7 ms·

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners told to turn off device

98 points by M_Grey 10y ago

taurath 10y ago
So what, they're telling customers to go without a smartphone while they figure out what to do? I doubt many of them will be willing to pick up a different Samsung phone in the meantime. Looks like a boon for LG HTC and Apple. You could tell it would get really bad when they stopped issuing replacement phones. Not being able to find a big bad problem twice is a huge mistake for a hardware company in a very competitive market.
- abysmallyideal 10y ago
  Apparently samsung is going through a regime change, and the new guy exercises less authority implying he doesn't have as much control over Samsung as the previous regime. When the Americans play hardball, Samsung should be prepared but it seems like they caught them completely off guard. By now, I'd be surprised if they were even able to isolate where in their production line they were sabotaged. I'm guessing they introduced multiple points of failure and also introduced some security bugs into Android to target various components. When dealing as a major global corporation, and especially if your main competitors and antagonists are the likes of American corporations, being prepared for sabotage by CIA etc should be part of daily ops.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I don't suppose that there's a shred of evidence to support this conspiracy theory?
    - MBCook 10y ago
      I remember reading an article that said the head of Samsung had a health issue a year or two ago. He basically hasn't been working since then, but because of the traditions of Korean conglomerates no one can take over his place while he's alive without being shameful. So his lieutenants/sons (can't remember which) are sort of doing their best but they don't have the force of being the actual head of the company. According to the article that made it harder for Samsung to respond. If I'm remembering it correctly I don't know how true it is. Either way I don't see why it means that they've botched two recalls now. The rest is pure nonsense.
      - anexprogrammer 10y ago
        His son is meant to take over. There's some issues with it happening. It's being discussed during World Service discussion of Note 7. Doesn't seem to be likely to affect the battery/combustion issue, but is affecting the conglomerate overall. They didn't go into enough detail so that's all I can add. Batteries were switched from 70% Samsung subsidiary SDI, 30% Amperex to mostly Amperex (TDK) for the replacement. TDK shares are now suffering too.
      - abysmallyideal 10y ago
        Haha it is hardly nonsense. Corporate sabotage is part of what any company has to deal with. Considering that Apple and Google are poised to gain, with Apple shares rising it is obvious Apple had the most to gain. There is also geopolitical motors involved, as well as the highly aggressive US spying cartels that want to insure they maintain a monopoly of insecure products around the world. Too many vectors pointing at sabotage to dismiss it as nonsense. Sure, commercially they'll dismiss it as so, but I highly doubt it is as easily dismissive when taking into account _all_ factors.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        So by all means, cite your evidence.
        bdcravens 10y ago
        So it follows that Antennagate and Bendgate were the result of corporate espionage as well?
        oldmanjay 10y ago
        Your only "vectors" are that Samsung has competitors and countries have spies. That's not nearly specific enough to be interesting
      - yongjik 10y ago
        I don't know details, but I think the new ruler (Lee Jae-Yong) has full authority over Samsung. Samsung's upper class is a very hierarchical bunch, and they (especially the now incapacitated father Lee Kun-hee) did everything reasonable and unreasonable to ensure smooth power transition. If anyone was loyal to the father, they would be loyal to the son because that's what the father wanted. (Whether they will stay loyal, of course, is anyone's guess...) If anything, the widely suspected reason the father Lee is not yet officially dead is that they're still fixing loose ends on their... creative accounting so that the son can inherit the group without paying due tax. (Well, it could be just another conspiracy theory, but anyone following news on South Korea would concede that it's a very plausible theory.)
    - 02ef6290e6 10y ago
      Some articles from last 2 years. Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/lee-family-power-war-for-samsung-scandals-and-bribes-2015-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/lee-family-power-war-for-sams... / Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2014/10/08/6ec0ba58-44bb-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2014/10/08/6ec0ba58-44b...
    - flukus 10y ago
      Not that I agree with the parent, but samsung is 20% of the South Korean economy and they have a rather unfriendly neighbor that would love to take them down. Even if there is nothing nefarious at play it, it's an interesting look at what the very near future (and the present to a limited extent) could look like.
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    Are you on drugs?
  - s3r3nity 10y ago
    Citation needed...?
- ClassyJacket 10y ago
  > I doubt many of them will be willing to pick up a different Samsung phone in the meantime. To be fair the Note 7 and the S7 Edge are damn near identical. Screen, camera, design, all very close. It's just that S Pen really. If someone doesn't care about that, they have a Samsung option right there.
  - JBlue42 10y ago
    Traded in my S3, that had been doing well over the years but started losing charge more quickly, for an S6. First one overheated so badly when running updates the first time I thought I would burn my fingers. Traded it in thinking it was a bum phone. New phone heats up but not as bad. Lost charge very quickly very fast though and will freeze with video at times. I use a quick-charging cable now to keep it 'topped up' to take to work each day. Looking forward to trading it in ASAP for a non-Samsung phone.
jflowers45 10y ago
The Takata airbag recall as well as the Note 7 are two of the most high profile recalls I can think of in recent history. Can anyone think of any other recalls that affected so many consumers and received so much press coverage?
- zeusk 10y ago
  Ford Pinto, Intel Pentium
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    And people are still making exploding Pinto jokes, almost 40 years later, so don't hold your breath on some relief from the Samsung wisecracking.
    - megablast 10y ago
      Sure, but are ford hurting? Did they ever come close?
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Seriously... people will forgive and forget a lot, but something they don't expect to explode, exploding on them? Memorable.
    - AlexDanger 10y ago
      And yet I dont see anyone complaining about Intel processors being unable to do FP calculations. People made jokes for a while with the FDIV bug but Intel just did the recall and moved on. Samsung will get over it. So will consumers. The brand is a juggernaut.
      - fpgeek 10y ago
        I don't know that they will. If the first recall had been enough - that they'd really found the problem, fixed it and made things up to their customers, I think they could have done well. Taking decisive, painful and effective action would have demonstrated their commitment to their customers. But they didn't solve the problem, gave people replacement devices they said were safe and were wrong about that again. I'm not suggesting malice here. I think that it is perfectly plausible (even likely) that they thought they had found and fixed the problem and were just wrong. But that doesn't really matter. They may not be malicious, but they are demonstrably incompetent when it comes to safety. That's probably worse.
pixl97 10y ago
Maybe you could just take the battery out... Oh, yea, about that. I'll stick with my S5 till it falls apart.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  S5 Active here... I plan to use it until it literally dies, and I'm not sure that there's a force on Earth that can kill it.
  - exodust 10y ago
    Galaxy S4 here. Still going strong. One day in the future, I will upgrade to an S5.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Galaxy S3 user here. It is a bummer to be stuck with Android 4.3, but I do most of my hobby coding in C++ anyway and that has hardly changed, other than Vulkan support. In any case my next phone isn't going to be a Samsung one, ability to replace batteries and use SD cards are two non negotiable features for me.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Cue the new Samsung mobile strategy, picking up Google-retired project Ara, and pushing for easy recall.. I mean green modular phones.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  There is at least one of these comments on every single story about the Note. We get it already, removable battery yada yada yada.
  - stronglikedan 10y ago
    It's a valid complaint when batteries lose nearly half of their capacity or more within the first year, and people tend to keep their phones longer than that. Just not buying the phones doesn't necessarily get the word out as to why, but posts like this do. It may seem trivial, as posts on forums generally are, but in greater numbers they become less trivial.
memracom 10y ago
There is a fix. Legislate the minimum thickness of lithium batteries. This will stop the idiocy of smaller/lighter right in its tracks. The thinner the battery, the closer the positive and negative terminals are, and the greater the risk of bending or pressure causing them to contact. In case you didn't notice there are lots and lots of people buying bigger devices these days. Bigger phones, bigger tablets. Samsung even sells a tablet with an 18.4 inch screen, the Galaxy View. There is a market for all kinds of devices and there is no need to compromise public safety for the sake of fashion. For that matter, you don't even need to legislate it. The airlines just have to start demanding that all tablets and phones are measured against a thickness scale. If your device does not fit through the slot, you can't take it on board. You either don't fly or you pay a mandatory fee for safekeeping until you return.
- dawnerd 10y ago
  I think you mean if your device CAN fit through the slot.
- josho 10y ago
  Isn't this how bad laws happen. Eg. do you think that in 20 years thickness issues won't be completely solved, likely by some completely different technology. Yet some stupid law from 2016 requires that a brand new product segment has to have an arbitrary thickness applied. Yes, we could just remove that law when that day occurs but that doesn't always happen so easily.
- wyager 10y ago
  You're the kind of person responsible for those shitty CARB-regulated gas can valves.
  - function_seven 10y ago
    You mean the ones that almost guarantee that I'll spill a bit of gas each time I use them, those ones? The ones that are so bad that the best alternative is a “utility container”[1]? Seriously, I've never seen such a counter-productive regulation in my life. [1] https://amzn.com/B00SJWPKAG https://amzn.com/B00SJWPKAG
plowman 10y ago
So basically a recall without the hassle of having to replace all of these phones?
- M_Grey 10y ago
  ...And with all of the risks that someone won't get the message, and really hurt themselves. As it stands, this is going to be a nightmare for Samsung to recover from, just in terms of PR.
danso 10y ago
Was just on a regional Southwest flight today. The pilot instructed everyone with a "Samsung Galaxy" (not specifically the Note 7) to power-off their device for the remainder of the flight. I'm sure the generalization of the warning was an over-cautious oversight.
- chipperyman573 10y ago
  It might also have to do with the fact that a lot of people (especially non-techies) don't know which galaxy they have (which is odd because I've noticed that people always seem to know if they have the M7, M8 or M10).
- frik 10y ago
  Last week a stewardess told us to power-off any "Galaxy 7" device.
asafira 10y ago
Can anyone on hackernews comment on the specific issue in the Note 7? And why was it (seemingly) easy to screw up the replacement phones as well? Are we taking for granted the lengths that other hardware manufacturers go to to make sure such issues don't occur with their batteries? (At least, those innovating in regard to battery capacity, chemistry, and shape)
- Throwaway23412 10y ago
  Isn't the problem here that they don't know what the issue is? Or that there are a multitude of issues? I've yet to see a statement from Samsung that wasn't vague or unconvincing. (And in at least one case, it seems they're more concerned about covering up their incompetence than explaining their incompetence: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/9/13215728/samsung-galaxy-note-7-third-fire-smoke-inhalation http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/9/13215728/samsung-galaxy-no...)
  - MBCook 10y ago
    If they do actually know what the issue is, they certainly haven't actually told anyone. They've only given generic and sort of hand-wavy "we fixed it don't worry" kind of explanations.
    - anexprogrammer 10y ago
      Well today's statements seem fairly straightforward - don't use it, don't try and exchange it, and to retailers - stop selling it. If I had to bet it'd be that they don't know what the issue is, given the PR damage of combusting replacements.
      - MBCook 10y ago
        You're right, their statement now it's pretty clear. Initially, things were worse. They give out conflicting information to different people, no one was really sure if it was a recall or how to handle it. That was weeks ago.
- 10y ago
sengork 10y ago
Replaceable battery on Note 8 (I hope!).
- simonh 10y ago
  I've seen this suggested on other threads, but why? If your phone starts smoking and burning out are you really going to start fiddling with it to remove the now red-hot battery? What are you going to do with it if you do remove it? All you've done is remove a physical barrier between the incendiary device and flamables in the environment. We don't even know if the flaw is in the battery itself. Maybe it's in the charging circuitry, or even the software controlling the charging cycle. Personally in a situation like this I wouldn't care where the flaw was, I'd want a different replacement device anyway. Especially if even the device manufacturer apparently can't figure out how to make these things safe. Finally, one theory is that Samsung designed the battery cells to be too thin. Since removable battery designs reduce the amount of space available for a battery, the constraints on the battery size would be even greater, conceivably making an issue like this even more likely.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    It's not about just what the user can do with a replaceable battery, it's about how much easier it becomes for the company to replace batteries in the field (and backplate, if too thin): just ship new batteries and have user come and immediately leave with a "fixed" phone. (Of course, if your new battery is also broken, then nothing really can help.) And — do correct me if I'm wrong — but removable batteries don't add thickness, only length.
ars 10y ago
Why the advice to turn it off? Wouldn't it make more sense (be safer) to leave it somewhere and let it drain down naturally?
- chipperyman573 10y ago
  I don't know anything about why the phones explode, how come letting it discharge be safer?
  - ars 10y ago
    Because with no energy in the battery it can't explode. Otherwise you have a potential ticking time bomb.
    - pritambaral 10y ago
      discharged battery != no energy in battery discharged battery = no electrically extractable energy in battery There's still plenty of chemical energy in the battery.
ClayFerguson 10y ago
People will start listening when Samsung says "Put the phone in a fireplace, or an oven, or any bathtub made of porcalin, and then dial 911."
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
walkingolof 10y ago
I dont think this is the first time they have an issue with batteries, when I bought my S4, the battery swell up while charging, there was a recall, but since it was user replaceable you just got a new battery and everything was fine.
superx 10y ago
1. Make a version with the removable battery (+3-5mm to thickness). 2. Have a an option with battery pack using the 18650 or similar cells (also would have much more capacity), can be interchangeable with normal thinner battery. Anyway, that idiocy with large ultra-thin lipo powered devices must come to an end (otherwise you have a ready ignition if it is bends). PS: One cannot exclude insiders from competition contaminating the separator film during the battery manufacture.

98 points by M_Grey 10y ago

So what, they're telling customers to go without a smartphone while they figure out what to do? I doubt many of them will be willing to pick up a different Samsung phone in the meantime. Looks like a boon for LG HTC and Apple. You could tell it would get really bad when they stopped issuing replacement phones. Not being able to find a big bad problem twice is a huge mistake for a hardware company in a very competitive market.

abysmallyideal 10y ago
Apparently samsung is going through a regime change, and the new guy exercises less authority implying he doesn't have as much control over Samsung as the previous regime. When the Americans play hardball, Samsung should be prepared but it seems like they caught them completely off guard. By now, I'd be surprised if they were even able to isolate where in their production line they were sabotaged. I'm guessing they introduced multiple points of failure and also introduced some security bugs into Android to target various components. When dealing as a major global corporation, and especially if your main competitors and antagonists are the likes of American corporations, being prepared for sabotage by CIA etc should be part of daily ops.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  I don't suppose that there's a shred of evidence to support this conspiracy theory?
  - MBCook 10y ago
    I remember reading an article that said the head of Samsung had a health issue a year or two ago. He basically hasn't been working since then, but because of the traditions of Korean conglomerates no one can take over his place while he's alive without being shameful. So his lieutenants/sons (can't remember which) are sort of doing their best but they don't have the force of being the actual head of the company. According to the article that made it harder for Samsung to respond. If I'm remembering it correctly I don't know how true it is. Either way I don't see why it means that they've botched two recalls now. The rest is pure nonsense.
    - anexprogrammer 10y ago
      His son is meant to take over. There's some issues with it happening. It's being discussed during World Service discussion of Note 7. Doesn't seem to be likely to affect the battery/combustion issue, but is affecting the conglomerate overall. They didn't go into enough detail so that's all I can add. Batteries were switched from 70% Samsung subsidiary SDI, 30% Amperex to mostly Amperex (TDK) for the replacement. TDK shares are now suffering too.
    - abysmallyideal 10y ago
      Haha it is hardly nonsense. Corporate sabotage is part of what any company has to deal with. Considering that Apple and Google are poised to gain, with Apple shares rising it is obvious Apple had the most to gain. There is also geopolitical motors involved, as well as the highly aggressive US spying cartels that want to insure they maintain a monopoly of insecure products around the world. Too many vectors pointing at sabotage to dismiss it as nonsense. Sure, commercially they'll dismiss it as so, but I highly doubt it is as easily dismissive when taking into account _all_ factors.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        So by all means, cite your evidence.
      - bdcravens 10y ago
        So it follows that Antennagate and Bendgate were the result of corporate espionage as well?
      - oldmanjay 10y ago
        Your only "vectors" are that Samsung has competitors and countries have spies. That's not nearly specific enough to be interesting
    - yongjik 10y ago
      I don't know details, but I think the new ruler (Lee Jae-Yong) has full authority over Samsung. Samsung's upper class is a very hierarchical bunch, and they (especially the now incapacitated father Lee Kun-hee) did everything reasonable and unreasonable to ensure smooth power transition. If anyone was loyal to the father, they would be loyal to the son because that's what the father wanted. (Whether they will stay loyal, of course, is anyone's guess...) If anything, the widely suspected reason the father Lee is not yet officially dead is that they're still fixing loose ends on their... creative accounting so that the son can inherit the group without paying due tax. (Well, it could be just another conspiracy theory, but anyone following news on South Korea would concede that it's a very plausible theory.)
  - 02ef6290e6 10y ago
    Some articles from last 2 years. Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/lee-family-power-war-for-samsung-scandals-and-bribes-2015-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/lee-family-power-war-for-sams... / Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2014/10/08/6ec0ba58-44bb-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2014/10/08/6ec0ba58-44b...
  - flukus 10y ago
    Not that I agree with the parent, but samsung is 20% of the South Korean economy and they have a rather unfriendly neighbor that would love to take them down. Even if there is nothing nefarious at play it, it's an interesting look at what the very near future (and the present to a limited extent) could look like.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Are you on drugs?
- s3r3nity 10y ago
  Citation needed...?
ClassyJacket 10y ago
> I doubt many of them will be willing to pick up a different Samsung phone in the meantime. To be fair the Note 7 and the S7 Edge are damn near identical. Screen, camera, design, all very close. It's just that S Pen really. If someone doesn't care about that, they have a Samsung option right there.
- JBlue42 10y ago
  Traded in my S3, that had been doing well over the years but started losing charge more quickly, for an S6. First one overheated so badly when running updates the first time I thought I would burn my fingers. Traded it in thinking it was a bum phone. New phone heats up but not as bad. Lost charge very quickly very fast though and will freeze with video at times. I use a quick-charging cable now to keep it 'topped up' to take to work each day. Looking forward to trading it in ASAP for a non-Samsung phone.

jflowers45 10y ago

The Takata airbag recall as well as the Note 7 are two of the most high profile recalls I can think of in recent history. Can anyone think of any other recalls that affected so many consumers and received so much press coverage?

zeusk 10y ago
Ford Pinto, Intel Pentium
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  And people are still making exploding Pinto jokes, almost 40 years later, so don't hold your breath on some relief from the Samsung wisecracking.
  - megablast 10y ago
    Sure, but are ford hurting? Did they ever come close?
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Seriously... people will forgive and forget a lot, but something they don't expect to explode, exploding on them? Memorable.
  - AlexDanger 10y ago
    And yet I dont see anyone complaining about Intel processors being unable to do FP calculations. People made jokes for a while with the FDIV bug but Intel just did the recall and moved on. Samsung will get over it. So will consumers. The brand is a juggernaut.
    - fpgeek 10y ago
      I don't know that they will. If the first recall had been enough - that they'd really found the problem, fixed it and made things up to their customers, I think they could have done well. Taking decisive, painful and effective action would have demonstrated their commitment to their customers. But they didn't solve the problem, gave people replacement devices they said were safe and were wrong about that again. I'm not suggesting malice here. I think that it is perfectly plausible (even likely) that they thought they had found and fixed the problem and were just wrong. But that doesn't really matter. They may not be malicious, but they are demonstrably incompetent when it comes to safety. That's probably worse.

pixl97 10y ago

Maybe you could just take the battery out... Oh, yea, about that. I'll stick with my S5 till it falls apart.

M_Grey 10y ago
S5 Active here... I plan to use it until it literally dies, and I'm not sure that there's a force on Earth that can kill it.
- exodust 10y ago
  Galaxy S4 here. Still going strong. One day in the future, I will upgrade to an S5.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Galaxy S3 user here. It is a bummer to be stuck with Android 4.3, but I do most of my hobby coding in C++ anyway and that has hardly changed, other than Vulkan support. In any case my next phone isn't going to be a Samsung one, ability to replace batteries and use SD cards are two non negotiable features for me.
agumonkey 10y ago
Cue the new Samsung mobile strategy, picking up Google-retired project Ara, and pushing for easy recall.. I mean green modular phones.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
There is at least one of these comments on every single story about the Note. We get it already, removable battery yada yada yada.
- stronglikedan 10y ago
  It's a valid complaint when batteries lose nearly half of their capacity or more within the first year, and people tend to keep their phones longer than that. Just not buying the phones doesn't necessarily get the word out as to why, but posts like this do. It may seem trivial, as posts on forums generally are, but in greater numbers they become less trivial.

memracom 10y ago

There is a fix. Legislate the minimum thickness of lithium batteries. This will stop the idiocy of smaller/lighter right in its tracks. The thinner the battery, the closer the positive and negative terminals are, and the greater the risk of bending or pressure causing them to contact. In case you didn't notice there are lots and lots of people buying bigger devices these days. Bigger phones, bigger tablets. Samsung even sells a tablet with an 18.4 inch screen, the Galaxy View. There is a market for all kinds of devices and there is no need to compromise public safety for the sake of fashion. For that matter, you don't even need to legislate it. The airlines just have to start demanding that all tablets and phones are measured against a thickness scale. If your device does not fit through the slot, you can't take it on board. You either don't fly or you pay a mandatory fee for safekeeping until you return.

dawnerd 10y ago
I think you mean if your device CAN fit through the slot.
josho 10y ago
Isn't this how bad laws happen. Eg. do you think that in 20 years thickness issues won't be completely solved, likely by some completely different technology. Yet some stupid law from 2016 requires that a brand new product segment has to have an arbitrary thickness applied. Yes, we could just remove that law when that day occurs but that doesn't always happen so easily.
wyager 10y ago
You're the kind of person responsible for those shitty CARB-regulated gas can valves.
- function_seven 10y ago
  You mean the ones that almost guarantee that I'll spill a bit of gas each time I use them, those ones? The ones that are so bad that the best alternative is a “utility container”[1]? Seriously, I've never seen such a counter-productive regulation in my life. [1] https://amzn.com/B00SJWPKAG https://amzn.com/B00SJWPKAG

plowman 10y ago

So basically a recall without the hassle of having to replace all of these phones?

M_Grey 10y ago
...And with all of the risks that someone won't get the message, and really hurt themselves. As it stands, this is going to be a nightmare for Samsung to recover from, just in terms of PR.

danso 10y ago

Was just on a regional Southwest flight today. The pilot instructed everyone with a "Samsung Galaxy" (not specifically the Note 7) to power-off their device for the remainder of the flight. I'm sure the generalization of the warning was an over-cautious oversight.

chipperyman573 10y ago
It might also have to do with the fact that a lot of people (especially non-techies) don't know which galaxy they have (which is odd because I've noticed that people always seem to know if they have the M7, M8 or M10).
frik 10y ago
Last week a stewardess told us to power-off any "Galaxy 7" device.

asafira 10y ago

Can anyone on hackernews comment on the specific issue in the Note 7? And why was it (seemingly) easy to screw up the replacement phones as well? Are we taking for granted the lengths that other hardware manufacturers go to to make sure such issues don't occur with their batteries? (At least, those innovating in regard to battery capacity, chemistry, and shape)

Throwaway23412 10y ago
Isn't the problem here that they don't know what the issue is? Or that there are a multitude of issues? I've yet to see a statement from Samsung that wasn't vague or unconvincing. (And in at least one case, it seems they're more concerned about covering up their incompetence than explaining their incompetence: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/9/13215728/samsung-galaxy-note-7-third-fire-smoke-inhalation http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/9/13215728/samsung-galaxy-no...)
- MBCook 10y ago
  If they do actually know what the issue is, they certainly haven't actually told anyone. They've only given generic and sort of hand-wavy "we fixed it don't worry" kind of explanations.
  - anexprogrammer 10y ago
    Well today's statements seem fairly straightforward - don't use it, don't try and exchange it, and to retailers - stop selling it. If I had to bet it'd be that they don't know what the issue is, given the PR damage of combusting replacements.
    - MBCook 10y ago
      You're right, their statement now it's pretty clear. Initially, things were worse. They give out conflicting information to different people, no one was really sure if it was a recall or how to handle it. That was weeks ago.
10y ago

sengork 10y ago

Replaceable battery on Note 8 (I hope!).

simonh 10y ago
I've seen this suggested on other threads, but why? If your phone starts smoking and burning out are you really going to start fiddling with it to remove the now red-hot battery? What are you going to do with it if you do remove it? All you've done is remove a physical barrier between the incendiary device and flamables in the environment. We don't even know if the flaw is in the battery itself. Maybe it's in the charging circuitry, or even the software controlling the charging cycle. Personally in a situation like this I wouldn't care where the flaw was, I'd want a different replacement device anyway. Especially if even the device manufacturer apparently can't figure out how to make these things safe. Finally, one theory is that Samsung designed the battery cells to be too thin. Since removable battery designs reduce the amount of space available for a battery, the constraints on the battery size would be even greater, conceivably making an issue like this even more likely.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  It's not about just what the user can do with a replaceable battery, it's about how much easier it becomes for the company to replace batteries in the field (and backplate, if too thin): just ship new batteries and have user come and immediately leave with a "fixed" phone. (Of course, if your new battery is also broken, then nothing really can help.) And — do correct me if I'm wrong — but removable batteries don't add thickness, only length.

ars 10y ago

Why the advice to turn it off? Wouldn't it make more sense (be safer) to leave it somewhere and let it drain down naturally?

chipperyman573 10y ago
I don't know anything about why the phones explode, how come letting it discharge be safer?
- ars 10y ago
  Because with no energy in the battery it can't explode. Otherwise you have a potential ticking time bomb.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    discharged battery != no energy in battery discharged battery = no electrically extractable energy in battery There's still plenty of chemical energy in the battery.

ClayFerguson 10y ago

People will start listening when Samsung says "Put the phone in a fireplace, or an oven, or any bathtub made of porcalin, and then dial 911."

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

walkingolof 10y ago

I dont think this is the first time they have an issue with batteries, when I bought my S4, the battery swell up while charging, there was a recall, but since it was user replaceable you just got a new battery and everything was fine.

superx 10y ago

1. Make a version with the removable battery (+3-5mm to thickness). 2. Have a an option with battery pack using the 18650 or similar cells (also would have much more capacity), can be interchangeable with normal thinner battery. Anyway, that idiocy with large ultra-thin lipo powered devices must come to an end (otherwise you have a ready ignition if it is bends). PS: One cannot exclude insiders from competition contaminating the separator film during the battery manufacture.