Future-proofing my current phone

Several people I know, who have Android phones, are thinking about a phone upgrade this spring. The Samsung Galaxy S23 range is due out soon, and the model to have is probably the Ultra. It'll have the best processor and the best camera. 

It will also have a large amount of on-board data storage - at least 512GB - and for me that would be the key feature. For modern phones - the ones I'd consider buying anyway - have all given up on adding extra data storage with microSD cards. So the built-in storage has to be sufficient for both present and future needs. 

I need a lot of data storage for my ever-growing selection of  'most important photos' - the ones I carry around with me to look at, and to show to others. At the moment there are some 58,000 of those, but this will surely increase to almost 90,000 in the next four years, which is how long I usually keep a new phone. Plus of course all the other things, like music and maps, that I also store on my phone. I wouldn't yet need as much as 1TB, although I'd take it, if offered at a reasonable price. But I think 512GB would be ample. 

That's it then: a new phone with 512GB of data storage on board. Yippee!

Except that I've had my current phone for only two years, and it won't be until 2025 before I seriously consider replacing it. 

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S20+, and one key reason for buying it in 2021 - just as it was being replaced by the 2021 model - was so that I could enhance its data storage by inserting a microSD card. That hasn't been possible with more recent phones. Manufacturers have been trying to eliminate external slots and ports, to make their phones totally waterproof and dustproof, and generally ensure that they can't be meddled with (nor easily repaired, and their life thereby prolonged). For me it was essential to add extra storage for future needs. So getting 'last year's phone', to have that facility, made sense, quite apart from the lower purchase cost. And I haven't regretted my choice. It's a great phone, perfectly good enough for the next two years.

But the 256GB microSD card I'm still using in it will certainly not be sufficient for those two years. So I've been looking at buying a larger-capacity 512GB microSD card to pop in. I don't need anything very fancy. I don't need a superlatively fast card. I like Sandisk cards, and their 512GB Ultra card will do fine. Readers will know that Amazon are not at all my favourite online source, but they are offering that card right now for £38.99. Actually, with 'premium delivery', the price is in fact £43.98. Well, if I get it tomorrow, I can upgrade my phone's memory over the weekend. And £43.98 doesn't seem very much to future-proof my phone. I've placed my order. 

Of course I'll have to transfer the contents of the existing 256GB card to the new card, but that's easy. I just connect my phone by USB cable to my laptop, then insert the new card (which nests inside a standard-sized SD card holder) into the laptop's SD card slot. Then copy-and-paste the data across. And after that, physically swap cards in the phone. Suddenly, and almost magically, the phone will have oodles of fresh storage. Nirvana.

The only downside is that my next phone won't be able to take this new microSD. Nor indeed any card. So the new card will only have two year's use. And its capacity is far too large for my photographic needs: I get away with just an 8GB card in my Leica X Vario. I take stills only, and since each photo averages only 6MB in size, even a full day's shooting doesn't consume as much as 2GB. So if (as is becoming customary) I pass on my current S20+ phone in 2025 to a deserving friend, that 512GB card might as well go with it.  

UPDATE on 14th January

The new card arrived yesterday afternoon, and is now in my phone. It's nice to see the usable microSD space increase from 238GB to 477GB, and the proportion actually used reduce from 73% to only 37%. I've plenty of headroom now. More than enough.

It took several hours to copy-and-paste all the photo folders (139GB worth of them) onto the new card. It went smoothly and steadily, with no hitches, but the process wasn't especially fast. I suspect there were several electronic bottlenecks to inhibit rapid transfer. It ought to go noticeably faster with my next phone, with everything going straight into the phone's built-in memory - essentially like loading up a modern SSD.