Onboard device storage is kept low for these reasons...
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2026 8:27 am
Checking right now on Microcenter, a Sandisk Ultra Plus 1.5 TB microSDXC Memory Card is priced around $360 USD. A Samsung Galaxy Fold 8 phone however, starts at $1,900, and only comes at that price point with 256GB of storage. To upgrade to the Galaxy Fold 8 model with 1 TB of storage, a whopping $600 is added to the pre-tax price of the phone on Samsung.Com (as of a quote pulled on the day this is published).
The latest released (flagship) iPhone, specifically the 17 Pro Max, (Their newest phone at the time of publication) start at only 256GB of storage for $1,199 but adds $500 for an upgrade to 1TB storage, and a whopping $900 for a 2GB storage option.
It seems kind of crazy to look at phone prices these days, as inflation and tariffs have taken over consumer pricing and trade involving overseas parts suppliers, but the vast difference in pricing based on storage from above doesn't quite add up, especially when you consider that none of the above phones have SD card ports, which phones from many years ago did often come with, in order to increase their storage capability, and to add device value to convince consumers a device is better than devices produced by comepting companies, but somehow, modern devices seem to be less & less about customer satisfaction and more about subscription pricing.
Many would agree that phone storage is kept artificially expensive as an option on most consumer electronics now to encourage cloud storage sales, and to make dependency on cloud services mandatory, but I think as a very engaged user of many apps & services, I get very frustrated when trying to store & manage files on phones I use frequntly because there never seems to be enough storage on my phone, and I have a 1GB model.
I make music, and do video editing, along with a host of other things like real estate and IT work... I constantly have to save files to my phone... I'm also not a huge fan of streaming, I like to keep a huge collection of music, and even movies on my phone to watch when I'm on planes. or camping, or even where Internet service is unavailable.
It seems kind of like there has been a bit too little progress in storage increases on personal devices, in order to discourage saving files locally in order to force cloud utilisation. There is a huge problem in forcing users to have to delete their local files and only save to cloud accounts, because the data can be lost easily, ot if the files are often large, they can't be downloaded easily & backed up manually. More importantly, I've found the cloud often reduces quality of certain file types, like images & videos, which can completely destroy the value of files saved there if you do video editing like I do...
To top this matter off, because I have a turkey cookin' in the oven, local device storage should be a lot higher at the base level & less expensive as an option than it currently is... The same storage size issues & limitations often happen with many other devices.
You may notice that when you shoot a video on your phone in the TikTok or Instagram apps, you're often not left with a full-quality HD image nor video file... That means that you're giving away the first & best copy of your video to a company, rather than keeping your master copies of your own videos...
We should make sure that we don't take vital device features for granted, that we back up files regularly. and also probably demand memory card ports added back to phones, and probalby headphone jacks as well.
The latest released (flagship) iPhone, specifically the 17 Pro Max, (Their newest phone at the time of publication) start at only 256GB of storage for $1,199 but adds $500 for an upgrade to 1TB storage, and a whopping $900 for a 2GB storage option.
It seems kind of crazy to look at phone prices these days, as inflation and tariffs have taken over consumer pricing and trade involving overseas parts suppliers, but the vast difference in pricing based on storage from above doesn't quite add up, especially when you consider that none of the above phones have SD card ports, which phones from many years ago did often come with, in order to increase their storage capability, and to add device value to convince consumers a device is better than devices produced by comepting companies, but somehow, modern devices seem to be less & less about customer satisfaction and more about subscription pricing.
Many would agree that phone storage is kept artificially expensive as an option on most consumer electronics now to encourage cloud storage sales, and to make dependency on cloud services mandatory, but I think as a very engaged user of many apps & services, I get very frustrated when trying to store & manage files on phones I use frequntly because there never seems to be enough storage on my phone, and I have a 1GB model.
I make music, and do video editing, along with a host of other things like real estate and IT work... I constantly have to save files to my phone... I'm also not a huge fan of streaming, I like to keep a huge collection of music, and even movies on my phone to watch when I'm on planes. or camping, or even where Internet service is unavailable.
It seems kind of like there has been a bit too little progress in storage increases on personal devices, in order to discourage saving files locally in order to force cloud utilisation. There is a huge problem in forcing users to have to delete their local files and only save to cloud accounts, because the data can be lost easily, ot if the files are often large, they can't be downloaded easily & backed up manually. More importantly, I've found the cloud often reduces quality of certain file types, like images & videos, which can completely destroy the value of files saved there if you do video editing like I do...
To top this matter off, because I have a turkey cookin' in the oven, local device storage should be a lot higher at the base level & less expensive as an option than it currently is... The same storage size issues & limitations often happen with many other devices.
You may notice that when you shoot a video on your phone in the TikTok or Instagram apps, you're often not left with a full-quality HD image nor video file... That means that you're giving away the first & best copy of your video to a company, rather than keeping your master copies of your own videos...
We should make sure that we don't take vital device features for granted, that we back up files regularly. and also probably demand memory card ports added back to phones, and probalby headphone jacks as well.