[Sprint Samsung Galaxy Note II] dredloktek:
UHS conflict with S3 & Note2 (cont)

I'm thinking that maybe there's a tradeoff when designing UHS type MicroSD Cards between backward compatability with non-UHS capable devices (like S3, Note2) and top UHS speed (for UHS-enabled devices like S4, Note3). I'm not familiar with the electronic circuitry--i'm just tired of MicroSD Card unreliability as the industry standard. I'm imagining that in the design process, maybe the reliability of the card when in backward compatability mode (eg, when inserted into S3 or Note2 phones) is necessarily compromised in porportion to the optimization of the UHS circuit included for UHS-enabled devices (eg, for the S4 & Note3 phones). Anybody know anything about that?

Does the 32GB Class 10 MicroSD Card that Samsung recomends for the S3 and Note2 have the UHS feature? That would be a clue. That card is not in stock, hasn't been in stock for awhile at least, so i can't buy it to find out.

Also, why does Samsung not try to sell a more expensive (and thus more profitable) 64GB MicroSD Card to S3 and Note2 owners? That capacity is not in the list of recomended accessories for S3, Note2 on Samsung's website. Is it just to reduce calls to their customer service due to the fact that the default file system on 64GB MicroSD Cards (ie Microsoft ExFat) is not accessible to Android devices (like S3 & Note2) without a third party pay-for app (due to licensing restrictions)? Couldn't Samsung easily format those cards upon manufacture with a Linux file system instead? But i suppose then ur Windows or Mac desktop computer might be unable to read the card without 3rd party software or drivers...

I'm not asking Samsung to recomend the larger-capacity cards, i'm just wondering if this is somehow related to premature failure of some cards, and how it is related. I know some S3, Note2 users love their 64GB Samsung Pro, Class 10, UHS-1 MicroSD Card and it may last years. I'm not denying that some cards from various manufacturers and re-sellers are reliable, but industry average is abysmal (i suspect, don't know) and we can't just blame it all on eBay or China or a bad batch now and again from Sandisk who developed the technology. Something is amiss, maybe several things. I'm sure that if MicroSD Cards were made with the very expensive SLC technology (one bit per cell, instead of two or more bits per cell, or something like that), then reliability would increase, but by how much? I suspect that there may be some simple, cost-effective answers out there already known but not revealed for whatever reasons (it's a conspiracy), or perhaps i just need to learn more about it.

One informative and somewhat related white paper that i did read from NEC Labs is titled, "Revisiting Storage for Smartphones (Kim 2013)". U can google n read it for free, but it's a bit dry.

Please don't post ur personal experience with individual MicroSD Cards here in this thread, but if u read some interesting market analysis/statistics about this stuff, i for one would like to hear it. XDA was once a great forum, but now it's overgrown with the weeds of individual MicroSD Card reliability complaints (and the corresponding refutations: "Don jinx that card! Mine still works great! U musta lived a bad life!") (ha!). Admitedly, not all the bad cards are really bad, and of course proprietary file systems are often to blame: "Every time i move my 64GB MicroSD Card from my phone to my desktop computer or back i have to reformat the card, so instead, when i want to transfer files, i just email myself with the files attached". Ah, thas sad.

I have been writing to Samsung about these things and hope to post more info here if and when it arrives, but don't hold ur breath. I don't feel very well-informed.