Sorry media hoarders, the Galaxy Note 5 probably won’t have a microSD slot
Your microSD cards could soon be gathering dust
When Samsung dropped the microSD slot from the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, it caused a bit of an uproar.
Hardcore Android users spouted their annoyance online, lamenting the loss of flexibility and convenience offered by expandable storage.
Those same people won’t be pleased to hear that the Galaxy Note 5 is also expected to drop microSD support, according to SamMobile.
To explain why, we’re going to have to get slightly technical.
Before the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung used eMMC 5.0 flash memory for its internal smartphone storage, which shares the same memory controller as microSD cards.
The S6 and S6 Edge however, use UFS 2.0 for storage, which uses a new type of memory controller that’s not compatible with microSD.
The memory controller takes care of data transfer by communicating with the processor, so by switching to the newer storage type, we’re faced with a problem of making both memory controllers work together (which will degrade performance).
On the plus side, UFS 2.0 is the fastest form of internal storage currently available on smartphones, and it can read and write data almost twice as fast as eMMC 5.0. It also outperforms even the fastest microSD cards, so in that respect, it’s an improvement.
However, for users with tonnes of movies, TV shows and albums, storage space is the number one priority.
The LG G4 is currently the only major flagship which offers both a removable battery and a microSD slot, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens come Note 5 launch day, if it does indeed land without expandable storage.
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Esat Dedezade
Contributor 
