why having an SD card feels good, but in practice, you can fit tons of movies, music, and audiobooks in even just 64gb. It’s certainly a balance between all the factors that makes an SD card an attractive choice for you, but I think for the overwhelming majority of people, long-term updates/support are going to be far more valuable, even if they don’t realize it.

[SECProto]

The question was, "what do you use the SD card for?". I answered. Other things you mentioned:

* I just checked, and my phone storage is actually only 32gb. I misspoke.

* It's quite close to full with just a month worth of pictures and all my audio stored on the SD card.

* My last security update was 3 weeks ago. The manufacturer who made my phone committed to 3 or 4 years of security updates. That said, Apple does a much better job of making feature updates available for their products.

* The article is about how "powerful" the processor is, and I would still contend that that is irrelevant for any cell phone user I know.

[neurostimulant]

But current android phones support usb otg, right? If I need access to a lot of storage for media, I'll just put it into a usb stick and plug it on the phone when I need it. Sure it's not as convenient has having accessible 24/7 on the phone, but it's not like I'm going to watch movies often on the phone, only occasionally on long trip.

[SECProto]

I did not mention movies once. I said music and podcasts that I use daily. My routine would look like following:

1. Get in car, plug in power and aux cable

2. Press play on (playlist or podcast)

3. Press start navigation on google maps

I'm glad that storage isn't a limitation for your use case, but for me they would be a major inconvenience that I can happily avoid by using an Android with an SD card

[dzhiurgis]

In places with poor connectivity or where iCloud storage is absurdly expensive (aka most of the world) you'd prefer using dirt cheap SD storage.

[vardump]

To store 4K & 8K videos my phone takes for instance?

[rad_gruchalski]

My wife currently has an android phone with those two.

I just picked up the new iphone se for her and explained twice “there is no headphone jack”.

She replied: “Cool, so I can keep my headphones plugged in to the laptop and use the other headphones for the phone. In worse case, I have bt headphones”.

With the SD card... I mean, it seems not possible to configure any app to store data on it. She has signal, whatsapp, broswer, spotify and a few photos and the phone is constantly complaining that it is low on storage.

Androind is working well for my mother though. She is 70+. She doesn’t use any apps, simple text messages, phone calls and that’s it. She just has to buy a new battery like every 6 months...

[SECProto]

I use the sd card for media storage. Music and podcasts. Significantly reduces monthly data usage.

My car has an aux port. It has terrible Bluetooth that cuts out every couple minutes. I also use the same headphones at my home plugged into my phone and my desktop. This could by avoided with a dongle or two (or three), but honestly, I hate dongles, so I have thus far been able to buy phones that haven't made the decision to remove a (very useful) port.