Fortunately for Korean exports, sales are up at 'South Korean Fire Extinguisher and Smoke Detector Inc' (SKFESD are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics)
RIP Samsung 'Death Note' 7
Samsung has confirmed it's killing off its troubled Galaxy Note 7 product altogether. In August, reports of fires caused by Note 7s in Korea caused Samsung to delay global shipments, but Samsung pressed ahead. The company issued a full recall in mid-September. But reports of replacement Note phones catching fire led to Samsung …
COMMENTS
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Tuesday 11th October 2016 12:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re. "Death Note"
I really hope that they aren't going to be shredding these, when there are a lot of recyclable components? The OLED display represents most of the value here, and the MB can be reprogrammed and used for any number of applications such as small embedded computers or more likely reused for cheaper phones internally.
Maybe some folks can come up with a cunning way to recycle the displays for some sort of wall screen, would look pretty neat if it works.
Some joker suggested making an "invisible" car with the displays on the S4 mini as they have been showing up used recently; the flexible OLEDs used on the Note 7 are almost identical and share most of the characteristics so they could be handy for us DIYers. Samsung could actually make something out of this as one big criticism is that their displays are typically closed source and nearly impossible to get schematics or pinouts for.
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Tuesday 11th October 2016 14:04 GMT Dez Scotland
Re: Hmm
1. Too thin?
Probably... there was a video online of a "bend test" in a lab where the handset exploded when the stress of bend ruptured the battery inside.
2. Overheating whilst charging?
500% more likely with Fast-Charge enabled. Fast-charge seems an insane invention / idea to me...
I have fast-charge disabled in my Samsung S7 Edge
- I don't need it, don't want it, don't trust it (and when I tried it once my handset got quite hot!)
3. USB-C
Apparently USB-C can carry a higher current for charging. This combined with Fast Charge seems like pushing your luck to me!
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Tuesday 11th October 2016 19:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Maybe the financial impact of this
If the battery was replaceable it wouldn't have prevented any of the fires, and while it would make the recall easier, when they shipped everyone new batteries and those STILL caught on fire Samsung's brand would be just as damaged.
And that assumes that the batteries bore 100% of the responsibility for the problem, and there weren't other / contributing issues like problems in the charge controller.
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Tuesday 11th October 2016 21:33 GMT Herby
Fires from electronics...
No I don't have a Galaxy Note 7. But...
Incident #1: Many moons ago (in the 70's), I had a nice walkie-talkie for ham radio use. I put it in my pocket and the charging buttons on the bottom were a direct connection to the battery. Unfortunately I had a nice keychain that they came into contact with, and while no fire did get quite warm and melted some plastic. I don't remember if I was burned in the experience.
Incident #2: Also in the 70's, I had packed a portable soldering iron (battery powered) in my suitcase at the last minute for a travel trip. While traveling down the freeway, we noticed a burning smell from the back seat. A few looks exchanged, and we come to the conclusion that the button used to energize the soldering iron had gotten compressed and turned on. The result was some scorched underwear that was hastily removed from the vicinity of the soldering iron in a mad hurry at 65 MPH on the freeway. Later versions of the soldering iron included a "lock" feature that prevented "accidental" depression of the button in question.
Live and learn. Energy in lots of forms can start a fire.
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Wednesday 12th October 2016 06:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Interesting NYT article on this
Some researchers are suggesting that the batteries were not the problem or not the main problem.
Also, that Samsung ordered its engineers to not use email to communicate about their work trying to determine the cause, due to fear of subpoena from regulators or lawsuits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/business/international/samsung-galaxy-note7-terminated.html