Samsung's A17 and A11+ Raise Questions Samsung Needs To Answer

    Samsung's A11+ and A17 have launched as successors to the Tab A9 Plus and A16 phone line up, and once again Samsung has added features, on its lowest leave devices that the S Series do not get. Since 2021, when Samsung removed the Micro SD card slot from S series flagships, a slot that allowed users to expand the storage on their phone, but left it on the A series of devices, making its arguable that using the A5x or 7x series of devices could potentially compete with the S21 series of devices. 

    However Samsung kept whittling it down even stripping the slot from the A5,3 series of devices leaving the slot on the A16. On the tablet side Samsung removed the headphone jack (but kept the micro sd card slot) on its S series tablets, but kept the jack on the A series of devices. Why did Samsung do this?

    The S series also had exclusive software features and much more powerful processors than the A series of devices. The A series got maybe 2 or 3 updates while the S series got three then four then seven updates meaning it lasted much longer. But now, in the Year 2026, the line is much blurrier, the A7x series is dead, the A56 is not sold in the United States, and now apps and processing power are basically becoming obsolete. The top applications are now random social video applications, messaging, and shopping sites. Linus Tech Talks praised the Samsung A36 moving to that from his aging Samsung Note 9, and the Tab A11+ just got Dex!! 

    So why does Samsung remove features like the headphone jack and micro SD card slot from expensive devices but keep them on their slowest, most bottom of the basement budget devices? Do wealthy people not need SD cars slots? Do the rich not use wired headphones? People say of its so they can sell 512GB phones, but forget that Samsung also sell micro SD cards. Personally I would use a 512GB phone + a Terabyte SD card if I ahd the choice, but now if I wanted to expand the storage on my phone id have to get the worse of the worse, worse cameras worse screen, and worse performance. I could not even get an A3x device as Samsung removed the card slot and headphone jack from that phone, a phone that could probably fulfill my needs, Dex and camera performance, notwithstanding.

   In the late 2010s and early 2020s Samsung had the A7 and 9x series of devices that could technically rival the Note 10 and S21 series of devices so it would be possible to get a device that would fit my needs. The A72 had a larger screen, a zoom camera, and a micro SD card slot. I even covered it in 2021 saying I would chose it over Samsung's S21. The A90, released in 2019, also had Dex and a micro SD card slot. Now parity, and features are lost, and the features users want, expandable storage, headphone jacks, better battery, are locked down in the worst, slowest devices known to man. 

God bless and Tech Talk To You Later!!!