Samsung Rugged Memory Cards Are Water, Shock & Magnet Proof

It seems somewhat perverse – or at least flippant – to want to buy an SDHC card simply because it looks so swanky, but Samsung's new consumer memory card range is cutting quite the dash with its champagne finish.  Still, once the 8GB SDHC is slotted into whatever gadget you've bought it for you can't see the aesthetics, so happily Samsung have given it some other strengths too.  For a start, the company reckons you'll never lose data from them.

That's because they're water-proof, shock-proof and magnet-proof, which means you could drop them into sea water filled with high-powered magnets attached to 1.6 ton weights and not have to worry about data loss.  In fact Samsung reckon they'll last ten years, which is longer than a lot of marriages.  No word on how much the cards cost, but they'll drop in Europe first before availability spreads.

Press Release:

Samsung memory card features for consumers include:

Water-proof* – Innovative Epoxy Moulding Compound technology helps withstand over 24 hours in sea water.

Shock-proof – Survives high pressure, including the crush of a 1.6-ton automobile.

Magnet-proof – Resists over 13 times the magnetic force of home theater speakers.

Fast & superb data recovery – Free proprietary software assists with up to 3 times faster recovery.

Up to 10 years' data retention – Capable of storing priceless data for longer without a refresh.

*Not applicable for Samsung Compact Flash Cards.

Samsung Now Offers Consumer Memory Cards

Global leader in memory components links up with Kondor to launch its first branded memory cards – storage designed to ensure that data is safe from everyday hazards

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the general availability of its premium Samsung memory cards for sale to the UK market. The global leader in memory components also announced a partnership with Kondor for the distribution of the premium memory cards to consumers in the UK market. While the local distribution partner will focus on the channel, Samsung is driving the strategy behind consumer marketing, communication and brand management.

"The creation of new premium memory cards under the Samsung brand are a perfect fit for our existing portfolio of consumer products," commented Rob Haycock Managing Director at Kondor "We believe that the partnership will be a great success for us and our clients".

"The market for memory cards continues to grow in leaps and bounds as consumers push for added storage in smart phones and other mobile devices," said Stefanie Summerfield – Head of Business Development, Samsung Semiconductor.

"Our well-established leadership in the digital memory card space provides an ideal footing from which to launch premium memory cards that can match rapidly evolving, high-end premium devices such as smart phones and high-performance digital still cameras," Stefanie explained. "Our cards also provide consumers with more of the outstanding reliability that they have come to expect from Samsung semiconductor products."

Today's consumer electronics market is fast evolving to include more and more multifunctional, content-oriented applications and devices. Samsung already has a strong branded presence in these consumer markets, a presence that will provide a lot of synergy for the new card products.

The NAND flash-memory retail market is estimated to already have reached $12 billion in revenues annually worldwide. As a result of continued dramatic growth in the mobile phone market, digital memory card demand is projected to more than double between 2008 and 2011. According to iSuppli, by 2011 more than 61 percent of mobile phones will include a card slot for additional flash card storage, compared to 51 percent of mobile phones with card slots in 2008.

In previous years, Samsung manufactured "white-label" digital memory cards for a variety of leading electronics companies and memory card companies. The company's new line, aimed at the discerning consumer, is designed to ensure that valuable data is not lost, Samsung memory cards are shock-resistant, water-resistant and protected from damage caused by magnetic interference.

In addition, Samsung memory cards feature a modern brushed silver metallic design or a natural beige epoxy compound casing, and full compatibility with devices that have memory card slots. Most of the premium Plus memory cards can read data at 17MB/s (megabytes per second), though the CF cards provide read speeds of up to 45MB/s.

Samsung's new premium "Plus" memory cards, which comply with the Secure Digital class 6 ratings for performance, are available in SD, microSD and Compact Flash (CF) formats with densities of 4-gigabytes (GBs) and 8GBs, with a 16GB density for an SD Plus card.

The new Samsung memory cards are currently available in France, Germany and UK, with other select countries likely to follow at a later date.