Like its predecessors, the Galaxy Note 10 is hardly a well-kept secret. We already have renders based on leaked designs and we know almost everything there is to know about the handset. For example, the phone will feature Sound-on-Display technology, which means the entire screen works as a front speaker, but it won’t have a headphone jack. The top speaker, 3.5mm port, and Bixby buttons aren’t the only things Samsung removed from the phone, though. A brand new Note 10 rumor says the entry-level version of the handset will lack a microSD slot as well. This would be such a massive deal if it were to happen back in August 2015. But the Note 10 is hardly the Note 5, and expandable storage on a high-end Android phone shouldn’t be considered a must-have feature anymore.
Max Weinbach from xda-developers took to Twitter to post a few things he had learned from a source with access to the Note 10 and Note 10 Pro, and that’s where the news comes from:
My source got to play with a Note 10 and Note 10 Pro. Here is what they said about it.
1. Both of the models he used had headphone jacks.
2. Renders are almost perfect.
3. SPen is almost the same as the Note9
4. Non-Pro has no micro sd card slot.— Max Weinbach (@MaxWinebach) June 21, 2019
As you can see in these tweets, he seems to have confirmed many of the current Note 10 leaks out there aside from the headphone jack, which may actually still be in the picture.
5. No noticeable software changes.
6. No top speaker grill and much smaller bezels.
7. Power and volume on the left side.
8. "3 cams vertical on small one
3 vertical plus one more on pro under the flash to the right of the stack"
9. Both are centered single hole punch cameras.— Max Weinbach (@MaxWinebach) June 21, 2019
Weinbach says the Note 10 Pro will have expandable storage, whereas the Note 10 will not. That would be a strange thing for Samsung to do, but the larger dimensions of the Note 10 would explain why Samsung might do it. Also, Samsung likes money too, so it would definitely welcome your extra cash for versions with more internal storage.
When Samsung did the same thing with the Note 5 a few years ago, the cheapest version of the phone shipped with 32GB of storage. But Samsung flagships now start at 128GB of memory, which is a significant upgrade — that goes for the Note 9 and the Galaxy S10. Add to that USB-C connectivity and speedy internet support (up to 5G), and you’d have more ways to move data at high speeds and free up your local storage than we had four years ago.
Yes, Samsung brought the microSD card back after backlash from consumers. But the absence of microSD storage shouldn’t be a deal-breaker in 2019. By the way, the Galaxy Fold that’s still delayed would have shipped without a microSD slot too, but the foldable phone packs speedier storage. And built-in flash memory is always faster than expandable storage.
Finally, by removing ports and buttons from its flagship phones, Samsung might be able to manufacture more durable handsets than before. Sooner or later, the microSD card is bound to disappear from more flagship devices, not just Samsung’s. The iPhone never supported microSD cards, and Google’s Pixel doesn’t do it either. OnePlus has been selling phones without microSD support for years, well before significantly bumping up onboard storage, and Android fans have been buying them like crazy.
