Samsung was widely criticised for its decision to drop the microSD card slot from the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. The presence of a microSD card slot was among the key strengths of Samsung’s flagship devices, so it made little sense for the company to drop it. No wonder the company ended up reintroducing the feature with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge this year.

Now, a Samsung executive has revealed why the Korean company decided not to include a microSD card slot on its 2015 flagship handsets. Kyle Brown, head of technology, content and launch management at Samsung, told TechRadar that due to major performance improvements in key areas like faster UFS 2.0 storage and LPDDR4 RAM, the company “believed” having a microSD could affect the performance of the handset.

Thankfully, Kyle says, that engineers over at Samsung managed to deliver the best of both worlds with the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge this year. The response of including a microSD card slot on the S7 has been extremely positive for Samsung.

“A lot of people were very disappointed we didn’t have a [memory card] slot in the S6, and [its return] has been one of the most positive reactions to the S7. We’re really proud of what managed to achieve, adding a microSD slot and water resistive IP68 rating. It’s a really massive achievement for engineers.”

The lack of a microSD card slot on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge lead Samsung to launch the handsets in a multitude of storage configurations. However, since the higher storage variants were priced at a premium, many customers ultimately went for the LG G4 and other flagship handsets that featured a microSD card slot. With its return on the S7 and S7 edge though, Samsung has ditched the higher storage variants for its flagship handsets this year and will only be offering the handset with 32GB of internal storage.

Was the lack of a microSD card slot on the Galaxy S6 a deal breaker for you? Did it force you to buy any other handset?