When Samsung introduced the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge at Mobile World Congress, it seemed to be met with much praise all except for perhaps one or two particular features. The first being that it would not support a removable battery. The second being that it would only come with internal storage, with no room for expansion via a microSD card slot. While Samsung has what sounds like pretty good reasons for implementing these changes to a handset lineup that has always been known to feature the things left out this time around, undoubtedly some consumers would have liked things to stay the way they used to be.
A new rumor beginning to circulate is that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S6 Active handset, one which focuses more on people with an active lifestyle or those that want something a little more equipped to handle drops, dust, and water, will actually come with a microSD card slot and that it will support expandable storage. If this rumor turns out to be true, it seems like a little bit of an odd move given that Samsung states the reason for leaving out the SD card on the regular Galaxy S6 is due to the slower memory compared to their newer UFS 2.0(universal flash storage)which is supposed to bring in much faster memory speeds.
With the Galaxy S6 Active potentially coming with a microSD card slot, it’s only reasonable to assume that the Galaxy S6 Active will either not come with UFS 2.0 or that Samsung is initially OK with the slowdown they said would happen if they included microSD cards with the original Galaxy S6. The rumor comes from a user on Reddit who states they had a sit-down meeting with a Samsung rep from the European region, and then had a Q&A on Reddit to answer questions. In the comments Reddit user garshol mentions that unlike the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, the Galaxy S6 Active will come with a microSD card slot and a removable battery, but will be giving up the fingerprint reader and pulse meter. In addition, it also states that the Galaxy S6 Active will come with a lesser quality camera, and of course, the telltale signs of the Active line, physical navigation buttons on the front of the device. As for when the Galaxy S6 Active is supposed to launch, according to garshol and the Samsung rep, consumers are looking at a mid-summer release for the phone. Keep in mind that the user lives in Europe and the rep allegedly spoken with represents the European market, so none of this could pertain to a device offered here in the U.S. if these are true statements about the Galaxy S6 Active.