Does The Samsung Galaxy S22 Series Have A MicroSD Card Slot?

Key Takeaways

Premium smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy S22 series, no longer support microSD cards due to storage space and speed limitations.
Instead, devices offer ample internal storage options up to 1TB on the Galaxy S22 Ultra, plus you can use cloud storage or flash drives.
With companies prioritizing slim designs and increased internal hardware, microSD cards are unlikely to make a comeback on premium smartphones.

microSD cards have been slowly but surely disappearing from premium smartphones. As phones get thinner and more compact, there’s no longer space for microSD cards, and you have to rely on internal storage. If you’re wondering whether the Samsung Galaxy S22 series bucks that trend, we have the answer: It doesn’t. And neither of the phones that succeeded it (we’re up to the Galaxy S24 series now) brought it back.

The Samsung Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22 Plus, and Galaxy S22 Ultra, as well as all of their successors, come without support for microSD cards. Instead, you get up to 256GB of storage in the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 Plus, and up to 1TB on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. And in fact, this has become the standard ever since, with follow-up models also lacking a microSD card.

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The Galaxy S22 Ultra is absolutely fabulous, bringing the very best of Samsung in all areas of the phone experience. Here’s our review of the Snapdragon-powered version.

Why is there no microSD card slot on the Galaxy S22 (and newer phones)?

One of the reasons microSD card slots aren’t included in a lot of premium phones is because microSD cards tend to be a lot slower than the internal storage of a smartphone. That was the reason Samsung provided when it first removed microSD card support in the Galaxy S6 back in 2015. While there are standards for high-speed microSD cards, particularly with SD Express, SD cards with these speeds are very rare and incredibly expensive. Most common microSD cards offer maximum bus speeds of around 100MB/s, which is a big step down from the 2900MB/s of bandwidth in UFS 3.1, which is the storage standard used in the Galaxy S22 series.

Another reason for this is that companies would rather have you pay a premium to upgrade to a higher storage configuration, so they get more money from you directly. If you want more storage, you have to pay more for a higher storage configuration.

Finally, there’s also the matter of physical space. Companies simultaneously try to cram as many new features as possible into a phone while also trying to keep phones as slim as possible, so some sacrifices have to be made. The space that would be used by a microSD card can be used for a slightly larger battery, more camera sensors, and other hardware.

How can I get more storage without a microSD card?

The first and most obvious way to get more space for files on your phone is to buy a configuration with more storage space. 128GB isn’t a lot anymore, but if you get the 256GB model, you should have a solid amount of space. And in the case of the 512GB or 1TB versions of the Galaxy S22 Ultra, it’s fair to say most users will never use up that much space.

If you use a lot of space for storing photos and videos, another good option is resorting to cloud storage. There are plenty of cloud services that offer automatic photo backups on Android, including Google Photos, OneDrive, and many others. These are usually paid services (if you want more than a few gigabytes, at least), but in addition to saving space on your internal storage, they let you easily access your files from any device so you don’t have to worry about copying them over from your phone to your PC.

Finally, you can buy a USB Type-C flash drive, if you want a physical storage device. The Samsung Galaxy S22 series and most modern Android phones support USB-C flash drives, which you can use to store documents, photos, and more. You can also use it to move files to another phone or a PC.

It’s time to say goodbye to microSD cards on premium phones

Two years on from the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S22 series, we haven’t really seen microSD card slots make a comeback, whether that’s coming from Samsung itself or any other premium smartphone. Budget and mid-range options are the way to go if you care about microSD card support, but considering the downsides in terms of speed, it’s probably for the best that microSD cards are falling by the wayside.

Being that it’s over two years old now, the Samsung Galaxy S22 is very hard to find for sale, and we recommend you check out the Galaxy S24 instead.

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