Some of the best Android phones and tablets on the market don’t feature out-of-the-box support for removable storage. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say they’d pick up a Nexus phone or tablet if only it had a microSD card slot for extra storage.

Now the folks behind a Kickstarter campaign plan to offer a Mini MicroSD Reader designed to work with most Android phones and tablets.

Mini MicroSD Reader

Make a pledge of $12 or more, and the developers of the project hope to be able to ship you a Mini MicroSD Reader by July.

Basically it’s a tiny card reader that can handle SD cards, SDHC cards, and SDXC cards in capacities up to 64GB. It plus into the microUSB port on your phone or tablet and supports a range of devices… but not all Android devices.

For instance, the Google Nexus 4 smartphone isn’t expected to be supported anytime soon. On the other hand, plug it into most recent Samsung, Motorola, or HTC phones and it will work right away.

You can also use it on most other Nexus devices (such as the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, or Nexus 10 — but you’ll need to root your phone or tablet and use a third party app.

The Mini MicroSD Reader has even been confirmed to work with Amazon’s Kindle Fire — one of the most popular tablets that lacks an SD card reader. The only catch is that you’ll need to install a custom ROM on the Kindle Fire before you can use the tiny card reader.

via MobileGeeks

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25 replies on “Mini MicroSD Reader adds removable storage slot to Android phones, tablets”

  1. Its just such a joke. Originally one of the largest “features” of android phones was the expandable memory, and removable batteries. Now they are trying to move away from both of them.

    Thank goodness Samsung is still acting rationally.

    16gb phone? Pathetic. 100 dollars for an extra 16gb? Absurd. One can buy 32gb micro SD cards for around 15 dollars.

    Networks aren’t good enough for music lovers to rely on crap like pandora or spotify. Anyone who loves photos or music is constantly displeased.

  2. I think this is a neat idea. I have a Samsung S3 smart phone that does not have an micro-sd card slot but I wish it did. I have a Samsung Tab that does have a micro-sd card slot and it really nice to have that extra memory.

  3. I’d rather not resort to these kludgy workarounds to get a previous feature that was removed. No one was complaining about having this feature in the first place. OEMs should just put it back no matter what Google says.

    Same goes for the USB Charge Only and USB Mass Storage options when connecting to a computer.

  4. How to get Google to enact a “We the People” policy. Where if a petition gains 25,000 signatures, then they have to respond at least with an explanation. We shouldn’t have to root an android device to make it recognize an external attachment. It’s the, “Fruit Factory” that’s supposed to be unreasonable.

    1. depends on the oem mostly, both my galaxy s2 and now s3 supported otg
      s2 at first only fat 32
      and s3 fat32 ntfs and exfat out of the box

    1. the one i bought can be connected both to* my pc and my galaxy s3
      has 4gb internal flash… and cheaper
      everything that connects to a micro usb will stick out unless someone makes a case that the phone can dock in… then it wont stick out but will be specific to a certain model so you cant have everything

    1. Dude, this one support Micro SD card up to 64GB, what are ratting about? Smaller size for only $12. For yours save $2 with only 4GB USB Flash drive, larger size, this is not even usb 3.0 and I can’t insert Class 10 Micro SD into this one.

      1. The eBay one has a micro SD slot too. Neither has USB 3.0. There are also no special requirements for supporting 64 GB cards. The 32 GB limit for SDHC was just an artificial limit. SDHC was already able to go up to 2 TB. SDXC just removes that artificial limit by allowing companies to make higher capacity cards.

        I also doubt either adapters support the faster speeds SDXC brings since both are USB 2.0 (well no phone supports USB 3.0 OTG).

    2. I’d rather go with something like this:

      or better yet, a phone with an SD slot.

        1. yea i have otg cables and readers as well but that usb combo (“A” – pc + “Micro B” OTG ) is much more nice to work with, not to mention less clutter!!!

          1. Which seems to less likely come lose when moving the phone around? The OTG cable or that Noosy adapter? Maybe the same?

          2. otg cable, more weight and longer, and its dangling when you hold the phone in your hand so you have to support it,
            the Noosy adapter is staying in place but i wouldn’t rattle my phone because it will fall 100%
            they are more or less the same with a slight edge going in favor of the Noosy

          3. Or maybe a really long and thin one. You could move the phone around but not carry the whole thing off the desk. I guess it depends on the scenario.

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