Thanks for the tip, but I was referring to the battery drain while using the wireless device. Not sure if native wireless Android Auto drains as much battery, but using these 3rd party dongles drains about 15% every 30 mins on my phone, even when not actively using navigation.

Great device, with long term support. Occasionally buggy for periods of time, but somehow fixes itself randomly. I only wish it didn’t use up as much of my phone’s battery.

Another year holding onto my Note 20 Ultra, I guess. God, I hate what Samsung has become.

Amen! The only thing keeping me from upgrading from my Note 20 Ultra is the lack of options for SD card slots! The idea of having to pay a premium for storage each time I upgrade my device is insulting and terrible for personal finances. And with all the recent headlines about cloud storage being hacked, or how it was inaccessible, I wouldn’t trust it even if I always had access to an internet connection (which I don’t always have, especially when out and about).

Hell, they could upcharge this “feature” and have it available only on the Ultra models to help justify the exhorbitant cost and I would pay it.

Even if they manage to get big players like Spotify to develop apps for them, a lot of people - at least on the Android side - have smaller, niche apps for audiobooks and podcasts that would never bother to port their apps to GM services. Heck, even Apple Music and YouTube Music wouldn’t bother. I smell an upcoming BOGO deal on their overstocked dealerships, just before they get another bailout check.

I’m a big fan of Podcast Republic. Great dev, feature-rich, and a much improved UI from when I first started using it.

Funnily enough, I had this conversation with some friends that Taylor Swift would probably sweep the electoral college. Highly popular, progressive, white (to get a few of the Republican voters whose vote is base on the way their rep looks), and has a fan base that can potentially outmatch MAGA if her name was on the ballot.

Whether she would be a successful politician, on the other hand, can be cleared by the fact that we survived 4 years of Trump. So it can’t be worse than that fiasco.

Finally! I just hope it’s precise when updating scores, and that it’s customizable to some degree. But knowing Google, you may get one, but not the other.

For those who prefer an app, so they aren’t tied to an OEM’s settings, I use BuzzKill for notification history, along with it’s more infamous tool set - deep notification management. Its a paid app, but it’s a one time purchase of less than $5 when I bought it.

You just made me put on my tinfoil hat. Because AI uses so much RAM and resources, and all these OS’s are implementing them on-device, this would be the ideal way to slow down all previous generation devices and force customers to buy new ones! Heck, even if they do onboard the AI software efficiently, they’d probably use it as the perfect excuse to slow them down anyway. Imagine how big the OneUI 7.0 update with AI would be. 30GB of internal storage and occupying 90% of RAM at all times, perhaps?

/Tinfoil rant

Someone mentioned a rumor on Reddit about the possibility of the Ultra having the SD Card returning. Anyone have the Vegas odds on that, because that would be the most exciting news a Samsung release would have had in years.

Great dev too! I suggested a few improvements awhile back, and not only did he respond back, he had it implemented within the next update. And a one time payment instead of a subscription, which automatically makes this highly customizable app better than most of its peers.

Not sure what Moto’s camera gestures are, but if you’re now using a Samsung, you can say “smile” or “cheese” to take a picture when in camera mode. Super handy when you’re holding something in the other hand. As for flashlight, there are plenty of options, such as MacroDroid & Tasker. I currently have the flashlight on/off bound to double-clicking the Bixby button.

In what way are any of those phones “premium?” You’re literally listing the two phones I can get to access an SD card. The $1400 Sony or low to mid-range ones. So I have to compromise my choice in my diminishing feature set so that the common man can have yet another Galaxy, Pixel, or even an iPhone that doesn’t distinguish themselves beyond their OS/skin, camera count, and folding screens? Pick any one of these phones in the last 3 years and tell me what makes them unique and more practical than my Note 20 Ultra.

Plus, at least in the US, the common man is going for an iPhone. Apple just got nearly 60% of the market share here, so no, there isn’t a plethora of choices, and Android OEMs aren’t exactly fighting tooth and nail to provide exceptions in their products. So if I want a phone with actual “premium” features - such as cameras that eat up storage - and includes an SD card slot, it’s down to Sony and Sony alone.

Still on my Note 20 Ultra, since it’s the last real “Ultra” phone that Samsung has released, except for the headphone jack, but I’ve learned to adapt with this compromise. I think my SD Card was a SanDisk? I don’t remember, since I bought it years ago, and it has lasted me since I got this phone on release day. I didn’t really care about read-write speed, because everything I’m accessing doesn’t really require blazing fast transfers.

Yup. How much would it hurt you if your phone had a small space for a SD card slot? If you don’t use it, who cares. It’s not affecting you a single iota. The only people benefiting are the OEM’s, because god knows your phone hasn’t gotten any cheaper since they began removing hardware features.

Exactly! I literally don’t know what to do with my SD card if I succumb to OEM’s wishes and get a phone without the memory expansion. Nor do I want to spend +$150 per phone to get the 1TB option if they even offer one. I already bought my SD card once, so why would I want to do it again and again and again?

I love audiobooks, haha. There’s also some by a studio called Graphic Audio, which is a dramatized version of audiobooks filled with a full cast of voice actors, music, and sound effects! It’s pretty cool, but each audiobook is like 4x the size of a normal book. I also read books that are part of a series. Each one is usually 5+ books long.

A lot of comments in this thread defending OEMs from customer’s benefits, which is disheartening to me, but I’m sure joyous for shareholders. I see comments saying you should buy premium phones that have SD cards, but there aren’t many options. The only one is a $1400 Xperia I V. I would love nothing more to have the SD card on only the “ultra” variants, if costs are too much of an issue for those who don’t use the feature, but there’s not much “ultra” in the “Ultra” variant besides an extra camera or two.

For those who are baffled by what we hoard on our devices, why does it matter? Do we ask what you do on your phone when there doesn’t seem to be anything on them? “I barely use 50GB on my device” and “128GB is more than enough for me” seem to be the prevailing notion here, and it’s frustrating since your demographic is already highly represented on the market. It’s similar to those who wish there wasn’t a selfie cam because they never used it, ignoring all the video calls millions use on a daily basis.

But maybe an answer might stop the “curiosity” of the sparse data hoarders, and they might understand our plight. On my 1TB SD Card, I currently have:

220GB Audiobooks 18GB Music 34GB Pictures 330GB Videos, Movies, and TV Shows 10GB Work and Project Files 12GB Podcasts 14GB Games

As someone who is frequently in low-signal areas, especially while driving, streaming is not an option. My media has entertained me during flights, public transit commutes, working out, jury duty, and the DMV. I also don’t want to transfer my media in and out of my device (I do back up my data wirelessly to my own server), nor do I want to bring an adapter when the technology is already embedded inside.

So OP, I feel you, and I’m hoping SD cards comeback.

I said it before and I’ll happily say it again. Removing hardware features while increasing prices will always cause stagnation down the road. When software features, camera bumps, and folding screens are all you have to offer, people will just keep their phones longer and use a $3 app to fill in the missing “feature” on One UI 6, Pixel’s exclusive feature drops, or even Apple’s Dynamic Island.