It's probably so people don't forget that something is in there and start jamming another card in there and then breaking it. And as always less moving parts = less failure.
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MBP's SD card slot, ugly and petty choice made by Apple
- Thread starter frosse
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I was going to say the same thing about my HP. The SD card hangs out just a tiny bit and the aluminum palm rest hangs over that edge of the SD card that sticks out making it even harder to get out. There is no eject button. You have to use your finger nails. I even had to use a needle nose once because I just couldn't get the card out. Never happens with my MBP.
Jeeez! A real fuss over virtually nothing! Even if Apple made it all spring loaded etc, the likelihood of users accidently leaving the card in the unit is increased. Now, imagine how tight it is in the unibody and the amount of heat that could be generated inside it. Should the card get damaged due to heat issues, guess who the user will be pointing their finger at?
If you don't like the card sticking out, why not stick it back in the gadget where it belongs when you're done with it. It really isn't that difficult.
If you don't like the card sticking out, why not stick it back in the gadget where it belongs when you're done with it. It really isn't that difficult.
It is all about internal design. The fact that you're comparing an Apple laptop to a netbook shows how well Apple has designed their computers. A more fair comparison would be to compare it to another laptop.
If you did compare it to another laptop you'd see that Apple laptops are freaking small. Less than an inch high when closed. Yes, some small computers have a recessed SD card slot, but they also don't have all the stuff Apple has put inside their machines.
It's a space issue, and I'm glad Apple went the way they did with it.
That doesn't mean it will be easy to remove.
I had an ipaq with an SD slot and a Compact Flash slot. The SD slot had a spring loaded thing that you pushed it in it would pop out. THe compact flash was you just pushed it in and pulled it out. The CF slot was almost impossible to remove the CF card once it was in. It had some recess to give you some grip. You could remove the SD card and get more space to get grip (as the two were right next to each other).
I pretty much stuck in a micro drive and once or twice managed to get it out and decided it wasn't worth it and left it there. Sold it with the machine cause I didn't even feel like trying to take it out (it seriously was a huge PITA to try to get out).
A little scoop, unless the slot is pretty loose that the card is in, really doesn't give you much leverage to pull a card out. Especially when the card itself is smooth (You wouldn't have anything on the card to hook your finger on!) so it doesn't really have much to grip on unless yuo can get a decent amount of finger space on both sides.
So, I'll take Apple's solution to yours.
That's kinda irrelevant.
-You can't plug in any portable camera to save directly to a HDD.
-A HDD requires power source whereas flash memory requires close to no power from the device it's plugged into.
-Drop a HDD and drop a flash card. Post differences in results here.
-Flash card is much more portable. I wouldn't carry a HDD in my pocket.
-Flash is faster in general
and the list goes on.
Of course, HDD's are more GB's for the buck (I have one hooked up to my MBP right now), but I think we're talking portability here.
Though I agree with OP on a certain level (I need to take the card out before my MBP goes in its sleeve), I think the spring-less design is a lot more reliable.
Sorry, I got the impression OP was talking about buying it as a "Cheap" way of adding storage space. He said nothing about wanting any portability. In fact, the complaint was he wanted to be able to just keep it in the laptop and it not be obtrusive and said that it was a cheap way of adding 32 gigs.
For what he was claiming he wanted to use it for, buy a bigger hard drive would be more cost effective anyways.
Yes, I realize you buy SD cards to work with your cameras and for a small amount of portable storage. But as a way to add storage to your laptop? not really cost efficient.
Design-wise, it is counter to what apple typically does. They generally obsess over the smallest detail which in the end makes a great product of us. Having the SD card stick out is ugly. People fall over apple's design all the time, but this thread seems to be defending them.
As for the usefulness of SD cards, my camera as many DSLRs use cf cards. Perhaps the market will change, but for a so called pro machine, its funny that they opted for more a "consumer" memory card choice.
I'm not really torn up about it, partly because i'll not use it, and partly because I own a 2008 MBP so there's no SD card in there in the first place
As for the usefulness of SD cards, my camera as many DSLRs use cf cards. Perhaps the market will change, but for a so called pro machine, its funny that they opted for more a "consumer" memory card choice.
I'm not really torn up about it, partly because i'll not use it, and partly because I own a 2008 MBP so there's no SD card in there in the first place
I think your first post assumes that people are going to have an SD card hanging out of their computer for most of the time. For me, I use it for transferring files / photos, and then I pop it back out. So for me, it's a great convenience that they added it. I've owned my new MBP for a month, and I've already used it twice. I owned my old MBP for 2 years, and I never used the expresscard slot once.
If you read what they're saying about the sd card slot in the MBP it becomes very obvious:
In other words, they only expect you to use sd for your camera and transfer your images from the card to the MBP. This would mean you insert the card, retrieve the data and put it back in the camera. They don't expect you to use it as additional storage for the MBP. This nearly wipes out 99% of the comments in this thread
If people would only read properly... In this case you need to be able to plug and unplug the card easily. Having the card stick out for a couple of mm makes it harder to unplug even if the slot is springloaded. You may forget you've got the card inserted and you may bump it which will unplug it causing you to loose the card. The springloaded slot does not have any advantages so there is no reason to use it. The way it now works makes it simple and easy to use. Not much can go wrong with it.That's a different discussion. Some people argue that they should have kept the expresscard slot. People could use expresscard readers for cf or sd cards. Some people wanted the sd card slot to be sdio so they could use it for other stuff. It still is a bit strange they've put a consumer thing on a pro notebook though.