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Does the Samsung Galaxy S23 have a microSD card slot?

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Does the Samsung Galaxy S23 have a microSD card slot?

1TB of built-in storage is great, but did Samsung give it expandable storage?

Wes Davis
Feb 3
3
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Does the Samsung Galaxy S23 have a microSD card slot?

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➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: No microSD for you

  • 🙅 Samsung Galaxy S23 doesn’t have a microSD card slot – sorry, everyone

  • 📦 Extra storage can still be added with a USB-C flash drive

  • ⚡️ USB-C flash drives are speedier than microSD

It was never likely that the Samsung Galaxy S23 storage would be expandable with a microSD card slot, and now that the phone is here, indeed, there is no space for such a slot on the sleek aluminum-sided phone’s exterior. While the Samsung Galaxy S23 comes with so much built-in storage it hardly matters – as long as you can pony up the cash – being able to buy a cheaper phone and add your own storage is a woefully-missing relic of a bygone era.

(Credit: Adelaide Chantilly for The Shortcut)

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra deals

Verizon: Save up to $800 on S23 Ultra

T-Mobile: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

AT&T: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

Unlocked: Save up to $830 on S23 Ultra

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USB-C to the rescue

That doesn’t mean you can’t add storage, though. In fact, you can pick up a simple flash drive to add faster-than-microSD storage to your Galaxy S23 Ultra, and wouldn’t you know it? Samsung is even willing to sell you its own USB type C flash drive. The Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. the iPhone 14 Pro Max is a better bet, then, if you like expandable storage – Apple’s phone, frustratingly, still hasn’t adopted the USB-C connection standard, limiting external storage to a few lightning-based thumb drives.

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung Galaxy S23+ deals

Verizon: S23+ for $199.99 w/ trade-in

T-Mobile: Save up to $1,000 on S23+

AT&T: Save up to $1,000 on S23+

Unlocked: Save up to $620 on S23+

On the plus side, USB-C flash drives are capable of much higher throughput than a microSD card slot – even the fastest SD cards max out at 90MB/s, while Samsung’s thumb drive can hit as much as 400MB/s, while others, like the 1,000MB/s Kingston DataTraveler Max (though it should be noted that, unless the Galaxy S23 phones have a USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 or higher slots, you’ll still max out at 625MB/s – we don’t know which standard Galaxy S23 phones support).

Galaxy S23 in cotton flower standing upright on a box
(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung Galaxy S23 deals

Verizon: Get S23 for free w/ trade-in

T-Mobile: Save up to $1,000 on S23

AT&T: Save up to $1,000 on S23

Unlocked: Save up to $620 on S23

It’s an extra thing to lose, of course, but if you’re the type to regularly swap microSD cards in and out of your gear, you’ve probably figured out a system for that and never lose tiny bits of storage, right? Right?

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Does the Samsung Galaxy S23 have a microSD card slot?

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