Google abandoning physical SIM cards on the Pixel 10 is an abject loss for consumers

Modern smartphone are fantastic. Models like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 remind us that innovation isn’t dead, daring us to ask manufacturers to increasingly push hardware and design limits to previously inconceivable places. But despite clear progress like this, consumers also aren’t always getting access to the phones we actually want.

There’s progress, and then there’s change, and when it comes to smartphones features, those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Looking at all the headaches Google’s been running into with Pixel batteries lately, it’s easy to get nostalgic for the days of phones with removable batteries. While you can still find a few even now, shoppers have largely accepted this loss, sold on the change with promises that this would help companies build sleeker, slimmer, more water-resistant models. This sort of trade-off can be fine, so long as everyone involved understands what they’re giving up — and why.

Start going down this road, and you’ll find no shortage of incredibly useful, highly desirable smartphone features that in 2025 have been almost entirely given up on in anything approaching a mainstream device. Hem and haw all you want about access speed, or users being overwhelmed when tasked with rudimentary file management, but losing microSD support from most Android phones has been nothing short of tragic.

And then there’s probably the most public-facing of all: phones losing their analog headphone jacks. Even this week, during the Pixel 10 launch event, Google seemed to be going out of its way to still convince us that we hate wired earbuds, with a cringey subway scene full of some of the worst takes I’ve heard in recent memory.

Can wired buds get tangled in your bag? Yeah, obviously. And were they often prone to damage from getting yanked around? Sure. But find me one person who is seriously opposed to the idea of just retaining the option to use them.

Because: We’ve had Bluetooth for the better part of forever. It absolutely predates smartphones. And if you just wanted to go wireless, you always could. Instead, we’ve been deprived of the choice. Manufacturers took away our option to use buds we could afford to lose, afford to break — took away our option to privately enjoy music without needing to keep a second device charged.

And now, they’re coming for our SIM cards.

Buy a Pixel 10 in the US, and the phone Google sends you will lack any way to physically insert a SIM card. To activate the phone for cellular service, you’ll have no choice but to go with an eSIM.

For a whole, whole lot of people, subscribing to the big carriers, that might not present any problem at all. But who among us was asking that we be denied the option to use a traditional SIM?

Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, I can at least understand why a phone manufacturer — like Google — might want to build a phone without a SIM tray. After all, this is a reasonably complex component, one with more moving parts than most other things in our phones, and while SIM contacts don’t impart much expense on their own, the whole assembly represents a not-insignificant impact on phone design: You need to build your boards with this right at the edge (limiting your layout options), have to craft a frame that isn’t going to be weakened by having this hole in it, and still need to worry about waterproofing.

Yeah, well: speakers + volume buttons + power buttons + USB-C. Vilifying the SIM tray is not seeing the forest for the trees.

Even if we say “OK, phone makers, go ahead and take this win for yourselves,” what do we get out of it? It’s not like the no-SIM US Pixel 10 is selling at a discount compared to its full-featured international brethren.

I’d pretend to be offended, but these are the same companies that don’t blink twice at charging you an extra HUNDRED DOLLARS for a dinky 128GB storage upgrade. When there’s an opportunity to cut costs, they get it, not us.

Don’t get me wrong: I love eSIMs. I find them incredibly useful, especially when traveling internationally. But they also present unique problems, and while physical SIMs certainly aren’t without their own set of frustrating failure modes, being able to quickly pop in a new one offers a pathway towards a solution that you just wouldn’t have otherwise.

Phones that do more things — and let us do more things with them — are generally better than not, and if we’re being asked to agree with being OK with less, there should be a compelling argument why. With the Pixel 10 dropping physical SIM support, I just don’t think Google has come anywhere close to offering that.