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Samsung Formally Recalls The Galaxy Note 7 (cnn.com) 48

Posted by BeauHD from the tu-vs-usted dept.
While Samsung has recalled its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on September 2 due to faulty batteries, the company has yet to formally recall them with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. That is, until today. CNNMoney reports: While Samsung hammered out its formal recall plan with U.S. regulators, the FAA told airline passengers to turn off the phones when flying due to the safety risk. This week, New York City's transit system followed suit. And the CPSC urged Note 7 owners last week to turn off their phones even though a replacement version had yet to be finalized. Following Thursday's formal recall, the FAA revised its warning. Note 7 owners must not only turn off the device on airplanes, it said, but also protect the power switch "to prevent the phone from being unintentionally activated." The U.S. CPSC tweeted today: "#Recall: 1M @SamsungMobileUS #GalaxyNote7 smartphones; serious burn/fire hazard; Act Now: https://t.co/6v1egZlrRm." The recall could not have happened at a worse time for Samsung, as Apple's iPhone 7 debuts tomorrow.
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Samsung Formally Recalls The Galaxy Note 7 More

Samsung Formally Recalls The Galaxy Note 7

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  • Does anyone in the government understand statistics rather that just protect their paycheck?

    It's like please take out an insurance claim prior to boarding the plane just in case your spontaneously combust.

    You do realize all the Chinese replacement batteries that have been replaced of people that have been boarding planes for the past 10 years is like 10,000 times the number of GN7's that have trickled onto the market?

    • Yes the government understands statistics. Clearly much better than you do given that you're comparing an unknown and largely unproblematic issue of fake Chinese batteries with the very well known admitted manufacturing defect that could cause literally any Tab 7 to bust into flames anywhere.

      When the manufacturer themselves say "this is not safe, turn it off and don't use it", it shouldn't bother you that government agencies don't want these close to any services they provide.

    • Actually the government understands statistics very well when it comes to evaluating the cost/benefit of product safety issues vs the potential risk to human life. In fact the government uses a risk model that requires them to place a monetary value on an individual life - right now that value is $9.1M for the EPA, $7.9M for the FDA, and $6M for the DOT.

    • Halt and Catch Fire Seven.

      The FAA had previously said they can't ban it till the CPS recalls it. That made little sense to me but I could see why that might be the case. The FAA can't just pass judgement on things they are qualified to pass judgement on. And when does it graduate from anecdotal?

      But as you point out, e-bay Replacement Batteries are notorious for not meeting their own specs and deteriorating rapidly. It does make you wonder.

      But in this case we had 43 reported fires in a relatively small m

      • Halt and Catch Fire Seven.

        The FAA had previously said they can't ban it till the CPS recalls it. That made little sense to me but I could see why that might be the case. The FAA can't just pass judgement on things they are qualified to pass judgement on. And when does it graduate from anecdotal?

        But as you point out, e-bay Replacement Batteries are notorious for not meeting their own specs and deteriorating rapidly. It does make you wonder.

        But in this case we had 43 reported fires in a relatively small market in a very short time. The do seem to be bombs.

        What I wonder about is why half charing them makes any difference. Half a bomb? they said the mechanism was terminals pressed too close together. SO what difference does the charge level make

        I wondered the exact same thing.

    • Does anyone in the government understand statistics rather that just protect their paycheck?

      It's like please take out an insurance claim prior to boarding the plane just in case your spontaneously combust.

      You do realize all the Chinese replacement batteries that have been replaced of people that have been boarding planes for the past 10 years is like 10,000 times the number of GN7's that have trickled onto the market?

      Although I tend the same way about (usually bootleg) "genuine" batteries that really aren't (see, also, "capacitor-gate" of early 2000's), I must point out the empirical evidence against your position, or else there would be a constant drumbeat of news stories about those knockoff batteries catching fire/exploding, to the point where the GN7's battery issue would have just been lost in the noise of competing similar stories.

      But no. What we have instead is a bad combination of battery and charging profile,

  • "Sure would be nice if we had a USER REPLACEABLE BATTERY now, wouldn't it?"

    • Why? Recall would still have to happen. Cost of the recall itself dwarfs the cost of reworking the phone, and given that Samsung has sold 330million phones last year alone, and are now recalling a crappy little 2.5 million this is little more than a blip in the cost of doing business, especially for a company that made a profit of >$7bn last year.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Aaden42 ( 198257 )
        Did you factor in the cost of this being at the height of its FUD cycle on iPhone 7 release day? I'd love to see a rough figure of how many people try to exchange their Samsbomb phone today, get told there are no non-exploding ones available, and decide to return it for refund and go to the Apple store. Would also love to see a follow up figure of how many of those users stay with Apple for their next phone.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Now are you saying that as an end user or an employee of Samsung, kinda works either way ;D. Still really is a solid lesson as to why a user replace able battery is preferable.

  • You get what you pay for. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is why I buy nothing but Apple products. We don't even have an Xbox or PlayStation, it's Pippin all the way in this house. Note? Pfff... no thanks. We still use our 4 Newtons. As they die we will replace them with iPad Pros.

  • Loving my Galaxy Note 7!!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I really don't see what the issue is. This phone is working perfectly fine, and there hasn't been an

  • I'm impressed (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is an extremely remarkable response from Samsung, it shows how they truly believe in their product. Putting their money on the line here seems like the correct thing for them to do here. Thinking long term, I like that. Hate the bloatware, but Samsung phones are damn reliable. I know from personal experience of an S3. An older Moto G 3 is fitting my needs atm.

    • This is an extremely remarkable response from Samsung, it shows how they truly believe in their product. Putting their money on the line here seems like the correct thing for them to do here. Thinking long term, I like that. Hate the bloatware, but Samsung phones are damn reliable. I know from personal experience of an S3. An older Moto G 3 is fitting my needs atm.

      I'm not sure how telling people not to use their product means they believe in it.

      I think this is more of an effort on Samsung's part to get their customers to believe in the company.

      Disclosure: I own a Samsung Galaxy S5. I'm happy with it, although I do notice it gets hot sometimes, particularly when I'm charging it with Google Maps running.

  • Samsung (Score:3)

    by Smiddi ( 1241326 ) on Thursday September 15, 2016 @10:02PM (#52897657)
    Why not release an update that bricks them so they have to be returned?

  • Before iPhone fanbois chime in... (Score:3)

    by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Thursday September 15, 2016 @11:04PM (#52897935) Homepage Journal

    Don't forget about the iPhone 4 fires, the iPhone 5c fires, iPhone 6 fires... and antennagate and bendgate :D

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Who is worse? The person that needs to chime in thinking this will add to the discussion.

    • Who's the fanbois? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How many of these 'issues' you've listed resulted in a full product recall? How many resulted in airlines telling customers not to use them? None. This is clearly a problem on a vastly different scale and only a fanboi would try to gloss over it

      Battery problems? Very few, and generally put down to cheap 3rd-party chargers (one user was killed by it) or subjecting it to such force that the phone broke internally. And you always expect some low level of battery problems because that's the nature of mass manuf

    • Why are you afraid that Apple fans will do to you what you did to them? From what I can tell this appears to be a manufacturing problem rather than a design fault in their batteries which Samsung probably doesn't make anyways.
  • Total Recall 2, sponsored by Samsung.
  • Apparently the recall isn't worldwide. Samsung Japan [samsung.com] for instance still has the Galaxy Note 7 on its front page and nary a mention of a recall. Not sure if thats because the phones shipped to Japan don't have the defective batteries or if they aren't pulling anything until forced to.

  • I accidentally my Galaxy Note 7 what should I do...is this dangerous?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aaden42 ( 198257 )
      Verb. You should verb your Galaxy Note 7. Otherwise we have no idea what you're talking about.

  • Never heard of it.

    And isn't it a bit presumptuous for Samsung to call back a whole galaxy?

    I mean, I know they are a big company, but still...what ego. They are still lightyears away to have that kind of (gas)cloud.

  • That's what you get when you don't test things before selling them.

    Except for LiFe, lithium batteries are nothing to be trifled with. Perhaps for the little bit of difference, we should ban Lithium Cobolt and Lipo batteries altogether.

  • Soon you should be able to get a factory-refurbished Note 7 at a fire sale price.

  • I was going to use mine to start my campfire this weekend. I guess I will have to use matches. Yay! old tech!.

  • Florida Man...

    Worst. Superhero. Ever.

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