Samsung Orders the Global Shutdown of Both Sales and Exchanges of Galaxy Note 7 (betanews.com) 126
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BetaNews: Sigh. The Galaxy Note 7. What should have been a wildly popular and successful smartphone has become a synonymous with failure, and fodder for jokes. As everyone knows, the phone has been exploding and catching fire, creating serious risk for consumers. The phone was eventually recalled and replaced, although that process was bungled by Samsung -- there was much confusion. Not to mention, there was criticism that the recall was not initially an official one. With the issues seemingly in the rear view mirror, the scandal was over, right? Wrong. Now, the replacement models are reportedly exploding too. Enough is apparently enough. Following rumors that production of the phone was being ceased, today, Samsung orders the global shutdown of both sales and exchanges of Galaxy Note 7. Samsung has formally issued the following statement: "We are working with relevant regulatory bodies to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note 7. Because consumers' safety remains our top priority, Samsung will ask all carrier and retail partners globally to stop sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 while the investigation is taking place. We remain committed to working diligently with appropriate regulatory authorities to take all necessary steps to resolve the situation. Consumers with either an original Galaxy Note 7 or replacement Galaxy Note 7 device should power down and stop using the device and take advantage of the remedies available."
Re:why hasn't apple taken advantage.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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It most certainly can if you can recover the costs by capturing the customers in Apple's ecosystem.
This would be a variation of the razor-blade model of sales.
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But won't Note 7 customers burned by Samsung *already* be looking at Apple now?
Of course they will, they have no choice. Everyone know the only two phone manufacturers are Samsung and Apple.
Oh, wait! For most people, it's the Android experience they're after. Kind of hard to get that while walled up in the Apple jail.
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Oh, and the Note 7 is the only phone made by Samsung.
I two of them, zero problems, and it's a great device. The extremely small chance of a fire really doesn't have me very worried. It amazes me that Samsung recalled eleventeen billion phones over a few dozen confirmed reports of issues.
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If I understand what the problem is, Samsung tried to squeeze the battery into a slightly too thin phone. While this might not present a problem out of the box, nor for the vast majority of owners, all it would take to cause a failure is to bend over to pick something up with the phone in your back pocket. This might not cause an immediate failure, nor a failure be caused by only one flexing of the phone, but I can see many of them developing this problem over time. I think they made the right call. It
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They can make it up in volume.
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I doubt that Apple wants to be holding them when they explode either.
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Why hasn't the NSA taken advantage of this, and airlifted a few hundred thousand to Puty's new-old KGB? "With love, from the US of A, Good Luck on Cold War 2; PS We preinstalled Plants Vs. Zombies 3!"
Galaxy 7 (Score:5, Funny)
The Ford Pinto of mobile phones.
Re: Galaxy 7 (Score:5, Funny)
At least we know the HCF instruction is fully implemented.
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At least we know the HCF instruction is fully implemented.
LOL!
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The problem was also present in later cars too, I think the Mustang and Crown Vic had the same issue, they sandwiched the gas tank vertically behind the differential pumpkin. That way in a rear end crash, it crushed the gas tank and ruptured it. They fixed it in later models by mounting the gas tank horizontally atop the pumpkin. The Pinto Wagon had problems with the gas filler neck too, IIRC.
I had a Fire Engine Red 1972 Pinto in high school. I had a "Danger: Flammable" bumper sticker on it as was the f
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The Ford Pinto of mobile phones.
You are charging it wrong.
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Samsung, for all their faults, deserve credit for not blaming the users on this one though.
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Apparently, no matter how hard they try, Samsung just can't stop its developers from using the Halt And Catch Fire (HCF) instruction.
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More like the Chevrolet Corvair - driving along normally and then OMG I'M IN A DITCH.
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Just so you know, I once drove a Ford Pinto from the Virginia-Tennessee state line to California.
And the transmission didn't fall out until I reached Bakersfield, so there. :-P
BREAKING: If S7 on Fire, Turn It Off (Score:1)
Also, turn off your S7 if it's smoking, unless the smoking light is on or you're in the West.
In the event of a plane crash, you can use your S7 to light a signal flare.
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Also, turn off your S7 if it's smoking, unless the smoking light is on or you're in the West.
In the event of a plane crash, you can use your S7 to light a signal flare.
No need. In the event of a crash, the S7 will BE the signal flare!
Re: BREAKING: If S7 on Fire, Turn It Off (Score:3)
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Scary working for a retail phone carrier (Score:1)
Just think with all those possible exploding phones coming back for replacement. The stores are going to be dangerous places with all those Note 7's sitting in boxes until they can ship them out. Not even sure the cargo airlines would want to permit them on board either.
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None of them are being shipped by air - that would actually be very much illegal.
I have one of the corporate demo devices and they sent a fire resistant box (fully lined with fire-retardant ceramic matting) with HAZMAT exception paperwork, pre-paid sticker, and 'GROUND ONLY' in big letters.
That is going to leave a mark (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole thing has been a fiasco. Bad engineering. Bad public relations. Hiding their knowing that there was a problem. Being forced into a recall, and even then, botching the "fix". I am sure there are a number of people now considering if they want a Samsung phone, whether Note 7 or other, now, or ever, to reside in their pocket. This is definitely going to leave a mark.
On the flip side, Apple really appreciates that they decided to torch their sales (literally) right as the iPhone 7 was coming out. Glad Samsung decided to join team Apple. :)
Re:That is going to leave a mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Reality, Samsung will win back consumer confidence with the simple act of going to user replaceable batteries with the next note, all will be forgotten and forgiven. You just know that is true, oh and maybe toss in a discount for proven one time owners of the note 7, for an even bigger slice of the mobile phone market. After the massive looses on the note 7, the cost of the change will be peanuts and will resurrect the note 7 brand. You could imagine the marketing, they will ignore what has happened and simply say, due to massive customer demands we are bringing back the replaceable battery because Samsung is a company that listens and cares or something similar. They could still try to stick to the current design but that would not sell well at all, and pretty much kill the note as a brand.
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They could still try to stick to the current design but that would not sell well at all, and pretty much kill the note as a brand.
I think they are well on their way towards that goal already. If I had mod points I'd mod your post 'funny'.
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What if it's not the battery?
There's speculation of two other issues -
A chassis design flaw that squeezes the battery.
A flaw in the charging control circuitry.
Either would explain why changing the battery supplier did not fix the issue.
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This is nothing but a guess, but I think they over-promised on performance and current battery technology couldn't deliver.
If it's a flawed battery, you replace it with a proper one. Fine, done. I'd be floored if there was a charge controller logic problem that couldn't be fixed in software. They're either using an industry standard power management chip that's got millions of units worth of field testing or they've implemented it in their own SoC. If the former, the logic is solid and tested. There's
Battery.. or charger ? (Score:2)
Or maybe the battery is now fine at more or less fullfilling their promises... ...but it's the charger that is completely over taxed.
Phone plugged into the provided charger are okay (charger can output all the phone pulls), phone plugged into high quality 3rd party are okay (charger limits what the phone can pull from it).
But phone plugged into cheap no-name Asian sub-5$ knockoffs have the charger overheat, melt, short itself and fry the smartphone.
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And having a replaceable battery does jack shit if the charging controller / firmware is the problem, which is likely implemented in the phone itself to bring down the cost of the batteries.
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And having a replaceable battery does jack shit if the charging controller / firmware is the problem, which is likely implemented in the phone itself to bring down the cost of the batteries.
If they determine that it's a firmware problem it can be fixed with an update. If it's found that the physical circuit design is the problem, then they are screwed.
It sounds like they just don't have a handle on what is causing the problem. They tried just replacing the batteries in the replacement version, but ti appears that it may not be bad batteries after all. I'm guessing that they didn't do a thorough cause analysis before implementing the recall, they just jumped to the conclusion that the bad co
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Unless it's firmware in a tiny microcontroller that is not updateable. Because that's never happened before.
Not a "hoverboard" (Score:2)
Worse still, having the job of the controller done by the main phone CPU instead of dedicated hardware. Botching it like that brings down cost, but if something glitches (and the more complicated something is, the more likely it will glitch) then, well. SACF!
On the other hand, they are Samsung. It's still a known brand that cares a tiny bit about their reputation and are going to put some minute efforts into the quality.
It's not of those clowns that mass-produced self-balancing board (handle-bar-less segway clones. A.k.a.: "Hoverboard") at 200 $ a piece and managed such a low price by throwing all safeties and even good practices out of the window.
There's probably a dedicated hardware charging controller.
It's probably on the same die as the rest of the SoC, to
What safety measures ? (Score:2)
There's certifications to pass for the battery by itself, which means those safety circuits end up back on the battery again.
You mean the safety circuits present on that USD 3.95 USB charger from eBay (shipping free), from that seller with 300 positive review (nearly all of them review appearing in the week before he posted the selling of saif USB Charger ?) :-D
Or the safety circuits present on that "10'000mAh!!! Long-lige!!!! Hi-quality!!!!" battery from Shenzen ?
Well at least Samsung can look on the bright side: now they can clearly shift the blame to shitty after-market parts.
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Don't forget that this will be marketed very loudly as OOOH SHINY! NEW & INNOVATIVE! in a fashion guaranteed to rival the world-renowned ARDF.
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Reality, Samsung will win back consumer confidence with the simple act of going to user replaceable batteries with the next note, all will be forgotten and forgiven. You just know that is true, oh and maybe toss in a discount for proven one time owners of the note 7, for an even bigger slice of the mobile phone market. After the massive looses on the note 7, the cost of the change will be peanuts and will resurrect the note 7 brand. You could imagine the marketing, they will ignore what has happened and simply say, due to massive customer demands we are bringing back the replaceable battery because Samsung is a company that listens and cares or something similar. They could still try to stick to the current design but that would not sell well at all, and pretty much kill the note as a brand.
Have they decided to go for user replaceable batteries, or is that just your conjecture?
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This is what happens when a corporation tries to dodge accountability in an amazingly public way. The consumer kicks them in the balls.
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of colluding, price fixing, IP-thieving assholes.
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You mean Apple? You're holding it wrong!
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will Apple also be taking advantage of this moment to hastily shut down the iPhone 6+ "screen death touch" outrage that's brewing?
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Unlikely. It's bad enough for Samsung, but Apple's problem is potentially far more costly. Samsung caught it relatively early so there aren't so many phones out there to be recalled, but Apple is in a situation where likely many millions of iPhones will eventually suffer from this failure.
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And yet they have billions of happy customers around the world, most of whom are repeat customers.
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If barely good enough means getting repeat customers, then I guess good enough means "too stupid to be in business putting in features and pleasing others by raping the company bottom line"
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It's worth mentioning that the Apple iPhone I'm guessing you own likely has several key components that were manufactured by Samsung, depending on what generation it is. RAM, flash, displays, the SoC fabrication itself, all done by Samsung at different points in the iPhone's lifetime.
This is dated, but Does Samsung make iPhone parts? [oureverydaylife.com]
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On the flip side, Apple really appreciates that they decided to torch their sales (literally) right as the iPhone 7 was coming out. Glad Samsung decided to join team Apple. :)
30-year Apple fan-boi here. . .
I will never purchase a smartphone (or iPod) that lacks an analog audio output port.
It's worked fine for 118 years. Don't fix what's not broken!!!
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It isn't half baked; it bakes itself, fully!
(Sorry, I really wanted to avoid more silly jokes.)
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It's "limited" to about 3 phones a day. Not the same thing as just 200 phones, period.
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Samsung could always sell their phones in carry cases made of asbestos (or whatever the modern equivalent is). In fact, I think that selling fireproof phone cases may be profitable now...
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Bad public relations. Hiding their knowing that there was a problem. Being forced into a recall
Huh? Telling people within a few days of the first few notifications to turn their phone off and sit tight we'll be issuing a fix or a recall shortly is "bad PR and hiding the problem"? What did you expect them to write it into the manual during manufacture, advertise it on TV before launch date? Also their recall was voluntary and they indicated they were considering a recall before any regulatory agencies even acknowledged they were looking into the problem.
For all their bad fuckups with engineering and t
A new drama series from AMC ! (Score:2)
exploding and catching fire
Following in the footsteps of their previous hit series [wikipedia.org], this hot new drams depicts a "fictionalized" insider's view of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 revolution...
If this were Apple, you'd be up in arms... (Score:1, Troll)
...remember this, Fandroids, the next time you whine about holding it wrong [tumblr.com].
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Nobody is a 'Fandroid.'
A small subsection of the Applephone users are fanatical zealots. A larger group are just people with phones. And Android phones are just what The Rest Of Us choose to use.
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And that's why Android phones suck, and why Apple makes 90% of the profits in mobile.
The Rest Of Us are people who don't give a shit.
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Except that if you really didn't give a shit, you wouldn't be so eager to stuff in something about Apple sales figures.
So you can stop bothering with the too-cool-to-care BS now.
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Projection, lack of self-awareness, putting on airs of moral superiority....straight up Fandroid talk right there.
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Plus there's no such thing as 'an Android phone'. There are tons of them at various price points, and usually those say they tried 'an Android phone' and it was crap somehow never can remember the manufacturer and model.
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Uh, no. "Holding it wrong", like the bendy iPhone Plus, was a hateboi excuse to sit around and bitch about Apple. And like Bendgate, it was much worse with Samsung products [itechpost.com] than with Apple's - go check out that tumbler link and you'll see five Samsung devices where you're advised not to "hold it wrong". On the first page.
They should bring back the replaceable battery. (Score:1)
I can't help but think that the issues that Samsung is having with exploding Note 7 batteries could have been greatly reduced by having a user-replaceable battery.
Have a bad battery? It can be replaced in seconds instead of having to ship it back to a factory for refurbishment.
Personally, I believe that making the battery non-replaceable had nothing to do with the aesthetics and everything to do with planned obsolecence. This seems to have backfired on them (excuse the pun).
I do love my Galaxy Note 4, and I
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They don't design in replaceable batteries precisely because there is a fire hazard potential. (There is also the issue of fitting everything in the planned case dimensions, but that simply illustrates that there is more than one reason).
Users inevitably purchase the cheapest replacement they can find, which are of questionable quality, and are the most likely to explode or burn up. If you look at the history of
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They don't design in replaceable batteries precisely because there is a fire hazard potential.
Who told you that?
it's a rouge supplier
No, we're talking about batteries, not makeup.
The truth is that cheap batteries tend to work fine. And when they don't, they're not the manufacturer's responsibility anyway.
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Translation: "Some users make poor choices, so let's remove that troublesome 'choice' thing altogether."
FAIL.
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Because when the sealed battery in a brand-name device catches fire, the brand loses $55B (or so, speculation is out there, a
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I'm not sure what a user replaceable battery would do. Once the battery catches fire, the phone is going to be burnt up beyond use anyway. And sending owners new batteries is going to be only marginally less painful for Samsung than sending whole new phones.
Look, I get the idea of user replaceable batteries and SD card slots and all that stuff us geeks love. But in the end, I've never needed to reall
Refunds? (Score:2)
I have not seen a single thing about refunds. REFUNDS.
It's either trade-in your. . . OOPS, not allowed to do that now.
Or it's. . . what? sit on your $100's device, wondering if they will ever issue refunds, and be without a smartphone? Or let it be a brick, and drop $100's more on a competing smartphone?
This "all sales and replacements stop" is really putting the pinch on the consumers. Many save up for months before buying a new smartphone. It is a really dick move by Samsung to their actual custome
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The exchanges being stopped are the "bad" 7's for the "safe" 7's.
Refunds are issued by the store the device was purchased from. I've seen at least one major retailer state that you could exchange a Note 7 for a different model phone without any restocking fee. I'm not sure how the price difference matters in, but I'd imagine the store would do something for you, and you can be sure that the store will get their money back from Samsung.
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Pretty soon we'lI see a fire sale of these phones on eBay.
- this sig was willed into existence by sentient pixels
Smoking electronics != EXPLODE (Score:2)
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So all the failed electrolytic capacitors you've ever encountered just sat there, sharing cigarettes?
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OK, I see you're not all bad. :-D
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the word "Explode" does not compute with low-voltage electronics
Ahhh I see you haven't dealt with Lithium before. For the record the voltage has no relation to the ability for something to explode. That is entirely dependent on the storage and sudden release of pressure. Take a lithium battery put it in a tight metal container, compacted with a non-compressible, and non flammable, then apply 6V to it. But for the love of god make sure everyone leaves the room first. If you're not on a terror watchlist now, you will be after all thanks to low voltage.
Audi's Unintended Acceleration? (Score:2)
This is going to haunt them for a while.
New model (Score:1)
New model, just announced. They're replacing it with the Samsung HCF 2.
Good thing I didn't have the money for S7 (Score:2)
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Well, its not actually, but the stuff leaking out of there is probably worse.
No, not just one (Score:3)
There apparently were several other reports over the last weeks of replacements catching fire.
Note that he acceptable number is ZERO. No other phone makers, Android or Apple, appear to have a problem on this scale. No other phone makers, Android or Apple, have had planes catch fire in years on an actual plane...
Re: No, not just one (Score:4, Informative)
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Because clearly a failing touchscreen is absolutely equal to your phone bursting into flames and scorching your children.
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Apple replaced it.
Why?
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Yeah, I'm sure that Samsung is dropping their flagship phone product and undergoing a second recall that will do billions of dollars worth of damage to customer confidence because it's just one replacement that had a problem.
Or, maybe they know more about the issue then they are releasing? Perhaps it's a fundamental design flaw that will take more than swapping some battery cells?