An Update On Windows Phone Storage Cards (And an Explanation) –Sandisk and Kingston Are Certified

It’s becoming more and more clear why Microsoft tried to prohibit accessible microsd cards in Windows Phone. With all of the complaints that are coming from users and what appears to be a lack of testing until the phones were released it’s gotten ugly. So there are now certified MicroSD cards from Sandisk and they’re actually class2 cards:

Here’s the Kingston certified cards (including my Kingston 32gb class 4 card) that range in class:

But why is it so difficult to know what cards will work? I mean, if it’s a class 2 or higher it should work, right? Nope

Unfortunately, it is hard to determine which SD card is “fast” and which is “slow” without a lot of testing, and the advertised “class” of an SD card has almost nothing to do with how well it will perform in a phone. SD card “class” measures how quickly an SD card can save a single large file such as a photo (think of this like you would think about a car’s top speed). Windows Phone’s performance is more affected by how quickly the SD card can save a whole bunch of tiny files (think of this like you would think about a car’s performance in an obstacle course). Don’t fool yourself into thinking that any old SD card will work or that a higher-class SD card will make your phone work better. Microsoft tested a whole bunch of different SD cards. Very few performed well enough to be approved for use in the phone. Other SD cards may work correctly, but the SD card’s “class” won’t be very helpful in predicting how the card will perform in the phone.

While we’re at it, there’s one more warning. If you insert a card into your phone then the card is encrypted and it’s effectively bricked. It will not be usable in a PC or other phones. Apparently if you have a Symbian phone you can unlock them…but that’s probably harder to find than a four leaf clover in the US. Let’s sum this up with the words of the infamous Ramon:

This is starting to annoy the F@K!!!!! out of me!!!!
let me see if i got this right. Microsoft designed an os with wide span memory in mind. The ideology of "save to storage card" simply doesn’t apply because the OS sees it all as one huge storage pool. Great. works for apple…and it will work for Microsoft. 
But nooooo…. the carriers want to bitch and moan to the OEM’s about cost of devices. So OEM’s go back to Microsoft bitching and moaning about expandable memory. And Microsoft being Microsoft…changes plans mid flight and allows it. Bending over backwards again to please people…and now look at what the f@k is going on. 
All because carriers want to save a few dollars on the devices…no one knows what the f will work. and Microsoft gets the bad rep for it. f-ing shame.