Lenovo M9 Tablet - cant move games to SD Card

[never_here]

so, i duno if anyone else can help out with this, but i'm at a lost of trying to movegames to my SD card.  I have a 32GB Lenovo M9 (2023) tablet, and overall, i like it.  Not the best thing on the market, but good enough overall. 

The issue is, there is no option to move games to SD card, or, format SD card as internal storage. 

 

I didn't have these issues before on older android devices, but i haven't owned one with an SD card for a while, so not sure if anyone can help out. 

 

I"m on android 12, and has a 400GB SanDisk SD card, Class 1.  I plan to upgrade this card in future, but i want to see if this works first.  If not, pointless.  

 

Does anyone know how to?  Thanks

[Middcore]

4 minutes ago, never_here said:

I didn't have these issues before on older android devices, but i haven't owned one with an SD card for a while, so not sure if anyone can help out. 

 

It's a dead/dying feature. Even among the comparatively few devices that still have an SD card slot, not all support moving apps to the SD card, and I believe the developers of the individual apps have to enable it for the app as well.

 

 

[never_here]

5 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

It's a dead/dying feature. Even among the comparatively few devices that still have an SD card slot, not all support moving apps to the SD card, and I believe the developers of the individual apps have to enable it for the app as well.

 

 

you gota be kidding me... dying feature?  its like THE best feature, especially considering android vs ios... =_=

Also, steam deck and nintendo switch proves you can run games, and AAA games off SD cards, and now they want to cancel it? ugh....

Thanks though!

[GOTSpectrum]

3 minutes ago, never_here said:

you gota be kidding me... dying feature?  its like THE best feature, especially considering android vs ios... =_=

Also, steam deck and nintendo switch proves you can run games, and AAA games off SD cards, and now they want to cancel it? ugh....

Thanks though!

Yeah, part of te problem is that cheap phones have shitty data-rates on their card slots leading people to rate apps badly even though it isn't the apps fault so devs make it so you cant card the app to "protect" themselves 

[never_here]

2 minutes ago, GOTSpectrum said:

Yeah, part of te problem is that cheap phones have shitty data-rates on their card slots leading people to rate apps badly even though it isn't the apps fault so devs make it so you cant card the app to "protect" themselves 

I think its an easy solve imho if Google actually designed the OS with an SD card in mind.  Such as, when first format the SD card as Internal storage, it'll do a quick speed test to see what quality of SD card it is, and show if there are any performance issues with the card slot. 

 

Some people will game.  Some people will just use it to store photos, music, videos, and podcasts or some crap.  Android notifying users if the SD card slot, or SD card itself is incompatible with say, apps or games, would fix this issue entirely.  sigh...

[Middcore]

19 minutes ago, never_here said:

you gota be kidding me... dying feature?  its like THE best feature, especially considering android vs ios... =_=

 

Back in the day when it was well supported and practically every Android phone had an SD card slot, people complained that Android phones didn't feel "premium" enough (even though everybody was putting some heinous Fisher Price-looking case on their phone anyway). So Android flagships went to metal/glass bodies, and largely stopped supporting useful features like SD cards and swappable batteries.

 

There's little impetus to maintain support for a feature that the flagship devices for the OS won't use. And the low-end phones that still had slots didn't always actually deliver a good experience using them, as already mentioned. So yeah, this feature was doomed. I'm surprised it isn't completely deprecated yet, tbh. 

[never_here]

Just now, Middcore said:

 

Back in the day when it was well supported and practically every Android phone had an SD card slot, people complained that Android phones didn't feel "premium" enough (even though everybody was putting some heinous Fisher Price-looking case on their phone anyway). So Android flagships went to metal/glass bodies, and largely stopped supporting useful features like SD cards and swappable batteries.

 

There's little impetus to maintain support for a feature that the flagship devices for the OS won't use. And the low-end phones that still had slots didn't always actually deliver a good experience using them, as already mentioned. So yeah, this feature was doomed. I'm surprised it isn't completely deprecated yet, tbh. 

the funny thing actually is the fact that newer phones can take amazing 4K videos, RAW photos, etc etc. 
Oh ya, they start at 128GB, and with OS, Apps, you're left with maybe what, 20-30mins of 4K video storage left?  xD
ya, you can buy 512GB storage capacities for phones or more, but lets say you are legit doing some 4k video or vlogging, trip stuff, wedding crap, man, no matter what storage capacity you have, you'll burn right through it quick.  sigh.

[thevictor390]

47 minutes ago, never_here said:

you gota be kidding me... dying feature?  its like THE best feature, especially considering android vs ios... =_=

Also, steam deck and nintendo switch proves you can run games, and AAA games off SD cards, and now they want to cancel it? ugh....

Thanks though!

It's only "dying" in Android. You're correct that it works just fine on the likes of Switch or PCs.

[GOTSpectrum]

15 minutes ago, thevictor390 said:

It's only "dying" in Android. You're correct that it works just fine on the likes of Switch or PCs.

That's because switch, deck, pc etc generally have decent card readers, Phones, especially cheap phones have USB 2.0 as the interface internally 

[never_here]

1 hour ago, GOTSpectrum said:

That's because switch, deck, pc etc generally have decent card readers, Phones, especially cheap phones have USB 2.0 as the interface internally 

hmm, that does explain a lot, if it is stuck at a USB 2.0 interface.  Though as a budget phone, i can understand.  Whats appalling is that Apple does intentionally slow down their USB C to 2.0 speeds just so their pro line looks better. =_=

1 hour ago, thevictor390 said:

It's only "dying" in Android. You're correct that it works just fine on the likes of Switch or PCs.

im usually happy that i'm correct.  but this makes me sad sort of, lol

[Donut417]

On 8/29/2023 at 10:45 AM, never_here said:

you gota be kidding me... dying feature?  its like THE best feature, especially considering android vs ios... =_=

How else are these companies going to sell you on a phone/tablet with bigger storage? 

 

From my understanding the feature is not actually in stock Android. So that means the device maker has to add it in. Now that SD card slots are pretty much dead in phones nowadays it's not worth the trouble to add in this feature. 

[thewelshbrummie]

Have some experience with some old Sony phones, specifically the X Compact. Many, but not all, apps supported being moved to the SD card but devs are allowed to flag an app as not being installable on an SD card... and from memory widgets usually don't work on apps run from an SD card.

 

It had 32GB storage and I added another 32GB... and struggled mainly thanks to a good number of apps not letting me move them to the SD card, so internal free storage was basically full. I'd say around half of them would move on demand, the others point blank refused.

 

My wife got an M9 earlier this week so I'll have a look but I suspect that it's entirely game/app dependent. Some may work, some won't. We are talking about a tablet though that was on sale for less than $150 last week though so I'd be surprised if the card reader gets any better than USB 2 level transfer speeds.

[never_here]

On 9/8/2023 at 1:19 AM, thewelshbrummie said:

My wife got an M9 earlier this week so I'll have a look but I suspect that it's entirely game/app dependent. Some may work, some won't. We are talking about a tablet though that was on sale for less than $150 last week though so I'd be surprised if the card reader gets any better than USB 2 level transfer speeds.

hm, sucks that most apps wont have SD card support, especially in the future.  which it is strange to me, considering the many advances, as well as how camera's on phones can take RAW photos and crap. 
Ya, its actually a good tablet imho.  I ended up swapping it for a M9 64GB 4GB ram.  the extra 1GB of ram from the 32GB 3GB of ram makes a huge differenece.  

No regrets for me though.  I can't find another 8-9" tablet, that is this good, cheap, and has SD card that works for my media consumption.  multi user support is quite nice too, and helps when giving it to my kids.  Add the fact with an SD card i can pop in EASILY like 100 movies and shows, and keep them busy for hours, its nice.  Then keeps me busy and entertained when setting stuff up when we get there.  I only wish it had HDMI output with USB C, sad it doesn't. 

my ipad with 256GB could work, but slow wifi speeds, slow offline ability, basically screen has to stay on for any of that to continue working, as well in the app.  such a pain compared to a pre-created playlist, and just download overnight, or even in the morning, and just know pretty much all of it is done.