undefined | Better HN

0 pointsvetinari13y ago0 comments

Don't hold your breath for "fixing" LTE and microsd in Nexuses.

LTE is currently a negotiation point in hands of carriers. The price of supporting LTE would be no timely updates (see also Verizon and Sprint Galaxy Nexus). This is something that Google will not compromise about.

MicroSD is a slightly different story, it has several problems:

UX ones:

- most users are confused by two separate storage pools (see the confusion: "I have XY gigabites free on the phone, why can't I install this app?") - the SD card has to be unmounted, when the phone is attached to the computer - that means killing everything, that was launched from the card.

Technical:

- The MicroSD performance is inferior to eMMC.

Legal:

- You have to license FAT32 and exFAT (for SDXC) from Microsoft. (Yes, I know that it is technically possible to use different filesystems with SD cards - but that is a decision that would not go very well with mainstream users who just want to connect the phone to their Windows or Apple computer).

0 comments

untog13y ago

I'm still interested by the fate of LTE in the Nexus 4- it has the hardware for it, but it's manually disabled. When T-Mobile launch their LTE network it'll be interesting to see if any hacks will re-enable it. It could end up being one of the first technically unlicensed LTE devices.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse