SD cards are not a solution for Chromebooks, you can't store apps/appdata in fact Android apps run in isolated containers currently on Chromebooks and have no access to the SD card at all, this means that if I download some photo editor from the Play store I can't open photos stored on my SD card directly...

General Media is also a problem, I can install VLC on my Chromebook but I can't access media on my SD card, even tho ChromeOS supports exFAT.

So people can go on and say SD card this SD card that, but currently SD cards are not usable at all, they are also not designed for random access, eMMC is at least somewhat decent at that. SDcard readers on many devices are often accessed over USB which makes them even slower and less reliable.

And the design of the SDreader itself often doesn't lend well to permanent storage which means that SD cards cannot be physically used as reliable system storage.

A 256GB micro SD card costs in the UK 150-170 GBP, you can get it for about 130-140 if you want to play 256GB or 256MB Amazon roulette.

Apple Charges 170 GBP for the 256GB upgrade over the 32GB one, yes this is more per GB than an SD card but this is considerably faster and more reliable storage and you can actually use it as both system and general use storage which means that any app or general purpose use of the phone would be able to take full advantage of it unlike SD cards on Android/ChromeOS which range from utterly useless to very limited.

500$ Chromebook with 32GB of storage is utterly useless, considering the price of eMMC it's also inexcusable, so is the fact that iPads come with 32GB still at a similar price point, but at least those offer a higher capacity option.

It seems that the Chinese makers do 64GB as base now, probably will soon go to 128 since when they play around the same price point they need to win on features, I'll wait for a Chromebook from them or see if Asus is going to launch a 256 or 512GB version.

Like honestly I'm really baffled by the level of technical inaccuracy in the counterpoints and the downvotes people that talk about SD cards seem to not actually own a Chromebook nor use it as Google wants you to do now which is as a platform for Android Apps since there are virtually no Chrome Apps anymore and everything is from the Play Store.

I have yet to see a chromebook with an SD reader that wasn't USB2.0

Slow external storage that doesn't interface properly is no replacement for a fast internal drive.A m.2 slot isn't that big. There's no excuse to not add one.