Android phones with a memory card slot are given a bit of room to work with, expanding the storage simply by adding a card. But by how much? Well, if a new card is any indication, a whole lot.
Mobile World Congress may well be the event for mobile phones, but things for those phones are just as important, and when you’re talking about new devices cameras and the ability to store music, movies, photos, and more, memory is a seriously big deal.
Simply put: how much memory do you need? How much will make your phone complete? How much will give you the flexibility you need to feel like you can take a photo or capture a 4K movie without worrying about how much is left?
If the answer is “the biggest amount”, this week that size has just increased, as WD and its SanDisk brand reveals as new memory card capable of storing more.
In fact, it’s so much more, it’s the sort of thing that could turn a 128GB phone into supporting over half a terabyte of storage, or if thrown into a 256GB phone — like the 256GB Samsung Galaxy S9 — brings the storage amount to edging close to the 1TB mark. For a phone.
For a phone, that might seem like lunacy, but it’s the real deal, with SanDisk’s 400GB microSD card, a SanDisk Extreme model that operates at UHS-I for high-speed video like with 4K capture, and supports the “A2” specification for fast application load up, as well.
“Our expertise in flash memory and microSD card electronics enables us to achieve unmatched performance,” said Western Digital’s Jim Welsh.
“The breakthrough SanDisk microSD card is evidence of Western Digital’s commitment to delivering more advanced solutions that enable data to thrive,” he said.
While microSD cards were hoped to have hit the 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB marks by this time, 400GB is still an achievement, and is now one of the highest cards available, though not every phone will support the card size. Almost everything we’re seeing at Mobile World Congress will, but that doesn’t mean everything, so check with manufacturers before plonking down the money and buying one.
And as for when you can do that and how much it will cost, Western Digital didn’t say much, though a spokesperson for the company did tell Pickr that “local pricing and availability in Australia will be confirmed in the coming months”, giving you a bit of time to save for what will likely be a relatively high-priced memory card. Seriously, folks, there’s a lot of storage here, and we can’t imagine WD will make it cheap.
