I will start with the most important message in this review: STAY AWAY FROM KOMPUTERBAY AND THEIR ITEMS. You can read my other posts and you can see I always take an reasonable, unbias approach I honestly enjoy sharing insights from my experience, elevating awareness, and impart knowledge to those that are interested ;-) I understand everyone isn't up to speed on this and that so I will try to explain issues as best as possible. If necessary respond with a comment and I'll try to help out!I bought a Nook Color as a Christmas gift for someone and I purchased this item to provide additional storage. Since it is in the same price ranges as Class 4 16 GB cards this seemed to be the no-brainer choice. That's where I was wrong and our story goes downhill.
I admit I am a tech nerd and as any good nerd I did some additional research while waiting for the item to arrive. While looking I became a little concerned as I started noticing inconsistencies with the Komputerbay's listing and what's on other sites like Samsung's. I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt so I waited until it arrived. This is when it went from bad to worse.
Upon arrival I did a quick visual inspection and here's what I noticed and why it is an issue:
1) All letters are white The card size (ie 16 GB) should be written in a different color from the other text
2) The letter "G" in Samsung I compared the font and it does not match Samsung's trademark label nor any other retail Samsung products I purchased in the past
3) The case is all black currently Samsung only sell a 16GB Class 10 micro SDHC card in their Plus series which has an all white case.
Epic fail on the visual inspection. I used the program h2testw to benchmark the speed and integrity of the card. Summary of the the speed test (another fail):
Write:7.2 MB/s
Read: 18.0 MB/s
(I'm not rooting the NC so I worry about doing a 4kb/32q benchmark)
For anyone and everyone reading a Class 10 card is required to have a MINIMUM write speed of 10 MB/s anything less, even 9.9, fails Class 10 and it is downgraded to a lower class. In fact a Class 4 SanDisk I have tested at 6.8 MB/s and should highlight Class 6 is a more appropriate. I can say confidently I did not receive a Class 10 card and I wish I could say at the very least it was a functional 16GB Class 6 but sadly there's more....a failed sector on the card resulted in corrupt files in about 50% of the card storage.
Almost immediately I sent Samsung a message containing the model and serial #'s on the back of the card requesting confirmation that this is a genuine Samsung card and that this is a 16GB Class 10 micro SDHC card. It honestly surprised me when they replied back with the following:
"According to our information this particular unit is not a Samsung unit. It does not match any model or serial number in our systems." The full email response from Samsung was included in the return box to Amazon.
To make this crystal clear since this is not a genuine Samsung product there is NO MANUFACTURER WARRANTY OR SUPPORT.
Following my initial contact I spoke with multiple people at Samsung on the phone and computer as they had a sincere interest. They reviewed all the information and specifically use the terms "fake", "fraudulent", and "counterfeit" during the nearly two hours. This was the first they heard of 'Komputerbay' they are not an authorized reseller of Samsung products. I can say this is the last time I'll do business with Komputerbay.
My 'product not as described' refund request was finally processed (Amazon gave me a free return shipping label). Taking this situation as what can be expected of Komputerbay, the way they conduct business, and the other products they offer I say one final time STAY AWAY FROM KOMPUTERBAY AND THEIR ITEMS. Consider yourself warned =P
2) The Samsung products were counterfeit...
I spoke with a Samsung representative and the product does not exist in their records. The serial number and variations of the actual serial number were tried, and the card does not exist in any of their records. Also, I was told all legitimate Samsung products are made in Korea This one was made in Taiwan. Finally, the color of the card should be white/silver and not black. I spoke to the rep for half an hour and he even asked other reps The card is fake. Now, all of the details have been given to Amazon.com Let's see if they do anything about it. This is the one time I have not done my research before making a purchase Ouch!I bought 12 items ... but each one has different transfer rates (using same PC, same USB 3.0 port).
I had some with 2mb/sec, others 900k/sec ... What is wrong?
Searching in forum to try to solve it ....
No comments:
Post a Comment