Reading USB flashdrives on a smartphone

[OFSO]

Several people I have spoken to didn't know this so it my prove a useful tip. For safety's sake I just loaded all my files (.jpg, .mp3, .rtf, .pdf etc) onto a 32Gb USB drive. Wondered how many of these my simple Huawei smartphone could open. Plugged it in via an adapter cable, looked under "storage", found external USB drive, the answer, everything comes up on screen with no problems. Phone has VPN and wifi plus cloud printing, so no need to carry a laptop on my travels. Amazing.

[Rwy in Sight]

OFSO, you can go a step further. There are either USB keys with two "nozzles" one that go in a traditional USB port in a lap top and one it does to the charging port of a tablet or an android phone. Alternatively you can use an adapter to use a common USB on a phone. I use the two edge USB and it is more or less ok.

[ian16th]

Or you use a SD card instead of a USB stick and simply put the SD card in the phone card slot.

Also if you connect a smartphone USB to a PC's USB, Windoze can see all your files.

[OFSO]

Alas tiny phone card and tinier SD cards live down inside, in a pull-out drawer, openable with an instantly lost tool. When opened, micro cards shoot out and disappear inside the pile of the carpet, stick to the soles of my feet, or get ate by the lizards. By time located, the drawer they fit in has also disappeared. Hence easier to plug drive into orifice on the bottom. As Harry will be doing tonight.

[Boac]

plug drive into orifice on the bottom. As Harry will be doing tonight.

- you obviously know him better than most

[ian16th]

Alas tiny phone card and tinier SD cards live down inside, in a pull-out drawer, openable with an instantly lost tool. When opened, micro cards shoot out and disappear inside the pile of the carpet, stick to the soles of my feet, or get ate by the lizards. By time located, the drawer they fit in has also disappeared. Hence easier to plug drive into orifice on the bottom. As Harry will be doing tonight.

The 'special tool' is instantly replaceable by a straightened paper clip!

As for lost draw/tray, are spares available?

As for SD cards, they are not yet cheap enough to be treated as disposables. I'd look carefully in the carpet pile.

Last month I bought a 32Gb card for R179.00/£10.40.

[OFSO]

Yes, well having got the phone set up I prefer to access it via dongles. Never have much faith in the sustainability of mini and micro USB sockets over a couple of years (life of phone) so instead of a drive connected straight to the phone I use a cable. The USB drive in this case is a SanDisk and measures only 14mm long by 11mm wide. Can be hidden in one's jockstrap during police searches.

[ian16th]

Never have much faith in the sustainability of mini and micro USB sockets over a couple of years (life of phone)

I've been using one to charge up my hearing aid streamer, every night, for about 8 years so far. All OK.

Streamer.jpg (26.64 KiB) Viewed 355 times

[Rwy in Sight]

As for SD cards, they are not yet cheap enough to be treated as disposables.

I don't think they will ever be - because the small capacity disappear to be replaced by larger and more expensive ones. It is hard to find anything below 16 Gb but then it is cheap. One of the reasons for that is that we moved to cloud based storage. Some of us are hesitant to put some kind of documents in such places but it can be useful. Particularly to move files between devices.