Two Slashes

Flipping the memory card out of and back into my Treo the other day to swap some pictures and music in and out, I was reminded of the fact that there comes a point where things are just too small to be usable.  And, almost annoyingly, it’s the direction that everyone wants everything to be going in.  Phones, portable media players, computers…everything you can think of.

While it’s a novel thought to be able to cram in all my data into something the size of my fingernail, it’s also quite unwieldy when it comes time to transfer that data to something else by swapping cards around.  And this is considering my small hands.  Yes, I’m talking about MicroSD cards (for lack of anything else I feel like ranting about tonight).

The original SD card was reasonably-sized to begin with, at least where I’m concerned.  It wasn’t bulky, and I could hold it in my hand without worrying about either breaking or dropping and losing it.  MiniSD was alright too (for the same reasons), though it wasn’t widely adopted (or that much different in overall size) so there wasn’t much of a point.  But MiniSD annoys me like none other (hence this last-minute post?).  It’s not like we’re talking differences in thickness here, either, as the only real dimension changes (at least, the ones I’m concerned with at the moment) are the length and width of the card.

My previous PDA, a Tungsten|T2, had a full-size SD card slot.  It didn’t add anything to the thickness of the device, and it wasn’t annoying to use, as you could actually grasp the cards when you were inserting or removing them.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the MicroSD-based devices I’ve had the misfortune to use.  And, even more unfortunately, it’s not going to change in a way that makes me any happier, either.

Expandability, especially in terms of storage, is a concern for most people (*cough* except iPhone users *cough*), but considering your cell phone doesn’t have the size constraint of a fingernail, there isn’t a reason why you have to pretend the extra storage you use for it has to follow such a constraint.  Why, then, do phone manufacturers think they need to blindly obey?

Forgive me for being boring and ranting about something nobody in their right mind would care about, then forgetting to schedule the post.  You can run along, now.