Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge

[techguyone]

It will bother people, though I don't know why. It's a big bottleneck to your system, you can't beat nice built in storage compared to External. I suppose it'll matter if they place a hefty price increase on 32GB & Above.

[damien c]

I have a contract up for renewal this month, and was thinking about the S6 until I saw it has a glass back like the Sony Xperia Z2 so that instantly put me off.

Instead I am now waiting for the M9 or G4 and then see which EE offer and will go for one of them.

[Hom3r]

I was waiting to see the specs for the S6 before I upgrade, but now I'm going for the Note 4

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by techguyone

It will bother people, though I don't know why. It's a big bottleneck to your system, you can't beat nice built in storage compared to External. I suppose it'll matter if they place a hefty price increase on 32GB & Above.

Certainly seems to be a reason why Samsung have gone for internal storage only

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Andro...gships_id66813

[Uncle Peter]

I want cheap, external storage to dump a good part of my music collection onto. That's not going to fit into 32GB of internal storage and doesn't fit into my M7 hence the desire to upgrade.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by techguyone

It will bother people, though I don't know why. It's a big bottleneck to your system, you can't beat nice built in storage compared to External. I suppose it'll matter if they place a hefty price increase on 32GB & Above.

I have to say that is one aspect lots of people overlook, even most tech review sites. The internal storage is an order of magnitude faster than any micro SD card, especially with the new-gen SSD-class flash in the S6. While probably not needed for my large MP3 collection it does massively affect phone performance, even more so than CPU speed in some cases.

My problem though, is that I have the need to transfer the contents of my storage between several different devices and you simply cannot beat the speed or convenience of pulling out the memory card and plugging it in my other phone, especially if the reason you need to do it is because the first phone's battery has died and is non-changeable.

---------- Post added at 21:36 ---------- Previous post was at 21:31 ----------

Originally Posted by Stephen

I don't think it will bother most folk. With 32GB being the smallest one its plenty of space for most folk.

Given the sales of the iPhone I would agree that 'most folk' or general mainstream consumers wouldn't be very bothered.

But on the other hand the Galaxy series gained most of their fame through popularity with a niche market of geeks, power users, and non-mainstream consumers. I myself am one of those with specific needs that every previous Galaxy phone has been capable of until now. It's that small, loyal community that is likely to feel alienated.

And to be fair, something doesn't need to bother most folk to be a big issue. NVidia's recent GTX970 memory scandal as well as Lenovo's Superfish shenanigans prove that. Large tech companies ride as much on reputation as they do on the silent majority of indifferently satisfied customers.

---------- Post added at 21:45 ---------- Previous post was at 21:36 ----------

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Certainly seems to be a reason why Samsung have gone for internal storage only

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Andro...gships_id66813

While the new phone's storage most certainly is fast, I cannot see how it can possibly relate to the lack of removeable storage. Previous phones as shown are already an order of magnitude faster than most microSDXC cards and tbh, you can get SD cards that write nearly twice as fast as even the S6's internal memory.

Regardless removable storage is typically used for large media collections anyway, and not the OS, apps, or paging, thus benefits little from 300MB/sec reads. So what if you can read a movie in 3 seconds, it'll take you 3 hours to watch it...

[alanbjames]

Originally Posted by Stephen

I don't think it will bother most folk. With 32GB being the smallest one its plenty of space for most folk.

With more and more people using their phones as their music device to i think it will annoy people there is no SD Card slot.

Im glad i took out the S5 when i did 16gb is ample, it upgraded to Lollipop no problem and i got a class 10 PNY 32GB SD for £11.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by alanbjames

With more and more people using their phones as their music device to i think it will annoy people there is no SD Card slot.

Im glad i took out the S5 when i did 16gb is ample, it upgraded to Lollipop no problem and i got a class 10 PNY 32GB SD for £11.

With things like the Google music streaming you can store your full iTunes collection in the cloud and stream to your phone so don't need to use storage.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Stephen

With things like the Google music streaming you can store your full iTunes collection in the cloud and stream to your phone so don't need to use storage.

This is what I hate about all these 'cloud' systems and advocates. The repeated assumption that everyone has access to unlimited high-speed internet 24/7 everywhere they go. Such systems become useless if you mostly happen to listen to music where there is no reliable mobile reception, such as on trains or planes.

[alanbjames]

Originally Posted by Stephen

With things like the Google music streaming you can store your full iTunes collection in the cloud and stream to your phone so don't need to use storage.

If people here tried to use the cloud for streaming music they are in for a real shock. I went to visit a family member last week in Neath in South Wales and EE state that its 4G and i couldnt get a 4G connection with my Galaxy S5 nor could my mate with his Iphone 5. 3G was tediously slow around 3mb. It wasnt until we were on a bus leaving neath over a bridge that 4G started kicking in and out. Upon entering Swansea 4G was fine. The Internet was actually so slow in Neath that the Wifi on the bus itself was faster.

So what im saying is it all depends on coverage and network.

I know that parts of the Sandfields in Port Talbot there are complete dead spots for the 3 network. This also includes part of the Beach and Seafront.

The cloud is not going to be reliable until these companies sort their act out and actually give the services they advertise.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by alanbjames

If people here tried to use the cloud for streaming music they are in for a real shock. I went to visit a family member last week in Neath in South Wales and EE state that its 4G and i couldnt get a 4G connection with my Galaxy S5 nor could my mate with his Iphone 5. 3G was tediously slow around 3mb. It wasnt until we were on a bus leaving neath over a bridge that 4G started kicking in and out. Upon entering Swansea 4G was fine. The Internet was actually so slow in Neath that the Wifi on the bus itself was faster.

So what im saying is it all depends on coverage and network.

I know that parts of the Sandfields in Port Talbot there are complete dead spots for the 3 network. This also includes part of the Beach and Seafront.

The cloud is not going to be reliable until these companies sort their act out and actually give the services they advertise.

4G isn't available all over the UK yet so that shouldn't be an issue.

MY VM mobile isn't the fastest even with HSDPA+ but I can still stream music completely fine around Glasgow. I have about 10 albums saved to the SD card just in case and using wifi I can download music from google to my phone so can still listen when in a tunnel or without a data connection.

All I am saying is no SD card slot on a phone isn't the dead end it used to be. Especially with in built memory being larger now. I remember my first Android device, a HTC Desire. That ran out of space very quickly.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by alanbjames

If people here tried to use the cloud for streaming music they are in for a real shock. 3G was tediously slow around 3mb.

If you think 3Mb is tediously slow you should probably take note of the fact that was the average speed across all UK cities as recently as 2011. Furthermore, 3Mb is absolutely plenty for streaming music given that music is typically closer to 0.2Mb, and 3Mb allows you to download an entire song in less than ten seconds.

Originally Posted by alanbjames

The Internet was actually so slow in Neath that the Wifi on the bus itself was faster.

To be fair, this should really be the norm. Buses and trains are equipped with anything up to 8-radio DC-HSPA + LTE systems with satellite backup in some cases, with large antenna mounted on the roof of the vehicle able simultaneously draw over 100Mbps from each of the four networks at the same time. Although practically never used in the theoretical maximum configuration, it'll still beat a puny little battery powered device inside a metal cage unless it's an embarrassingly bad implementation or they've artificially limited it.

Case in point, Scotrail trains and some upgraded Lothian buses and refurbished Virgin East Coast trains use the Icomera X6, supporting quad-4G connections, 8 SIM cards, and 14 antenna.



---------- Post added at 01:46 ---------- Previous post was at 01:35 ----------

Originally Posted by Stephen

MY VM mobile isn't the fastest even with HSDPA+ but I can still stream music completely fine around Glasgow. I have about 10 albums saved to the SD card just in case and using wifi I can download music from google to my phone so can still listen when in a tunnel or without a data connection.

All I am saying is no SD card slot on a phone isn't the dead end it used to be. Especially with in built memory being larger now. I remember my first Android device, a HTC Desire. That ran out of space very quickly.

I used to say that even for a relatively nomadic person like me I'd spend 98% of my time inside range of 3G/4G and/or WiFi thus making the lack of coverage outside cities relatively insignificant. And even a year ago, when 4G coverage was half what it is now, people's phones spent 53% of the time connected to 4G. But that's not considering the time weighting, after all the 33% of the time I spend asleep and 75% of the time I spend at home or work I don't use my phone anyway. It's precisely that remaining 2% when I use my phone the most, and also happens to be the time when I'm least likely to have WiFi to fall back on.

And yes, if you do spend all your time in large cities and/or have the foresight to predict everything you want to listen to on a trip in advance, you'd be fine with limited internal storage.

But the state of things these days remains that on a train trip from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, although with a very powerful dedicated radio you could get 3G data service for up to 94% of the trip, your typical mobile phone will barely manage to maintain useable connectivity more than 50% of the time without relying on 2G. And from Glasgow to Aberdeen is even worse since it isn't on the ECML.

And not to mention the massively increased battery drain that any form of streaming imposes on mobile devices.

And if you happen to be a mobile railway surveyor in Scotland like I did for a while, you already have to carry two phones just to get a useable 2G signal more than half the time, let alone anything capable of media streaming. At least prior to the GSM-R rollout.

[techguyone]

That's interesting I can't remember the last time I used Public Transport. They have WI-Fi now? everywhere or just large expensive things like long distance trains/coaches etc? is thee any where to look up if your public transport is WI-Fi enabled?

[Stephen]

Many Glasgow First buses now have wifi and all Scotrail train stations have free wifi as do the subway stations.

You could always get an OTG cable and a small USB Drive for storing of music movies for when you require?

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by techguyone

That's interesting I can't remember the last time I used Public Transport. They have WI-Fi now? everywhere or just large expensive things like long distance trains/coaches etc? is thee any where to look up if your public transport is WI-Fi enabled?

Usually the website of the public transport provider will mention it somewhere. There's no centralized database of all companies. It's not restricted to large expensive things at all, many local buses and trams have it. Most local buses in Scotland seem to have it now - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee. It's fairly trivial to implement for the bus companies as modern buses already have a mobile connection built in for fleet management and maintenance purposes.



---------- Post added at 20:17 ---------- Previous post was at 20:13 ----------

Originally Posted by Stephen

You could always get an OTG cable and a small USB Drive for storing of music movies for when you require?

Yeah, that's practical... Have you ever tried dangling a device off a USB cable of your phone while out on the move? It's annoying enough just having a charger cable and that's not considering certain phones such as mine require the cover opened thus breaking it's weatherpoofing in order to access the USB port.

I had actually considered a wireless portable drive recently but that's yet another device to forget to charge and/or bring with you.

And it seems ironic all the extra devices you have to carry and attach to your phone these days just to make the phone itself 0.5mm thinner... After all there was a survey recently where something like 80% of people wanted a bigger phone with a larger battery than these perpetually thinner devices everyone keeps coming out with.