Galaxy Note 7: The death of a smartphone

[MoeJoe]

Brand recognition is actually pretty high among phone owners contrary to what a bunch of knuckleheads are spewing here.

Phones are like an extra appendage to their owners that has the recognition of jewelry, clothing or perfume branding. And the coverage of tech on the MSM is actually pretty high with respect to smart phones.

 

[matthank]

The Donald Trump of smartphones.

 

[ddferrari]

How many non technical consumers ever even hear this type of tech news? I know I am the only one I now of all my friends and family that heard about it. It's small potatoes. If you didn't own a recalled phone, you never heard about it.

Maybe it won't bother power users, but I'm sure the media has scared a lot of the not-so-technical users from wanting to give the note series another chance.

Apparently your friends and family never watch national news broadcasts from NBC, ABC and CBS. I have seen a least a half dozen stories covering the issue from NBC alone on their 5:30 pm national nightly news. CNN has had numerous articles on the debacle. You don't need to be a hardcore techie to have heard about this anymore than you need to belong to an extremist military faction to know about ISIS.

 

[mosu]

Maybe this is the chance we all have waiting for, a marginally thicker Note 7+ with replaceable battery and better specs at a much lower price, at least for some time from now on.Still a Samsung fan over Apple.

 

[slamscaper]

I think many don't realize how HUGE this is. I mean for Samsung to have to completely abandon their flagship phone (currently their most powerful phone available) is just the worst possible thing that could have happened for them (at least as far as their current position in the market goes). The Note 7 was poised to be the goto phablet over the holidays and all the reviewers were touting it as the best smartphone ever made. It had the best display of ANY smartphone, beating out their last gen Note 5 which held that title beforehand.

Not considering the massive loss of money and stock they are enduring, Apple is going to use it to their advantage to smear Samsung's reputation even more. It remains to be seen how bad this will be for them. I personally hope it doesn't signal the death of the Note series (worst case scenario).

I've been thinking though. Maybe something good will come out of this for us power users. As most power users know, the Note 7 was the first Note to launch with a locked bootloader over ALL carriers (including even Tmobile, who ALWAYS released Samsung's flagships with unlocked bootloaders). Perhaps after this, Samsung will be inclined to be more lenient in that area so it's not virtually impossible to root their Note phones without having to use some sort of shoddy exploit that could easily be patched. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part, but I do hope some good comes out of all this. If they don't feel as indestructible as they were as far as market share, perhaps they will try to accommodate EVERY one of their consumers, including the group that loves to mod their devices. They are known for their great hardware but crappy software (touchwiz has always sucked, let's face it).

 

[amstech]

People complaining about an $800 smartphone having issues are spoiled brats.
It's like driving, its a convenience you don't appreciate until its taken from you.

Ahhh poor baby how are you going to live another day?
Every year there's a bendgate or blowgate with some phone, and next year its forgotten.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

People complaining about an $800 smartphone having issues are spoiled brats.
It's like driving, its a convenience you don't appreciate until its taken from you.

Ahhh poor baby how are you going to live another day?
Every year there's a bendgate or blowgate with some phone, and next year its forgotten.

you know we say 'catch fire' but what they actually do it partially explode - they go up like the tip of a match - it's not a gentle little flame like a piece of paper lit on fire. If it goes off in your pocket it'll partially burn a hole through your leg.

this is isn't a 'you're holding it the wrong way' type of incident.

 

[Whitefyre]

The Note 7 is a damned perfect phone, with a blend of features you cannot get in any other phone. It was exactly what I wanted, coming from a Note 3.

But if they're giving up on the design, there's nothing to do. Back to the world of compromise phones sold as flagships.

I hope Samsung tries to match the Note 7 again in the future, because they had a golden concept.

myself and my girlfriend both have note 7's we are likely switching to the s7 edge but we are loosing out on several things.. iris recognition.(way cool), stylus and a few other things. we are not happy but understand. our service provider though we are not happy with due to the propoganda they are spewing.. but regardless it is/was a great phone. and I would keep it if I could but supposedly the provier is looking to "brick the phone" at some point so that you can not use it .

 

[crescentfang]

Has everyone forgot the Dreamliner fire? For that matter, there was a more recent incident of smoke on an airplane caused by one of these batteries. Samsung may be the first company to have this problem but I wouldn't bet on them being last. These cell phones take a tremendous amount of abuse from their users and the failure rate is so low that it would be hard to devise a test to determine the cause. The failure itself destroys the evidence so analyzing it after the fact is not possible.

 

[dogofwars]

Next time make it with removable battery , its also one of the most requested features and would have solved the recall and post recall issues.

People want their cells phones thin so the battery has to be built in and not removable otherwise you need extra materials around the phone so it keep it's structural integrity. Maybe with some "education" peoples will accept to have their cells phones a bit ticker or risk the fire.

 

[Makson]

Make one 'phone/mini computer to last at LEAST 5 years and quit the 'trying to be cute' business.
Too many bells and whistles, and if manufacturers think that people can't live without constant upgrades, let them get used to it.
Consider first, the environment, piles of disused appliances, gadgets, mobile 'phones, vehicles, HUMANS ARE BECOMING ZOMBIFIED, BUTTON-PUSHING CLONES, no physical brain power, their brain is the gadget they use, without it they are unable to do much of anything.
Robots WILL eventually make human beings extinct .........

 

[mailpup]

Makson, please hold down the shouting. Thanks.

 

[DaveBG]

People want their cells phones thin so the battery has to be built in and not removable otherwise you need extra materials around the phone so it keep it's structural integrity. Maybe with some "education" peoples will accept to have their cells phones a bit ticker or risk the fire.

There are phones as thin as Note 7 and have removable battery. The only problem is I do not like their fork (flavor) of Android and some of the specs.

 

[Bigtruckseries]

My FAVORITE part is how that the loss of the Galaxy Note 7 from shelves has forced buyers to abandone Samsung for iPhone.

iPhone 7 Plus is sold out in most stores - including apple stores.

Eventually the data will come out which will show just how many people abandoned Samsung. Once they get into the apple - they ain't leaving.

 

[Bigtruckseries]

You want to stop a lot of these "exploding" smartphones?
Real simple...BEEF up the exterior of the phone, and get rid of the idea of a "slim stylish light" phone!
The manufacturers, want a battery life of a typical day, with a little left over. The phone industry, driven
by marketing, says everyone wants a THIN phone that is stylish, good looking bla bla bla.
Engineers then are tasked with trying to stuff as much battery, in a very finite space, with very little
breathing room left over. People, continue to carry these phones in their pockets (if you ever catch them
with it NOT in their hands 24/7). That constant strain of flexing the device, with a very thin case (apple bendgate ring a bell?), coupled with the limited space inside the phone, coupled with stuffing as much battery as possible in the phone, will cause these soft batteries to flex. If you've ever taken a piece of metal and bent it back and forth enough, you know what happens. Same thing in a battery. The separator, that keeps the cathode & anode, along with the electrolyte from all getting together at the same time, will eventually fail, with dire consequences!
Lithium batteries, be they the LiOn, or the polymer types, do NOT like to be disturbed. Take one out, lay it on concrete, whack it hard with a hammer and watch what happens. Makes for a wonderful fire starter.
The charging circuit is suppose to stop current flow, when the battery has reached a pre-programmed level. If that fails, the battery heats up. The second layer of protection, is a thermistor, which senses heat. When the heat reaches a programmed level, it breaks off current flow to the battery. If that fails, the third layer of protection, and the final layer, is a thermal fuse. Once the heat reaches that, the fuse literally melts in two, breaking the connection, requiring the battery to be replaced. These circuits usually are effective, but, with the limited space, high capacity batteries, and flexing of the cells inside, all bets are off.
Go back to making a bigger, thicker case that gives the battery a little wiggle room, and also stiffens up the case, and you'll see the bulk of these problems disappear.

Apple has pushed phones towards thin-ness. Thin-ness is totally unnecessary at a certain point because people end up adding large protective cases to the device - totally eliminating the benefits of it being thin.

Apple buyers stick with apple because of iOS and its ecosystem. iPhone buyers will upgrade and will not stray to Samsung.

Samsung copied Apple and tried to make user-unremovable batteries and user-unremovable memory in the S6 and then reversed that in the S7. Apple does this to maintain control over the phone and ensure high-user satisfaction with their parts. Many Galaxy users complained about data-loss/ corruption using cheap/ untrustworthy Chinese-made imitation parts.

The issue I see is that the sealing of these phones makes a battery failure/explosion worse because there is no way to simply clean it out and get a new battery - as I could do with any of my regular electronic devices.

I couldn't be happier this happened.

Saumgun is nothing but a bunch of copycats breathing down Apple's neck trying to steal ideas. Their stuff is fantastic on paper - but they finally let quality control lapse in a way which has cost them over $3 Billion and will probably cost them another $3 Billion in long-term losses, since they just said goodbye to a large number of potential buyers who WON'T TRUST THEIR PRODUCT from now on.

It's fabulous.

My iPhone 7 Plus 256GB is going strong.

Easily the best device I've ever owned.

 

[p51d007]

So, you are HAPPY, that people have been injured by "exploding" phones....nice

 

[Tanstar]

Those questioning the QA of Samsung or wanting more regulations . . . My understanding is that 94 Note 7s exploded. Compared to the total number produced, that is minuscule. Recreating the conditions in the lab might require testing a million phones. That's never going to happen. Now, sending out replacement phones without truly knowing the issues? That was *****ic. I'd say they couldn't reproduce the issue, odds were it was a battery issue, the ones that exploded that they had access to had the same battery, so they tried to attack the problem quickly before more could explode.

 

[Lucy eva]

Everything was going just perfect and grass root was so excited after the announce of note7,

Its ONE model of their phones.
This will all be forgotten in no time.

Agreed to some extent, but one thing you cannot deny, incidents like these put a dark spot on the company value and worth. Some might forget, rather many can forget but some will remember this disaster, for a company like Samsung, this is nothing less than a disaster. The next release of note series will cause a recall of this incident and this way it can associate with memory. I hope this does not happen somehow. It is not the model but the value that is in the danger zone.

 

[drooselynn]

Too much problems with galaxy phones. (n