I doubt Samsung will try to find another sales channel for them in North America. Going back to the feature-phone era, one of their most important advantages over their handset competitors has been their loyalty to the big phone companies. Doing an end-run around them to sell directly to their customers seems...unseemly.
So what happens to all of these Note 7's? Do they just get buried in a ditch somewhere? From reading Android Central and other sites, it seems like there are still a lot of Samsung faithful who are ready to risk having their heads blown off to own one.
Samsung said in a statement last month that the issue of overheating was caused by a "rare" manufacturing error that resulted in the battery's "anode-to-cathode [negative and positive electrodes]" coming into contact.
Looks like the fault is in the batteries, internal shorts are both uncommon and also extremely dangerous since they will essentially dissipate all the energy in the cell as heat and can't be stopped externally.
This is partially why I'm wary of devices with batteries which aren't easily removable... and to think a few years ago Samsung was making ads poking fun at Apple users for not having removable batteries.
This is partially why I'm wary of devices with batteries which aren't easily removable...
This argument is made all the time, but I don't understand it. If the batteries were removable, a large number of owners would eventually replace them with low-quality Chinese lithium batteries whose brand names contain the word "Fire" somewhere.
The result will be, big surprise, more fires. The difference is that there won't be one central manufacturer who can be forced to take responsibility for them. Publicity, if any, will be too obscure for most users to notice.
There is no way on Earth you will end up with fewer battery fires if the batteries are replaceable. We just won't hear about them.
>This is partially why I'm wary of devices with batteries which aren't easily removable.
Why? It seems like the batteries burn out fast enough that it wouldn't be possible to safely remove one once it starts smoking. In any case doing so might save the phone - unlikely but it might - however now you have a completely naked ignited incendiary device lying on your carpet, rather than one enclosed in a protective case. That sounds to me like a worse situation to be in. And anyway now you've saved your phone at great personal risk, what are you going to do with it? Put another Note 7 battery in it and keep on using it? I'm curious what your reasoning is here.
But would that be a benefit in this situation? The new 'safe' phones supposedly had changes beyond just a new battery, so the phones would have had to go back anyway.
They are probably still frantically figuring out how to fix the problem and will eventually have a replacement replacement. Then they can refurbish the existing ones.
If I were a Note 7 user, I would not want a replacement, I would want a refund. Given that problem arised even with replaced Note 7, I would not take another chance with that model.
So what happens to all of these Note 7's? Do they just get buried in a ditch somewhere? From reading Android Central and other sites, it seems like there are still a lot of Samsung faithful who are ready to risk having their heads blown off to own one.