Wednesday, November 10, 2010 12:34 PM
This FAQ article came across my Twitter stream this afternoon. It’s related to the Samsung Focus, but this line suggests its a broad design feature of WP7 devices:
Windows Phone 7 does not support freely swapping microSD Card in and out.
ORLY!? Not only that but…
Many commercially available retail microSD cards are not approved for use in Windows Phone 7. Use of unapproved cards may cause performance degradation or device instability including unexpected reset and loss of user data. A microSD card class is not an indication of meeting Windows Phone 7 requirements. Approved cards can be obtained from the manufacturer or Mobile Operator. (SanDisk 8GB class 2 microSD card has been certified.)
Once inserted and properly formatted, the memory card becomes an inseparable part of the phone.
But what do they mean about “inseparable part of the phone”? Another FAQ article explains further:
A microSD card inserted into a Windows Phone 7 device and integrated into the device's file system is intended to be a permanent modification to the device. Once a microSD card has been integrated into a Windows Phone 7 device's file system, it will no longer be readable or writable on any other devices such as computers, cameras, printers, and so on. This includes an inability to format the microSD card for use in these devices
Basically the microSD card is the male Angler Fish to the Windows Phone 7’s female Angler Fish (Warning on the link – Language).
And the final kicker to this is that if you want to remove the microSD card or put in a bigger one…
To insert or remove a microSD card, you have to reset your phone by using a procedure called a hard reset.
Warning!: A hard reset resets your phone to its factory default settings and wipes all data (pictures, video, contacts, music, and so on) from your phone.
Here are the links to the FAQ articles used in this post.
How Do I Install The Memory Card On My Focus Phone?
Does Windows Phone Support microSD Card for Memory Expansion?
UPDATE – 23/11/2010
According to WPCentral, the list of supported SD cards should be coming soon (clink to see article).