No mention was made earlier this week of storage card expansion when Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 7 and the first devices to run its latest mobile OS. Specifications certainly made no mention of them. Microsoft’s hardware requirements even go as far as prohibiting external expansion slots, suggesting that they are not supported. It turns out though that storage cards are still supported albeit in a rather unique way.
Devices can incorporate expansion slots after all but these must be placed under the battery cover. The memory provided by the card is then pooled with the device’s internal storage and there is no distinction between the two. Users essentially will not know if something is stored on the card or in internal memory.
If you decide to pull the card, not only will other devices not be able to read its contents, but your phone will also alert you about the removal. Swapping cards is still possible but will require a hard reset.
Essentially, Microsoft has taken the middle road between Apple’s fixed storage philosophy and Android’s fully removable storage card approach. Personally, I think Android has this one right…