You never know what you have until it's gone And there are two glaring omissions in Samsung's just-announced Galaxy S21 lineup

Not that Samsung didn't pack a lot into its new trio of phones: all three Galaxy S21 models, along with a new camera feature and a 120Hz display with on-the-fly refresh speed adjustment, are all in the US with the Snapdragon 888 system-on-chip The first two are equipped with the Snapdragon 888 system-on-chip The Galaxy S21 Ultra will offer even more features, including S Pen support, a pair of telephoto lenses, and a better sensor for improved low-light photography

Still, the buzz surrounding the Galaxy S21 lineup is about what's not there The phone ships without a charger and there is no microSD slot to expand storage

The lack of a charger may not be much of a surprise, as there have long been rumors that Samsung intends to follow Apple's lead and not include a charger with the new phone boxes Still, those who were planning to purchase the Galaxy S21 may have been surprised Especially after Samsung teased rival Apple this fall by eliminating the charger from its iPhone 12 model

Companies are increasingly shipping phones without chargers, as Xiaomi made a similar move with the Xiaomi Mi 11 The lack of chargers reduces the amount of packaging required for each phone, and with spare chargers lying around, there is less e-waste

The cost of a charger: If you don't have a charger, however, you're on the hook for supplying one in your Galaxy S21 And with Samsung's new phone supporting 25W wired charging, that extra accessory can run you up to $17--small potatoes in the big scheme of things, but a bit grating if you're already putting more than $799 into a new phone (As of this writing, Samsung is selling a 25W charger for $17, discounted from the usual $19)

The omission of microSD may be more surprising, but Samsung has precedent here as well; both the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 20 shipped without a microSD slot, so it's not like Samsung hasn't skipped this feature in the past This time, however, all three Galaxy S21 models, as well as the entry-level model, do not have microSD

That's a problem if you're used to maxing out your phone's storage, and Galaxy S21 shoppers may need to opt for a larger capacity model to make room for storage space

Cost of increasing storage: a jump from 128GB to 256GB of storage base means adding another $50 to your phone's cost

Samsung chose not to reveal that the microSD slot was gone, choosing instead to focus on the features available However, it is possible that money was the deciding factor in this design decision

It is very clear that Samsung wanted to keep costs down for the Galaxy S21 lineup, given the economic uncertainty surrounding the current coronavirus pandemic And it is very clear that Samsung has achieved that goal by reducing the price of the Galaxy S20 lineup by $200 and introducing a less expensive Galaxy S21 model The standard S21 starts at $799, but the tricked-out Galaxy S21 Ultra can be purchased for $1,119; even with 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, the Ultra model is $20 cheaper than the base Galaxy S20 model from a year ago

Keeping the price down means dropping certain features, and the microSD card slot seems to have fallen victim to that

Does it ultimately matter? Certainly, you don't have to look too hard on Twitter to find complaints about Samsung's omission of two features in the Galaxy S21 But people had similar complaints when they were told that the 35mm headphone jack would disappear from high-end phones People may still be complaining about that move, but it hasn't hurt sales of wireless earbuds