Three days ago, I found myself at Heathrow Airport alongside a number of reviewers from various UK publications; Andrew Edney from Using WHS, Harry Butler from Bit-tech, James Reed from Heaven Media, Philip Iwaniuk from PC Format, Simon Crisp and the legendary Nick Haywood from Imacula PR. After an early start, we ended up in Barcelona at midday to be swiftly taken through the majestic town towards the Samsung presentation Venue. We were soon greeted by the Samsung representative and engineers as well as fifty other people from various international publications. Amongst them was Dave who had already landed an hour earlier and was getting friendly with some French reviewers.


Soon after our arrival and a quick lunch, Samsung proceeded with the presentation, detailing the technical aspects of their latest SSDs including the components used and the technology behind them, the performance in comparison to its competitors, and how reliability was ensured for better user experience. The two hour lecture was very well received and gave us the unique opportunity to explore how Samsung went about designing their SSDs and how they aimed to compete in this growingly-competitive market. A lot of the emphasis was on sustained performance rather than simply marketing peak performance, an approach taken by many of its competitors such as SandForce based drives. Reliability was also up there on there. Samsung have become famous for Intel-like reliability and endurance which they promise to deliver to consumers once again. With the growing number of reports of SandForce based drivers causing problems, it is the perfect time for Samsung to deliver on their promise. Dave and I also took the chance to speak with Jonathan Da Silva, global strategist at Samsung and I’ll cover some of the things he said over the next page.


Business aside, The Samsung crew were most welcoming of their guests, housing us in a luxurious central Barcelona Hotel, feeding us plentifully all day, and even taking us sailing in the afternoon!