Mini/Pro with SD to replace iPod? Yes/no? - Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini, Mini Pro, Xperia Pro, A

Hi all,
what's it like when you stick one of those cards in your Android full of music? I have an iPod Classic 160GB and now I'd like a bigger screen and touch for easier use. But I've heard terrible things about these SD cards in Android phones. I don't care about screenshots with big numbers,
-what is it like in practical use?
-Does music transfer quickly?
-When you de-tach your phone does it freeze while the SD loads? (some crappy mp3 players do).
-What happens when you load your music player, does it freeze, does it freeze the first time after music transfer or ever time, how long does it freeze?
-Do you have to format your SD card because of normal phone use? How often?
-How do you find out how fast your phone can read the SD?
That's all I care about. I have a feeling the only way I'll find out is by spending a lot of money, getting angry and buying another iPod. The Touch is waaaaay too expensive in my view, I'm not paying for Apple's champaign parties with my money. 32-64GB is expensive, it's the 8GB people who get cheap devices not us audio lovers.

phoneyericsson said:
Hi all,
what's it like when you stick one of those cards in your Android full of music? I have an iPod Classic 160GB and now I'd like a bigger screen and touch for easier use. But I've heard terrible things about these SD cards in Android phones. I don't care about screenshots with big numbers,
-what is it like in practical use?
-Does music transfer quickly?
-When you de-tach your phone does it freeze while the SD loads? (some crappy mp3 players do).
-What happens when you load your music player, does it freeze, does it freeze the first time after music transfer or ever time, how long does it freeze?
-Do you have to format your SD card because of normal phone use? How often?
-How do you find out how fast your phone can read the SD?
That's all I care about. I have a feeling the only way I'll find out is by spending a lot of money, getting angry and buying another iPod. The Touch is waaaaay too expensive in my view, I'm not paying for Apple's champaign parties with my money. 32-64GB is expensive, it's the 8GB people who get cheap devices not us audio lovers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally have Live with Walkman, which about half year ago, was the same price as iPod Touch 4g 8GB.
Practical use...I am not sure what you mean about it. Android phones are regular smartphones: music player, internet, apps, calling, SMS etc.
Music transfer speed has never been problem for someone. If your computer has USB 2.0(quite likely), then it is the best you can.
On some phones, rechecking the music folders might take a bit of time to make sure player has all the music there is. Usually doesn't take more than 1-2 minutes, mostly less than that.
Freezing? Depends on phone, but Android phones are nowadays quite fast already, there is no freezing at all.
Seriously, who gives a **** about 1-1,5 sec freezing in the menu? Music doesn't stop anyway.
I have never formatted my SDcard and will never do it. It is not needed, the regular format(which should be FAT32, Android doesn't support others) works just great, you don't need anything else.
SD card speed depends on SD card, Class 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. Class 10 have highest speed, Class 2 slowest.
I have Class 4 SanDisk 16GB, works like a charm, higher speed is only needed if you move large files on your SDcard often. I have never experienced problems with SDcard speed.

By practical use, I mean good daily and constant use of a decent audio player. I have the feeling that many Android phones aim to play music and almost nothing else. I don't use spotify or google music or any of that. I use podcasts big time, I have over 10GB of podcasts alone. I see Sony's version of iTunes, Media Go is actually quite decent now. But practical as a full replacement for an iPod.
Music transfer...my Xperia Mini is OK, but have you seen an iPod? It's 2 songs per second...I've 25GB of music, it has to be fast. Also, I did try other brands of audio players and some of them spend 5 minutes (no joke) loading after music transfer, it was horrible. I actually smashed on it made me so angry, and I NEVER do that. I danced on the screen when I got another iPod. It did it every time even if I moved just 1 song.
By freezing, I mean when you enter the music menu. I just don't want my phone freezing every time it loads 25GB of music and 10GB of podcasts.
I've done a fair bit of research on the class type, XDA has some good threads also. I'm still unconvinced though. People keep posting crap about fast read/write speeds. Who cares, I'm interested in actualy use nothing else.
I highly recommend formatting your SD. Copy all the contents to a folder on your laptop/pc, format then copy back. I'm not joking, if you use different roms you will be SHOCKED at the improvement it makes. I don't mean a tiny improvment, I mean major. Your SD moves much faster, loading pics in your phone becomes instant again.
Your 16GB card works ok? Is that your full music collection?
Anyway, I just did some testing of favourite songs on my phone vs my iPod and bass is definitely better on iPod. I really want to give Android a shot though.

phoneyericsson said:
By practical use, I mean good daily and constant use of a decent audio player. I have the feeling that many Android phones aim to play music and almost nothing else. I don't use spotify or google music or any of that. I use podcasts big time, I have over 10GB of podcasts alone. I see Sony's version of iTunes, Media Go is actually quite decent now. But practical as a full replacement for an iPod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been using stock music player all the time(Walkman on stock ROM, stock player on current, MIUI, ROM). Android phones do have music feature, even though most manufacturers are trying to improve other sides.
Live with Walkman is built for music lovers, with its dual speakers(bass is low, but for regular listening is quality fine), special Walkman(which actually misses own equalizer, but can be downloaded from Market).
phoneyericsson said:
Music transfer...my Xperia Mini is OK, but have you seen an iPod? It's 2 songs per second...I've 25GB of music, it has to be fast. Also, I did try other brands of audio players and some of them spend 5 minutes (no joke) loading after music transfer, it was horrible. I actually smashed on it made me so angry, and I NEVER do that. I danced on the screen when I got another iPod. It did it every time even if I moved just 1 song.
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Click to collapse
iPod's and other Apple products use own cabling system, which probably allows high speed transfer. Androids have microUSB port, which might limit it.
USB 2.0 supports maximal of 60 MB/s, Apple probably takes so much possible from it, as one their port is for everything.
phoneyericsson said:
By freezing, I mean when you enter the music menu. I just don't want my phone freezing every time it loads 25GB of music and 10GB of podcasts.
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For 35GB of music material, it might take some time first to check all the folders for music files and load metadata to the player and create cache(that is done only after every music collection change).
If music folders are the same, same cache is used and loading player will be fast.
2011 Xperia's have 1 GHz processor, shouldn't take long time for loading anyway.
phoneyericsson said:
I've done a fair bit of research on the class type, XDA has some good threads also. I'm still unconvinced though. People keep posting crap about fast read/write speeds. Who cares, I'm interested in actualy use nothing else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First time, placing all your music there might take a while, but later on, you don't add 10GB of stuff to SDcard at once, so that high speed might not be needed.
phoneyericsson said:
I highly recommend formatting your SD. Copy all the contents to a folder on your laptop/pc, format then copy back. I'm not joking, if you use different roms you will be SHOCKED at the improvement it makes. I don't mean a tiny improvment, I mean major. Your SD moves much faster, loading pics in your phone becomes instant again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I might give it a try, when I have time, even though I have no problems with speed at the moment.
Besides, what would formatting give me? The file system has to stay FAT32 anyway, because Android doesn't support another ones.
phoneyericsson said:
Your 16GB card works ok? Is that your full music collection?
Anyway, I just did some testing of favourite songs on my phone vs my iPod and bass is definitely better on iPod. I really want to give Android a shot though.
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Click to collapse
Yes, 16GB works fine(14,8GB available due to difference in manufacturing and file systems, 1000-1024 difference). And no, music is about 2-3 GB from it, I don't keep all the music on my phone, only the music I like at some point, old songs are deleted.
I also got few videos/films(Family Guy ) to look, when I am bored sometimes or can't sleep in evening. Screen is small, but it isn't that bad for films.

I have an Mini Pro with a 32GB Sandisk Class 4 SD.
It works fine, no freezes at all. The only problem is the sound of it is not THAT good, i have never listened to an Ipod, but my phone cant handle much bass without distortion. I'm currently using PowerAMP player, its fantastic and you can configure it to make your music far better than the stock player and the "limiter" option fix the distortion problem.
I think its a good idea to use an external DAC (Fiio E17 example) if you like to listen to a perfect music with your perfect headphone.
EDIT: I have currently 8GB of music on my SD and PowerAMP loads it very fast.

Dv2y said:
I have an Mini Pro with a 32GB Sandisk Class 4 SD.
It works fine, no freezes at all. The only problem is the sound of it is not THAT good, i have never listened to an Ipod, but my phone cant handle much bass without distortion. I'm currently using PowerAMP player, its fantastic and you can configure it to make your music far better than the stock player and the "limiter" option fix the distortion problem.
I think its a good idea to use an external DAC (Fiio E17 example) if you like to listen to a perfect music with your perfect headphone.
EDIT: I have currently 8GB of music on my SD and PowerAMP loads it very fast.
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Is it even possible to use DAC on android phone? Is there a driver for it?
Sent from my SK17i using xda premium

I don't know about that driver ^^
I've ordered a 32GB on ebay (half the price of in the shops and unused, good seller) and am waiting for it to arrive in the next few days. I've practiced sending about 20 favourite songs to my 2GB card using Media Go. The transfer is way slower than iTunes, but like the guy at the top ^^ said, perhaps after the cache is created on the phone it will all move faster...the load time after that was about 15 seconds...not bad at all. My iPod classic takes about 10 seconds but I'm happy so far.
I can't wait to test the new SD. I'll report back on how it goes. Media Go has finally come of age I think, it's very capable now. I'm testing different music apps on my phone and so far I like DoubleTwist the most - for easy of use though Poweramp has probably the best audio I've heard. I also recommend trying the megabass.zip that's available on here.

urra901109 said:
Is it even possible to use DAC on android phone? Is there a driver for it?
https://code.google.com/p/android/i...rs&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars
Seems its not yet. ):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1616761
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Click to collapse

Thanks for the links.
After extensive effort, don't bother trying to replace an iPod with an Android anything yet! What a joke. If you like iPods keep them...I've tried so many devices over the last 6 years and really they (for me) still got nothing on iPods...

HElp?
Someguyfromhell said:
I have been using stock music player all the time(Walkman on stock ROM, stock player on current, MIUI, ROM). Android phones do have music feature, even though most manufacturers are trying to improve other sides.
Live with Walkman is built for music lovers, with its dual speakers(bass is low, but for regular listening is quality fine), special Walkman(which actually misses own equalizer, but can be downloaded from Market).
iPod's and other Apple products use own cabling system, which probably allows high speed transfer. Androids have microUSB port, which might limit it.
USB 2.0 supports maximal of 60 MB/s, Apple probably takes so much possible from it, as one their port is for everything.
For 35GB of music material, it might take some time first to check all the folders for music files and load metadata to the player and create cache(that is done only after every music collection change).
If music folders are the same, same cache is used and loading player will be fast.
2011 Xperia's have 1 GHz processor, shouldn't take long time for loading anyway.
First time, placing all your music there might take a while, but later on, you don't add 10GB of stuff to SDcard at once, so that high speed might not be needed.
I might give it a try, when I have time, even though I have no problems with speed at the moment.
Besides, what would formatting give me? The file system has to stay FAT32 anyway, because Android doesn't support another ones.
Yes, 16GB works fine(14,8GB available due to difference in manufacturing and file systems, 1000-1024 difference). And no, music is about 2-3 GB from it, I don't keep all the music on my phone, only the music I like at some point, old songs are deleted.
I also got few videos/films(Family Guy ) to look, when I am bored sometimes or can't sleep in evening. Screen is small, but it isn't that bad for films.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use my XM only for listening to music or texting...so all the roms i tried either are for performance or some particular use....
CAn u suggest me a good rom only for Music?

I've got a mini pro with a 64gb sdxc card, poweramp as music player. Most points have been addressed before.
However you have to keep one point in mind. The phone plays decent enough audio on the go, with background noise and all other factors that come into play. Yet the ipod still has much better audio quality (use it with proper headphones and enough impedance and the difference is quite obvious) and I fear that's hardware related, no decent audio hardware in the phone. I have an external dac, but let's be honest why would i carry that around, it's as big/inconvenient as carrying an extra ipod around, given the choice I'll take my ipod with me.
For the price the phone has cost me, I'm pleased with it, small enough so don't have to carry an ipod around if I don't want to. The audio quality could however be better, and there's imho no software solution possible.
By the way; file transfer speed might be annoying, but how often are you going to be transferring several gigs of music? You put most of your collection on there once, or might change a few times. No point transferring flac or anything around that size to the phone.

Kinda off topic, but what sort of performance are you getting with the 64GB card? Are there any problems with compatibility? Would you mind running some speed tests on the card and posting the results?

Yeah what make of card have you got and were from. Looking 64gb for utorrent
Sent from my SK17i using xda app-developers app

serialkillazzs said:
Yeah what make of card have you got and were from. Looking 64gb for utorrent
Sent from my SK17i using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the late reply, didn't really see the first question and haven't had much time lately. I've got a Sandisk card of amazon.de. I'm not allowed to post links unfortunately. Anyway back when I bought it, it had a lot more good reviews. It's been replaced by another product in the mean time.
Does it still work yes, without fault almost. The only downside is that every time I add files via USB (pc), it causes a reboot verifying card integrity (only one reboot, so that's something I can live with). That might be because of the way the card is formatted, operating system I've used, still need to check into that.
I'm currently running a test for the read/write speeds, will post that later on.
---------- Post added at 02:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 PM ----------
Ok so I've got some test results. Didn't test the entire card, just let the tests run for 10 minutes.
Read average 12.7 MegaBytes/S
Write average 8.6 MegaBytes/S
So not quite the class 10 it's labelled to be, pretty much knew that it was just a bit too slow. Did record video on it though without any hiccups.

I have a mini pro, paired with a 16gb kingston class 4 sd card and a Brainwavz M1 headphones, with this mix y just ditched my ipod touch of 16gb.
It's not my entire library but it's enough for my needs, I strongly recommend to buy the Poweramp music play app, it's a heavy improvement from stock music players. BTW this phones have fm radio a impossible feature in any apple device.
I would recommend the change, but it's up to you, if you want to move large data files or a large amount of data I strongly recommend to buy a micro sd to standard sd adapter and a class 10 card.
cheers

Related

Have you switched from an ipod to an android?

Basically I've owned different ipods and enjoy them very much, I've tried rivals but didn't like them for various reasons. I've been using a classic ipod for about 1 year now, nanos before that. I've wanted to test out using just once device for a phone and ipod if possible. The iphone is way too expensive at higher storage (32GB/64GB) for my taste, the cheapest price I can find a 32GB iphone in Europe for is €350, and there are many dodgy sellers out there, of course from apple/other it's much more expensive than that.
So I started my test. I've a nice sony ericsson phone and bought a 32GB SD cheaply online and have tried various media programs to sync songs. Many of them sync very, very, very slowly, the first time, the fifth time...they never speed up. I have many GBs of podcasts too, and there are few programs that do both. Sony's version of itunes called media go...it's easy to use and has many features, but it can be slow and it very frequently makes mistakes - it duplicates songs constantly. I copied my itunes into the media go folders and let the sony program take over and manage, but it's still making mistakes. When you open your music player and you see 4 duplicates of every song in your album...you do want to bounce the phone off the wall. The pc software has full podcast support, sony phones do not...sometimes they show in a playlist...sometimes not.
So..what to do...buy an ipod touch, keep the phone and ipod separate, spend that extra money on an iphone or try another android? Has anyone tried this? There must be other ipod fans who have androids and are asking the same question. :fingers-crossed:
doubleTwist is good for syncing. Certainly far better than Media Go, which is pretty rubbish IMO. doubleTwist is actually reminiscent of iTunes, although it is a lot faster and more responsive on my computer than iTunes (which I have always found to be slow and sluggish).
I still have it installed...I'll give it another go then! I noticed they took away podcast support and make you pay for it. Cheapos! They were supposed to be the free, open alternative to itunes lol.
SharpnShiny said:
I still have it installed...I'll give it another go then! I noticed they took away podcast support and make you pay for it. Cheapos! They were supposed to be the free, open alternative to itunes lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh really? I knew they made some features paid, wasn't sure exactly which. Yeah, that sucks

Opinion: Phones without a SD slot

Opinion: I have noticed that a few Android phones like the HTC One S are designed without a microSD slot. I think this is a really bad idea for both the microSD slotless phones themselves and Android as a whole. I would suggest that consider this when buying any phone without a microSD slot because every phone bought without one is a vote that says microSD is dispensable. Obviously the ultimate choice is yours.
In the future if unlimited plans become the norm and Android develops enough that on-line files can be cataloged and accessible just like they were on a microSD card, then microSD may become obsolete ....... those days are not here yet. I would gladly pay Dropbox to store all my music files on line, but playing them from on-line is rudimentary at best. PowerAMP or the Stock Android player can't catalog the files so finding and playing them is a mess. There is also no cover art or lyric support either. Also if every file must be cataloged and that means downloading the whole music collection one, at a time which would take weeks.
In my opinion, the direction Android should be going in is providing a decent sized non-removable memory block built into the phone to run the OS and store Apps, at least 16GB. This way the memory access in uniform, quick and direct with none of the quirks that SD cards exhibit. The microSD card should be completely isolated from the operating system except to provide simple removable storage like a flash drive. The micoSD card slot should also be on the outside of the phone so it could be swapped out live.
I think that at least with Froyo, moving apps to the SD card didn't work well. Some Apps worked OK, but eventually almost every app had some problem or another. Some apps also caused errors that resulted in read only access or worse.
Unlimited plans are going away, I doubt they will make a comeback. With data becoming more and more expensive now, the cloud is becoming a more impractical storage model. I hope Android phone makers keep microSD slots around as I will not buy a phone without a microSD slot. Unfortunately this means passing on the last generation of Nexus devices.
On phones with enough internal space the external SD card is mounted separately and some internal memory is mounted as a virtual SD card. This allows apps to be installed on the phone's virtual SD card so you can remove the external.
For me personally as long as there's 16GB on the phone, I have no need for more. I suspect the majority (60-65%) are also the same as they dont use much space at all. There should really be a poll on this.
I've done without the microSD slot for 2 years on my Nexus S and I don't really miss it. Music Storage? with Google Music's 20,000 song storage, how can you not use it in some way? Half my music is on Google Music and my hot playlist/albums are on my phone. The only thing i find that's really taking up all the space are the games.
16gb is enough for me. I find 32gb and above too much.
I need more than 16. With my current phone I have a single gb of internal storage for my apps, 10gb on my sd card, another 3gb for root stuff (ROMs, backups, titanium backups), and then another gigabyte of pictures and app data. Since I don't get to access all of my SDcard, I've only got 400mb left
I would keep SD cards. Sure solid block memory is nice, but I think SD would be more handy, and much cheaper.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda app-developers app
I have 16gb internal , and a 16 gb sd, and I need more. Having no sd card slot is not acceptable, and the reason I don't buy nexus devices, or the one series HTC devices.
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using xda app-developers app
I was in your position as well.
Love the design of the One S, but the lack of an SD card made me chose the GSIII.
I bought the 16GB version and threw a 16GB SD card in.
This is what I have used in terms of memory.
Internal:
- 8.44GB available, 520MB to apps, 502MB to pictures
External:
- 6.25GB available, 7.02GB songs (1700 songs), 243.2MB Backups
I think you should gage what kind of things that you keep on your devices.
For me, it's clear that I needed an external card, you might not.
i would be okay without an sd slot if the phone had 32 or 64 gigs of internal storage.
an sd card slot is needed now a days. Even with cloud based music and such, what about the times when you can't grab stuff from the cloud? Like flights, areas with very poor signal (the gym for me) or other such things. I don't see why they can't give that option as a standard or given. I'd be happy with 16gig internal and an SD card slot, but without the slot i can't keep all my music on the phone itself. I don't want to have to rely on streaming with the cloud to listen to music, and with games and apps these days requiring more space where is that all going to go? Some games download an extra few gigs, so 8gigs will fill up really quick.
There is no reason not to give phones an sd card slot, its a big con in my book. Unless the phone has 32 gig or better yet 64 gig internal storage.
I don't see a problem with not having an SD card.
I've easily got by with my HTC desire with an 8GB SD card.
Sometimes I think people keep things for the sake of it.
For example I was keeping nandroid backups from 6-8months ago
I keep about 500 songs a load of apps/games.
If I want any more music I've got cloud. I've never got the notion of carrying around 1500+ songs.
At 3.5 minutes a song that's 87+ hours worth of music. Who the hell has the time.
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda app-developers app
Until smartphones start coming out with 64GB and 128GB options, I will continue buying phones that have removable SD.
Even then, I still like the idea of a removable storage device for things like backups, sharing music, photos, etc...
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
From the OP ..... It seems like a number of people are happy with storing their music on-line. As an avid DropBox user I can see the charms of on-line storage for some type of files, like documents.
However music files just do not currently lend themselves to on-line storage primarily because it doesn't really matter how many files you can store on-line if they are slow to get to and are un-cataloged.
When music is on a microSD card, the default Android music player or PowerAmp does a very good job of cataloging them, and you have album art and for PowerAmp lyrics too. Both are very slick and it is very easy to generate playlists or find exactly the file you want. No on-line service can play files ever close to as easily and elegantly as default Android music player or PowerAmp can when files are on micro SD.
If on-line playing of tracks were as good an experience as microSD, I would be the first to use it as there are some limited advantages.
microSD for music provides the very best music experience AND it is 2 year old technology. This elegant working technology is being removed from new phones and being replaced with something much more complicated, slower, more inaccessible with greatly reduced functionality.
It is not a good direction for Android
Just remember that a few short years ago almost every single phone was completely locked down and most wouldn't ever turn on unless a activated carrier SIM card was present. My HTC Desire Z worked quite well without any SIM card except for making calls. Android was the biggest breath of fresh air I have seen in the phone industry, and I see the premature removal of microSD and nonremovable battery as the 1st step towards Apple's model and the bad old days when your phone so clearly belonged to the carrier and not you.
Sirandar said:
Just remember that a few short years ago almost every single phone was completely locked down and most wouldn't ever turn on unless a activated carrier SIM card was present. My HTC Desire Z worked quite well without any SIM card except for making calls. Android was the biggest breath of fresh air I have seen in the phone industry, and I see the premature removal of microSD and nonremovable battery as the 1st step towards Apple's model and the bad old days when your phone so clearly belonged to the carrier and not you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't worry, with the amount of OEMs out there that make android devices, there will always be somebody willing to add microSD slots to their phones to get sales. Most OEMs still do include them, its really only the Nexus devices that don't include them.
To throw my 2 cents in here.
The mobile phones developed fast these few years but people still think that they should trade music player, PC, and a game console for 1 phone.
I don't think phones were made for constant use of music games and other things because the battery inside of them are still weak and the Android phones were made just for CASUAL listening to music and gaming it SHOULDN'T replace your MP3 player or gaming console.
I myself have a 16 GB MP3 player with me that can endure playing for over 25 hours (more than enough for 2 days)
As for the photos i have a Dropbox (18 GB), Sugarsync (over 24 GB) and Box (50 GB) and 2 of them (Dropbox and Sugarsync) have a automatic upload for pictures so whenever i snap a picture its automatically uploaded to the cloud and in settings you can change if you would only like to uplodad trough Wi-Fi and Data or Wi-Fi alone and if you don't trust cloud (for privacy) you can buy an app called FolderSync that can sync your photos to your NAS, FTP server and even to the clouds (Box) on a schedule like every hour or at specific time (at 3 AM while you are asleep).
And the app also support for 1 way or 2 way Sync so if you just do 1 way you can delete all the pictures on your phone but they won't be deleted on your server/cloud.
So i'm pretty good with my HTC Evo 3D with ONLY 8GB storage and i have 3 GB of data per month and as technology grows so do Wi-Fi hotspots and almost everywhere there is a Wi-Fi Hotspot near you.
So i don't see any problem with 16/32 GB storage without SD card slot and will probably get myself a Nexus 4 soon (after i save some money lol).
From the OP to Hreidmar
I can agree that PCs and Laptops are not going to be replaced by smartphones for a long time yet. Quite simply PCs and laptops can do things that are inconvenient or impossible on a smartphone. Games on the phone are cute and have their charms but phones dont have the power, depth or screen space to run a game like Skyrim (Sadly the plot of that game could fit into a small corner of a smartphone )
However, for anyone who carries a decent smartphone, MP3 players are obsolete. They were obsolete the second Froyo Phones (or Iphones) hit the market and microSD hit 32Gb.
My deceased HTC Desire Z and a 32Gb microSD card together made an astoundingly good MP3 player that was always there because my phone was always with me. All I needed to carry was a small pair of decent earbuds.
32 GB of storage was just enough storage to cover a good sized music collection at 96kps Ogg. You may ask " Why would you want to carry around your entire music collection?" I would reply, "Why wouldn't you want to, do you really like syncing and leaving half your music at home"
The standard augment is that you couldn't possibly listen to 32Gb of music on the road. This isn't about the number of tracks. It is about playing the exact track you want, when you want it, spontaneously and easily. It is also about never ever having to sync tracks again except when you buy some new ones. It is about freedom of choice and freedom from syncing. This freedom was already here 2 years ago.
The combination of Android ICS or JB with a 32, 64 or 128Gb microSD card is a perfect MP3 player. The Android Stock player is great and you can search through and make playlists effortlessly. The audio system on the HTC One S is also great AND your phone is always with you. It is a WIN WIN WIN except that the big phone makers are crippling their phone with no microSD slot and puny 10Gb of storage.
To put it in perspective, I bought a 32Gb flash drive for 10$ and the actual chip is even less expensive. Apple is gouging end users for storage to subsidize the rest of the phone. micro SD lets the cost per GB float closer to reality.
Hreidmar said:
To throw my 2 cents in here.
The mobile phones developed fast these few years but people still think that they should trade music player, PC, and a game console for 1 phone.
I don't think phones were made for constant use of music games and other things because the battery inside of them are still weak and the Android phones were made just for CASUAL listening to music and gaming it SHOULDN'T replace your MP3 player or gaming console.
I myself have a 16 GB MP3 player with me that can endure playing for over 25 hours (more than enough for 2 days)
As for the photos i have a Dropbox (18 GB), Sugarsync (over 24 GB) and Box (50 GB) and 2 of them (Dropbox and Sugarsync) have a automatic upload for pictures so whenever i snap a picture its automatically uploaded to the cloud and in settings you can change if you would only like to uplodad trough Wi-Fi and Data or Wi-Fi alone and if you don't trust cloud (for privacy) you can buy an app called FolderSync that can sync your photos to your NAS, FTP server and even to the clouds (Box) on a schedule like every hour or at specific time (at 3 AM while you are asleep).
And the app also support for 1 way or 2 way Sync so if you just do 1 way you can delete all the pictures on your phone but they won't be deleted on your server/cloud.
So i'm pretty good with my HTC Evo 3D with ONLY 8GB storage and i have 3 GB of data per month and as technology grows so do Wi-Fi hotspots and almost everywhere there is a Wi-Fi Hotspot near you.
So i don't see any problem with 16/32 GB storage without SD card slot and will probably get myself a Nexus 4 soon (after i save some money lol).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the OP => Google Music
When I complained about the lack of microSD and tiny amounts of storage space on my HTC One S,a number of people pointed me to Google Music
As a Canadian I can't use the service to upload music. It isn't going to come to Canada in the foreseeable future either IMO, or Amazon MP3 would be already available.
Looking at it trying out the parts I could I think that Google Music may be a viable solution to accessing decent size music collections on a smartphone on the go.
Advantages: It seems to be able to catalog the tracks and give the end used an experience similar to having local music files on a SD card.
Disadvantages:
1) No data connect no music. Google tries to fix this by caching frequently used music, but chance are the track you want to play won't be available when the is no signal or you are forced to turn data off.
2) Data charges: An MP3 is fairly big and constantly playing tracks will add up to significant usage. A 2GB plan would probably make this irrelevant.
3) The music data is streamed. Streamed data means there may be dropouts and stutter if there high internet traffic volume. Downloading the whole track at once may be better.
4) Google is giving end users a large cloud space to upload tracks for free. However it is quite obvious that Google is only doing this to mine metrics about what type of music serious appreciators of music listen too so they can populate their music store with music. Once Google gets its data the free storage
will probably end or be replaced by paid storage. I personally wouldn't mind paying for the convenience of accessing files on-line as long as it is cheap and the data transfer rates are high.
Lastly, I would still much much more prefer to store all my music locally on a microSD. It is so much simpler, robust and fast.
Heck... Pics, vids, tunes... I have to have an SD to keep me going. Currently have 16g on the phone and a 32g SD card. There is no way I'd buy a phone without a SD slot!

G-Music alternative? cloud storage no go?

I am trying to solve the low storage problem.
I have try G music on my GS3, its way too slow to transition from 1 song to another.
It also uses way too much data, i would hit 5gb before the week end. sadly i dont have unlimited data.
Any other cloud storage that is fast(like stock player) and uses less data at 320kbps?
Or i should just get the note 2? I love everything about the note 2 better then Droid dna
But i like the Droid dna build quality.
I think Subsonic does something like you're asking for... it's streaming media like GMusic but it lets you configure the stream a lot more. I think this'll be what I use once my DNA arrives.
To quote their site: "If you have constrained bandwidth, you may set an upper limit for the bitrate of the music streams. Subsonic will then automatically resample the music to a suitable bitrate."
skafan2 said:
I think Subsonic does something like you're asking for... it's streaming media like GMusic but it lets you configure the stream a lot more. I think this'll be what I use once my DNA arrives.
To quote their site: "If you have constrained bandwidth, you may set an upper limit for the bitrate of the music streams. Subsonic will then automatically resample the music to a suitable bitrate."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just look at subsonic, I dont have a server at home or want to build one, also im not spending money just to get the app. I will give amazon cloud player a try.
tvp480 said:
I am trying to solve the low storage problem.
I have try G music on my GS3, its way too slow to transition from 1 song to another.
It also uses way too much data, i would hit 5gb before the week end. sadly i dont have unlimited data.
Any other cloud storage that is fast(like stock player) and uses less data at 320kbps?
Or i should just get the note 2? I love everything about the note 2 better then Droid dna
But i like the Droid dna build quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so that i dont sound like a shill, since apparently a handful of the folks here think that just because we got the phone early thats what we are...
i would say go with what you like best. i love my dna and after getting my hands on a note 2 for a bit i would choose the dna easily. but if you love everything about the note 2 except the build quality it should come down to how much weight buld quality has against everything else.
huh. I have no gaps between song playback, and I never use more than a 2GB or so using Google Music all the time. You could always save a playlist or two to the phone for the day while on WiFi and keep rotating what's stored on the phone. Admittedly, not the best solution...
tvp480 said:
Just look at subsonic, I dont have a server at home or want to build one, also im not spending money just to get the app. I will give amazon cloud player a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you need an actual dedicated server for Subsonic. Pretty sure it's just a program that runs on your desktop. I use a similar thing called Tversity, but for sharing movies around the house.
In another thread someone else had suggested a micro usb reader/adapter with a micro sd for when you wanted to play music.....
rfarrah said:
In another thread someone else had suggested a micro usb reader/adapter with a micro sd for when you wanted to play music.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I sometimes do with my Nexus 7 and it works nicely.
SwiftLegend said:
That's what I sometimes do with my Nexus 7 and it works nicely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i thought droid dna doesnt support USB Host. I read it somewhere, correct me if im wrong
if you want to use less data than stream lower quality music, a 320kbps will use up a ton of data while streaming at 128kbps will use less than half as much. personally i got spotify premium free 2 day thing right before going on a long bus ride and i watched my data plan being used up at a rate of 100MB/hour of streaming at the highest quality they have (320kbps) quite entertaining considering my data plan atm is too large for me
tvp480 said:
i thought droid dna doesnt support USB Host. I read it somewhere, correct me if im wrong
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Phil nickenson from android Central said that it will read from external storage but probably not write to it.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 2
Bought one of these for a couple bucks on ebay. When it comes I'll plug in my usb-to-micro sd adapter and we'll see what we get.
ardieho and
I'm having this problem
I think Subsonic will be the perfect fir for you...
I realize this might not be helpful, but I've found Spotify to be absolutely perfect in this regard. You can choose playlists to store offline (and as songs are added, it downloads those songs via wi-fi, or wi-fi/mobile depending on settings you choose), and you can choose different quality for offline vs. streaming (so I have 'normal' quality for streaming, and 'extreme' quality, which is 320kbps afaik, for offline use). So I keep my starred/favorites playlist stored for offline use, everything else streaming. No lag, no trouble, works absolutely perfectly on the DNA and doesn't require much space because I only store offline the songs I am currently listening to most. When I get sick of them, I unstar them and star others. So I rarely stream any music.
That is, if Spotify has the songs you like, and you are willing to pay the $9/month for it.
I use cloud-based services (Google, Amazon, etc.) However, I absolutely love Audiogalaxy. It's free and available on the Market. Once installed, you tell it what folders to point to, and voila, you have a music streaming service from your home.
Jaime
HTC Droid DNA
Nexus 7
findjaime said:
I use cloud-based services (Google, Amazon, etc.) However, I absolutely love Audiogalaxy. It's free and available on the Market. Once installed, you tell it what folders to point to, and voila, you have a music streaming service from your home.
Jaime
HTC Droid DNA
Nexus 7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks interesting, but here's what it says regarding Audio Galaxy on Google Play:
Sorry, Audiogalaxy is no longer accepting new users. Thanks for all your support. Please don't download this app unless you already have an account.

Why are people upset over the sd card?

Look folks I own the latest HTC phone built with an sd card. The evo lte. Having an sd card really isnt that big of a deal. The onboard sd card is much faster and i have a class 10 sandisk 32. Nothing is faster than that but onboard storage. Basically i use root explorer alot and any files not being used or accessed at that time you keep on the card anything current or needed to be flashed you keep onboard. Its almost like you have 2 sd cards not one. Now obviously the dna will not have this but a simple flash drive and adapter is the exact same thing! The only difference would be you cant run the files off the flash drive without transfering them but im not sure why you would run them off an external anyway if you had them? Onboard memory is faster anyhow? I just dont see why the fuss? Yall are mad about nothing lol. Flash drives cost about 20% more than a sd card. Relax its not a big deal. Lol
sent from my Evo 4g LTE
16GB isn't future proof for apps (mostly games). I wouldn't want to plug in a flash drive to play some games - that would be incredibly annoying. Other than that, I don't see it as a big deal. I also never listen to music while out though (besides car radio). I currently only use 3GB of space on my Incredible, but it also just can't handle any real games lol.
They have games bigger than 16 gb lol? I dont play games really but ok.
sent from my Evo 4g LTE
thetunicakid said:
They have games bigger than 16 gb lol? I dont play games really but ok.
sent from my Evo 4g LTE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some are over 2GB already, HD ones that inevitably come out soon will be 3-4GB. Well, the free roaming ones anyway - Angry Birds never will be. That means if only storing apps you could only have 3-4 games before running out of space. It's only 11GB free after formatting and the Jellybean/Sense etc.
I dont game on phones and never will. just got a 32gb nexus 7 so when my nephews come over they can play all the .99 cents games I bought last year. Stay away from my phone lol. I game but true joy is on big screen, xbox, pc, ps3, I really could care less about gaming on 5inch or 7inch screen where I get tired of controls after 5 mins.
Man im on my phone enough as it is! The last thing I need is another addiction lol.
sent from my Evo 4g LTE
It's a big deal for me as I have >35GB of music on my 64GB card currently. I had been looking forward to looking at this phone but not any more.
Guess it's the limitation
With the LTE clocking in around 20-50 Mbps where I live, I'm carrying about 20 million songs with me everywhere I go
impala454 said:
With the LTE clocking in around 20-50 Mbps where I live, I'm carrying about 20 million songs with me everywhere I go
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Until Verizon inevitably takes away unlimited data. Then if you listen a lot...
People always bring up that they have like 50GB of music.
I have a ton of music too, but come on people. Do you need to carry every single song you own with you in your pocket? REALLY?
I pick a few hundred songs to put on my phone and when I get tired of it I put new ones on.
thetunicakid said:
Look folks I own the latest HTC phone built with an sd card. The evo lte. Having an sd card really isnt that big of a deal. The onboard sd card is much faster and i have a class 10 sandisk 32. Nothing is faster than that but onboard storage. Basically i use root explorer alot and any files not being used or accessed at that time you keep on the card anything current or needed to be flashed you keep onboard. Its almost like you have 2 sd cards not one. Now obviously the dna will not have this but a simple flash drive and adapter is the exact same thing! The only difference would be you cant run the files off the flash drive without transfering them but im not sure why you would run them off an external anyway if you had them? Onboard memory is faster anyhow? I just dont see why the fuss? Yall are mad about nothing lol. Flash drives cost about 20% more than a sd card. Relax its not a big deal. Lol
sent from my Evo 4g LTE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure that not only 16GBs (11GBs usable), 8GBs (yep, 3GB usable only) storage is enough for many people who only surf webs, facebook, sometimes take some photos, listen to music a little bit and have some small apps. I think at least 50-70% smartphone owners use their device this way.
However, there are still a lot of people needing bigger storage for many purposes, and I dont know what you wanna ask. For you it's enough, and for others it's not, that is personal opinion and purpose.
Something similar that I saw in other fanboys' topics, such as when people blamed on iPhone about it's storage, close OS, small screen or just no bluetooth sharing, and many shew a ton of evidences that it's enough. The same thing with Samsung's plastic and Motorola's bootloader.
I personally don't use my phone for games, music or movies. I use it for email, calls, texts and web-browsing (as well as for certain productivity apps). However, I can certainly see how someone looking to use their phone as an all-in-one multimedia device would not be satisfied with 16gb.
In the end, like everything else in the world, it really is just subjective and based on personal use requirements which is why there is no reason for people to bash a device for so-and-so reason or for people to bash the people doing so because, at the end of the day, there's always a group out there that will find the specs of any piece of technology adequate for their needs.
flaring afro said:
Until Verizon inevitably takes away unlimited data. Then if you listen a lot...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's no way I'll ever come close to the limit listening to streaming music. To take up 4GB of data I'd have to listen to 128 Kbps streaming constantly for 69 hours. Some people might have issue with that but I know I won't. Plus I tend to use the spotify feature to download my favorite playlists to the device so it's rarely streaming anyways. Automatic sync and everything. It's a wonderful setup for music for only $10/mo.
thank you
impala454 said:
There's no way I'll ever come close to the limit listening to streaming music. To take up 4GB of data I'd have to listen to 128 Kbps streaming constantly for 69 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aren't the data plans 2gb/$30 and 5gb/$50 a month? There is a big difference between streaming up to 2gb vs. 4gb.
Simple. They need access to more than 13gb of stuff. Is it really beyond your comprehension that there are people in the world that need this? I think using a flash drive with my phone is really cool but its a bit ridiculous to think it could replace the function of an SD card. You may as well ask why anyone would want more that 8gb of data on a phone or 4gb of data.
Or better yet why do you think you need more than 1gb of storage on your phone. I only use my phone for email and the internet so I can't understand why anyone in the world would need more than a gigabyte, I mean my email cache is like less than 100mb and the internet is LITERALLY on the internet so I don't need ANY storage for that. Even if i downloaded an app, that's like what, a few more mbs? What could anyone possible have on their phone that would exceed 1gb.
Your experience ≠ everyone else.
Thrillhouse847 said:
Aren't the data plans 2gb/$30 and 5gb/$50 a month? There is a big difference between streaming up to 2gb vs. 4gb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really to me. I track my usage and over the past six months on my Sprint EVO 4G I've averaged ~415MB per month total. That includes my spotify usage, internet, maps, searches, occasional youtube, etc. Of course I see my usage going up somewhat when I get on LTE, but not by tenfold. My original point was that the need to carry around 50GB of music is nullified (at least for me) by using something like Spotify.
My remaining question to those who insist on carrying that much music, why are you only limiting yourself to that much? I mean, I have 200GB+ on a storage drive at home. You can't carry all that around so what's the difference between 50 and 200?
I could care less about not having an SD card, but I don't play games or store music so much less memory is needed for my use. I can completely understand those who game a lot and store music and vids needing one. My biggest concern would be getting it rooted and being able to access the hotspot hacked of course. When this can be done ill be very tempted to pick one up.
AliceBToklas said:
It's a big deal for me as I have >35GB of music on my 64GB card currently. I had been looking forward to looking at this phone but not any more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was worried about the lack of storage expansion in my current device, but I soon realized I didn't need my entire music collection with me all the time.
I have a lot of music, but I just don't listen to it often enough for an SD card slot (or lack thereof) to be a deal breaker
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Storage Size Discussion

I'm confused as to why anyone would need more than 32gb.... What do you use all that storage for?
All of my data (basically) is in the cloud (Google music, Google photos, etc...).
Titanium backup, ROMs, lots of apps, etc... Should still all fit on 32gb, no?
I do get why iPhones need all that storage....
bongostl said:
I'm confused as to why anyone would need more than 32gb.... What do you use all that storage for?
All of my data (basically) is in the cloud (Google music, Google photos, etc...).
Titanium backup, ROMs, lots of apps, etc... Should still all fit on 32gb, no?
I do get why iPhones need all that storage....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lots of -18 movies
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A
Cloud is great but what if u get stuck in a basement. Rare but happens. No wifi or service and bored. Lol. 64gb is alot for entertainment. 32gb still ok. A few movies.
---------- Post added at 10:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:10 PM ----------
Haha. Yea. I have 1-2 movies. Everything else is cloud/movie services. Like vudu, netflix. And plex from my home network.
I've got 6gb for spotify and another 10gb for movies and sites. I'm not going to stream all that and sometimes you need to keep your toddler quiet and happy.
128 is plenty enough for me
32GB Nexus 6 right now... I currently only have a couple games on it. But with my new 64GB Nexus 6P Ill be able to download all my music and several movies and TV shows without worrying about using data. For me its more convenience, I could make due with 32GB but 64GB gives me more leg room.
I went for the 128gb as there wasn't much difference in price over the 64gb.
I won't use the space intially, as I tend to stream most of my media content, whether it's netflix, spotify, amazon video etc. But I do like having local content, plus apps, 4k video etc take more and more storage and it's only going to get bigger.
I'd always rather have more than needed rather than not enough. I'd hate to buy the 32gb and for whatever reason further down the line realise that I don't have enough space and start having to micro manage storage.
For $50 less before tax than my 64gb Nexus was last year I think it's a steal. I wasn't originally going to buy jt because I didn't know the price but for $650 is begging people to buy it.
ive started listening to a lot of music in FLAC, and one of my albums is 240MB alone, so I've gotten used to the larger storage options
- Games
- FHD/4K recordings
- Random files
- Books/comics
- Music
Honestly the answer should be obvious, since even 64GB can be quite easy to fill. I personally don't care for cloud services, I keep "non-documents" stored locally. When you rely and constantly sync/stream with those services you just add another source for battery drain, which can be avoided altogether by storing frequently accessed files, music, vids, etc. on the device.
Sent from my LG-H950
One word. Multirom. 64 GB Nexus 6 here and ran out of space running multirom and testing different builds for friends.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Games, movies and music. Not everyone has a large or unlimited data plan, and some people regularly have to travel oversea to work. A whole season of 1080p Game of Thrones will easily fill up 32GB of memory.
The way I see it, Android O/S isn't getting any smaller. Neither are apps. Since I actually plan to keep this one awhile, I opted for the largest size. Plus, since I'm on Fi, every little bit of data savings helps, so I tend to front-load most of my Google Play Music stations and download movies while on wi-fi, storing them for offline use. It all adds up.
Having said that... I could probably have lived with 32, and certainly 64. But eh... it wasn't a whole lot more expensive, so I figured why not?
crazyg0od33 said:
ive started listening to a lot of music in FLAC, and one of my albums is 240MB alone, so I've gotten used to the larger storage options
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you honestly tell the difference between lossless or 320? I certainly cannot warrant the exponential increase in memory for it.
hello00 said:
128 is plenty enough for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a bit tight but I'll manage.
crazyg0od33 said:
ive started listening to a lot of music in FLAC, and one of my albums is 240MB alone, so I've gotten used to the larger storage options
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly! With 128gb, I can finally end the compromise between lossless sound quality and how much music I can keep on me. Plus, capturing 4k video isn't small either. Toss in a few movies, nandroid backups, and all the other misc stuff, and I can fill 64gb in a hurry!
---------- Post added 30th September 2015 at 12:02 AM ---------- Previous post was 29th September 2015 at 11:55 PM ----------
Cares said:
Can you honestly tell the difference between lossless or 320? I certainly cannot warrant the exponential increase in memory for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Clear difference between the two. The better your headphones, the more of a difference it makes as well. Example: http://amzn.com/B00LXBC7W4
I think 32g is good enough, if we manage the data well, there is no reason to store so many video on a tiny phone to watch, right?
I barely used half of my 64gb Nexus. I've been using a lot more cloud services and I used to fill storage but now not so much. 128 is the same price as my 64 was last year. Ultimately the 128GB is likely overkill but it will sell for more when the time comes.
Main reason, cause I can
Sent from my Nexus 6
For video s
Sent from my One X using XDA Free mobile app

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