Analysts today are facing increasing demand of faster and more efficient HPLC separations.Important advances in column technologies to address this challenge include particles with decreasing size at increasing operating pressure, new particle morphology such as superficially porous particles and better monolithic columns.Progress has also been made in the theoretical understanding and comparison of these approaches and this helps one choose the appropriate technology most suitable for a given application.In this presentation we review the most recent development of the popular superficially porous particles, and compare them with other popular sub-2 micron fully porous particles, with a focus on the impact of particle design on chromatographic performance.