SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick Aims to Alleviate Your Abandoned microSD Slot Woes

[kodiak799]

IMO, it's just something else you need to carry. I rather have an SD.

Exactly. I almost always have my phone with me. It's a convenient way not to worry about what cloud service or USB stick I saved something on. It's hard to believe in 2015 that "expandable storage" is something we have to argue about with phones.

It's just greed. Buy a low-end phone and you'll get an SD....so we actually pay a premium NOT to have sd cards on many flagships. That's just messed up.

 

[mountainbikermark]

IMO, it's just something else you need to carry. I rather have an SD.

The cool factor alone makes it worth having and using.

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[mountainbikermark]

I'm wondering if you connect to this thing via wifi if that means you love your wifi internet connection? I know bluetooth can be connected to a few devices simultaneously, but I've never seen my phone want to connect to 2 different access points via wifi. I'm almost tempted to pick one of these up to check it out, but I'm not totally sold on the idea that I might use it often enough to justify it.

According to specs it connects to up to 3 devices at once.
They're out of stock so I'm going to skip getting one for now. I'm sure I'll be over my intrigue in the 2-4 weeks before they get more in stock.
If the Wi-Fi in it is like the one in my SD card it'll last a long time between charges. my camera powers my SD card but the battery difference is almost none, probably 3-5 shots worth per charge. It uses 4 rechargeable AAs and I get about 400 shots per charge with WiFi on and just a few more with the Wi-Fi off.

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[eebvending]

Since people have cameras that have SD cards, they know how to use them. You tell them their phone has a microSD card, they have an idea how to use it and will figure out the advantages of storing files there. More people use them than 1% of A

 

[eebvending]

Here is another company coming up with a solution. Sad it has come to this. In 2015 mobile phones are going backwards in time. You know, my Qualcomm "candy bar" style phone I got in 2000 didn't have removable battery or microSD slot either. Wow, it's just like the new Samsungs!!!!!!!!! :halfninja:

Galaxy S6 gains microSD battery thanks to Incipio - SlashGear

 

[Jonny Kansas]

According to specs it connects to up to 3 devices at once.
They're out of stock so I'm going to skip getting one for now. I'm sure I'll be over my intrigue in the 2-4 weeks before they get more in stock.
If the Wi-Fi in it is like the one in my SD card it'll last a long time between charges. my camera powers my SD card but the battery difference is almost none, probably 3-5 shots worth per charge. It uses 4 rechargeable AAs and I get about 400 shots per charge with WiFi on and just a few more with the Wi-Fi off.

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I think you missed my question. I'm not asking how many devices can connect to the memory stick.

I want to know, if I connect my phone/tablet/computer to the stick via WiFi, do I then lose my WiFi connection to my router while I'm connected to the stick?

 

[Jeffrey]

My guess is you would lose the PC connection. It would be like trying to connect to multiple routers..

 

[TisMyDroid]

I think you missed my question. I'm not asking how many devices can connect to the memory stick.

I want to know, if I connect my phone/tablet/computer to the stick via WiFi, do I then lose my WiFi connection to my router while I'm connected to the stick?

Good question? We have to convince mbk not to give up on the idea of buying one so he can test all these things out for us, !

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[Ollie]

I think you missed my question. I'm not asking how many devices can connect to the memory stick.

I want to know, if I connect my phone/tablet/computer to the stick via WiFi, do I then lose my WiFi connection to my router while I'm connected to the stick?

Yes.

 

[SquireSCA]

I think most people, except those with iPhones, became very familiar with using an SD card to expand their storage. Initially, many phones were sold with an added SD card which introduced that capability to millions. Although I don't have accurate #'s, it seems that most people use their phones as their first choice for taking pictures & videos. It seems hard to imagine that a phone with only 8gb/16gb/32gb of internal storage would be enough space to handle all those pics & vids without adding more storage.

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Most phones today that don't have SD cards, come with 32GB or more. The people buying the low end phones that have less, typically are not buying phones for pics and video...

Talk to people that actually work in the industry and sell these things, and they will tell you that 9 out of 10 times, the consumer doesn't know or care.

Some of us nerds do, and we are a fraction of the market. And people like myself, that used to make sure we always had a 64GB card in there, realized that we barely used the thing. The only difference it made was that I could just remove the card and move it to another device, without having to copy the files over USB. Other than that, I saw no real benefit, only the perception that "I have all this space if I need it!", which of course I never did.

All my apps, 300+ MP3's, some large PDF's, and 1,200+ high rez pics and videos, and my 32GB phone still has 12gb free...

Most people just don't care about SD the way some forum members do...

 

[SquireSCA]

I agree 100%.
I simply don't buy the whole "99% of people dont know about or use ext sd cards" statement. Having owned 3 Galaxy S devices, (starting with the original), along with having regularly participated on Galaxy forums ever since their release, it's been my experience that the majority of folks that actually have the option to use an external sd card, HAVE & do use them. Obviously, the sd card issue is much less important to those folks that have never had the option to begin with, than for those of us who've been using them for years.

As for this cool device, what if you don't use, or don't have access to WiFi at any given time? Would you still be able to transfer via your data connection?
One reviewer noted that this device only transfers photo or video files, and doesn't support PDF files. Seems a bit odd.

S5 tap'n

The majority of folks in FORUMS.

That's less than 1% of the market. If Samsung felt that it would really hurt sales, they would not do it. Same with Apple. Moto with their Droid Turbo... Google with the Nexus line... And others that will soon stop offering SD options.

As a whole, SD just doesn't matter.

You are in a little bubble here in the forums. Enthusiasts. We are a fraction of 1% of their sales.

How many forum members are here? couple thousand? How many of us have any one particular phone? Maybe 500-800?

Samsung will sell 100 million GS6's around the world.

We are not even a tiny blip on their radar, that;s my point...

 

[mountainbikermark]

I think you missed my question. I'm not asking how many devices can connect to the memory stick.

I want to know, if I connect my phone/tablet/computer to the stick via WiFi, do I then lose my WiFi connection to my router while I'm connected to the stick?

Yes you lose the connection to your router while connected to the stick. Weird how a card is more capable than a phone in that regard but yes it is that way due to limitations in the phone. The phone cannot connect to any multiple Wi-Fi addresses at once, be it the memory stick or a second router in your home/office.
Perhaps in time that will change, such as Bluetooth multi connect has grown, but for now it's a drawback. Like with my Circles I can connect to both my watch and phone at the same time as the headphones can distinguish which protocol to use (such as phone calls on watch protocol and music protocol on the phone simultaneously perhaps in time Wi-Fi sticks will change the market enough to have code writers (or whoever comes up with this stuff) manage it so the phones/tablets can distinguish what uses the Wi-Fi connections are for and multi connect based on protocols.

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[kodiak799]

That's less than 1% of the market. If Samsung felt that it would really hurt sales, they would not do it. Same with Apple. Moto with their Droid Turbo... Google with the Nexus line... .

They do it because they know people will still buy the phone, and pay a premium for 32, 64 or 128 gigs of storage. And they do it so the next model or two can have added storage so they keep steadily increasing the specs, even if it's trivial.

If this was about anything more than gouging us on storage, phones would ONLY have like 16 gigs of storage and an sd slot. But Sammie and Apple know on premium phones they'd be leaving a lot of money on the table doing that.

This is unique to the phone/tablet space. Laptops and even the PS/Xbox have progressively added storage, had additional options (like SD slots/USB ports) and been easy to upgrade with bigger hard drives.

The report I read was from 2012, but the market for SD cards was expected to grow to $21B by 2018. That's a heck of a lot more than a few million users.

 

[cr6]

The majority of folks in FORUMS.

That's less than 1% of the market. If Samsung felt that it would really hurt sales, they would not do it. Same with Apple. Moto with their Droid Turbo... Google with the Nexus line... And others that will soon stop offering SD options.

As a whole, SD just doesn't matter.

You are in a little bubble here in the forums. Enthusiasts. We are a fraction of 1% of their sales.

How many forum members are here? couple thousand? How many of us have any one particular phone? Maybe 500-800?

Samsung will sell 100 million GS6's around the world.

We are not even a tiny blip on their radar, that;s my point...

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. People that come to forums aren't all nerds, geeks or techies. They're regular folks as well who simply want to learn more about their device.

S5 tap'n

 

[FoxKat]

+1

And also this is just one forum... This forum has a membership of some 300,000 last I checked. There are literally at the minimum hundreds of forums like it, possibly thousands if you add in all the manufacturers forums, and the magazine and other review forums. I believe your estimate of us being a fraction of 1% may be slightly short of the true percentage of people on forums for Android phones.

Still and more importantly as these phones get higher and higher resolution cameras, as people buy more and more music and video content in their phones, as the mass of sites data becomes a greater and greater part of our everyday lives the need for a safe, secure, resident and removable archival backup system becomes more and more relevant and necessary.

Backups will not go away for a very long time IMHO, not until someone invents and perfects a storage method that is infallible, ultra fast, encrypted but with a safe way to recover and reverse that encryption, and dirt cheap. It may be a hologram type storage that either is about to be, or already has been invented but not yet perfected, or some other as yet unknown method.

Until then, removable SD cards are the most efficient system available. We now have cards that are fingernail in size and which can hold now upto an incredible 200GB ( 200GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card Premium Edition and can deliver that data instantaneously at an amazing 90MB/s. There isn't a Wi-Fi or USB storage device or there that can come close. Even the far less impressive 128GB and 64GB cards are still mind-blowing in their own right.

I don't like that manufacturers have moved away from removable storage, especially since most plans now are based on pay as you go Data and cloud storage is really the only other similarly convenient method of storage.