It’s no secret by now that HTC’s decision to exclude a microSD card slot from its latest flagship phones is mostly unpopular with the masses. The company has received a lot of flack regarding the omission of the feature in the HTC One by users and reviewers. To make matters even worse, HTC’s Chinese variant of the HTC One does, in fact, include a microSD card slot.
Initially, we assumed this was because that variant had a few tenths of a millimeter of extra girth on the other models thanks to the dual-SIM capabilities, though HTC wasn’t keen on commenting about the difference… until now. According to HTC:
Because the Chinese version of the One is designed specifically for the smaller Chinese radio bands, we do have additional space inside the device we were able to use for the microSD slot. That space isn’t available to us in the global version.
It’s an interesting excuse to make when the dual-SIM slots make a lot more sense. This only makes us even more suspicious of HTC’s true reasoning. If the Chinese variant has “smaller” radios then why does it need even more depth than the European and American models?
And considering there are phones on the market much thinner than the HTC One which still include microSD card slots, we’re just not buying this excuse (or at least not taking it at 100% face value). Let’s not even mention the fact that some of HTC’s 2012 phones, which were a decent amount thicker than the HTC One, didn’t have microSD card slots, as well.
Are you calling HTC’s bluff on this excuse, or do you genuinely think the construction of the HTC One kept them from finding a way to shove a tiny microSD card slot somewhere inside? Either way, it hasn’t stopped HTC from being able to sell close to 5 million HTC One units to date, so I guess it isn’t all that bad for them either way.
[via TechRadar]