For all that Samsung gave you with the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra, whether it’s the upgraded hardware, slightly tweaked design, or something else, there are also some features not present. If you didn’t notice in the latest marketing material already, there’s no mention of expandable storage. Well, that’s because there’s nothing like this in the current lineup. That’s correct, there’s no microSD card slot available on any Galaxy S21 model, and while that’s disappointing to see, there were some reasons behind this decision.
Expandable Storage Option Was Cut out, Likely to Keep Costs Down to Where They Are Right Now
Browsing through the Galaxy S21 lineup’s specifications page, you’ll notice that Samsung hasn’t provided users with an option to expand their existing storage. In short, whatever model you pre-order from here on, you’ll have to be careful about your storage usage. You can’t slot in a microSD card any longer. For Galaxy S20 customers wanting to upgrade, this would strike them as a missing feature and, by extension, a downgrade.
However, if you didn’t notice, Samsung isn’t charging you as much as it did when the Galaxy S20 series came into existence back in 2020. Like it or not, as much as it’s a welcoming sight to see the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra offered at lower prices than their direct predecessors, it comes at a cost. It’s not a perfect world where customers get to mold their ideal flagship smartphone, so you’ll have to pick what the company produces and offers.
Another cost-cutting measure Samsung took was to offer the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21 Plus in 8GB LPDDR5 RAM models only. Last year, the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20 Plus could be configured with up to 12GB LPDDR5 RAM, so that’s another drawback if you’re going to upgrade in the coming weeks. The plus side is that you have 128GB of storage to work with, and it’s standard on all models. For regular users, it’s more than enough, but if you’re going to be storing your entire media library on these flagships, you’ll have to pick out higher storage tiers, sadly.
