UPDATE 4th August 2015: My Lenovo P70-A eventually started acting pretty erratic. I took out the memory card and a lil bit of normalcy was restored. Eventually I had to factory reset the phone to get it working fine again. I guess the 32GB limit is there for a reason. Some say it’s a software limitation and I believe so cause the BlackBerry Z10 had a limit of 32GB before it was upped to 64GB after a firmware update.
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32GB microSD card support is something I find normal on low range budget smartphones but for mid range and high end smartphones, I expect the minimum to be 64GB thus my shock when I found out that the octa-core Lenovo P70-A could only support microSD cards up to 32GB. Well while casually browsing the user opinion section of GSMArena, someone mentioned that he was using a class 10 64GB microSD card on his own but had to format it on PC first to get it working on the phone.
By default Windows OS doesn’t support FAT32 format on external storage of 64GB and above. For those it supports NTFS and exFAT which unfortunately most android phones don’t recognize thus to properly format your 64GB memory card in FAT32, you need a third party app.
NOTE: If you own a Mac, you could try the FAT32 format using Disk Utility. I personally went the Windows OS way.
Download and install EaseUS Partition Master 10.2. It’s free but contains some add-on softwares which you can skip during the installation process.
Plug your microSD card into your computer and launch EaseUS. Locate your microSD card in the interface, right click on it and select Format Partition.
Enter a partition label of your preference, set the file system as FAT32 and the cluster size as 32KB then click OK
Your FAT32 format request should show up under pending operations in the sidebar. Click on Apply to begin the format process. Click Yes on the Apply Changes pop-up
Viola! You have successfully formatted your 64GB memory card in FAT32 and can now use it on the Lenovo P70-A. This should work for other smartphones with the same microSD card size limitation but I’m not so sure. It’s a risk worth taking though.
So far, I’ve had no issues with my Lenovo P70-A using a 64GB card. If any issues arise, I’d be sure to update this post.
Have a great day ;-)
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Thank you! It works!
@Peter: You’re welcome. Just remember that if you start having issues with the device, the 64GB memory card could be the problem ;-)
Hm, my SanDisk 64GB microSDXC just came in today… I was going to try it on my P70. Already downloaded EaseUS partition manager when I read your update. Guess I’ll stick with 32GB then. Thanks for sharing your experiment though. :)
@San: You’re welcome ;-)
Hi, since I posted that comment above, I actually went to install the 64GB card and am still using it up to this date in my P70 (I’m still on 4.4.4 KitKat, haven’t updated to Lollipop).
I haven’t experienced any issues, but I also haven’t used even half of the capacity yet, so maybe that’s a factor.
@San: mine was like 80-90% filled with movies and I think I was running a few games off the card too so that might have been the reason for the crash.
Anyway I sold the phone months back when I got tired of waiting for Lollipop. :?
Alright, I was going to ask what’s your experience with Lollipop on P70… lol. :)
My father just bought Zenphone 2 (ZE551ML) with 4GB RAM, crazy specs for the price, which isn’t far from the P70 was (esp. with discounts). Now I’m thinking of selling it too. Hmm…
@San what’s the experience like? Some high specs gadgets just don’t live up to the hype :?
@Chukwudi sorry didn’t catch your question — if you’re asking about the Asus zenphone… well, I haven’t got time to play with it yet. It seems quite popular though.
I guess the tricky thing will be the software, finding which ROM is most stable and with least bugs. Also removing useless built-in apps/bloatware could be a nuisance.
CPU is probably not the fastest for games etc, but for me personally, I’ve always wanted more RAM just for better internet browsing on a mobile, as well as for running many apps at once.
Though it’s still best to not rely on mobile (Android/iOS) devices for browsing due to the way the browsers keep on unloading tabs that aren’t in focus. I’d like a Surface/win10 7~8″ tablet with >4GB RAM, and then I won’t have to use a phone that much anymore. :)
@San my romance with Windows on the Nokia Lumia 730 didn’t end well and I wonder if the experience would be the same on a tablet. I wonder if this unloading of browser tabs happens on phones running vanilla Android with 3GB RAM
Did something similar to this on my 64gb but I noticed that after sometime, some files keep disappearing from the card. Guess I can try again.
@Mark: Hmmm, I have only heard of such with fake microSD cards. I even experienced it once with a 64GB card I bought off Aliexpress. Ended up being just 3GB. These days I get my sd cards sold directly and fulfilled by Amazon.