'Safe' Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Explodes in China (cnet.com) 86
Rahil Bhagat, writing for CNET: The tendency of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to catch fire has led to the company's global recall of around 2.5 million of the phones, to be replaced with new, safe units. Samsung could have another problem on its hands, though, as a Chinese man says a brand new Note 7 exploded on him, Bloomberg reported. Samsung had previously said Chinese models of the phone were safe as they use a different battery than Note 7 devices sold in the rest of the world. Hu Renjie, 25, claimed his brand new Note 7, bought over the weekend from JD.com, exploded while charging, burning two of his fingers and damaging a MacBook Pro. Hu said that a representative from Samsung paid him a visit concerning this incident and asked for the smouldering corpse of his phone to perform an autopsy, but he refused.
Refused to hand over "evidence" (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey look it blew up my macbook and burnt my finger. But no I won't give you the device so you can do a check to see what's wrong, if it was actually caused by the battery or if I intentionally rigged it to try and get you to buy me a new macbook.
This smells fishy.
Re:Refused to hand over "evidence" (Score:5, Funny)
Having both a macbook and a Galaxy Note 7 smells even fishier...
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Maybe he likes Apple's product design, but doesn't like the walled garden of their phone OS?
I have a macbook and a Note 5. They work fine together.
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Re: Refused to hand over "evidence" (Score:1)
Re:Refused to hand over "evidence" (Score:5, Insightful)
Samsung rep: Could you please hand over the phone so we can see why it exploded?
Mr. Burnt Fingers: Yeah, not going to do that. This is going to the police as evidence because I need to file charges against you so that I can sue you. I am not handing over the only evidence that it is your fault to someone who may have ulterior motives.
I wouldn't hand it over to the Samsung rep either unless they are standing there agreeing to accept responsibility and my medical bills at a minimum.
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Exactly. The only time I hand over equipment to the manufacturer is when they've already agreed to set things right in writing. Typically that's via an RMA or warranty replacement, but if I had been burnt as a result of a device exploding, there's no contract between me and anyone else saying that they're going to cover my medical bills and replace other equipment that was damaged, so why the hell would I hand a potential adversary my best piece of evidence against them?
Maybe if the friendly Samsung rep sho
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So would a competing manufacturers pay some one to do this, yes. Would corrupt elements in the supply and in this case return chain, take bad units worth very little and put them back through as brand new units at full price, yes. Will Samsung try to sneak back rebuilt units as new to recover some of the losses, yes.
Reality is, safe bet is, wait for the next note with a user removable battery, the note 7 is a dead loss and to be avoided, you just don't know whether or not you will get stuck with a dud, w
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Yeah, not going to do that. This is going to the police as evidence because I need to file charges against you so that I can sue you.
"+5 insightful"
The police would only be collecting it into evidence if there was a likelihood of the state pursuing a criminal prosecution. For a simple defective product, causing a mild injury the police would not be involved.
I wouldn't hand it over to the Samsung rep either unless they are standing there agreeing to accept responsibility and my medical bills at a minimum.
And Samsung would agree to accept responsibility and offer a damage settlement before verifying that the unit exploded due to a fault of the unit? As opposed to you exploding it by placing it the microwave...?
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Mr. Burnt Fingers: Yeah, not going to do that. This is going to the police as evidence because I need to file charges against you so that I can sue you. I am not handing over the only evidence that it is your fault to someone who may have ulterior motives.
Yeah laughable. The world doesn't work that way. You don't need the device as evidence in your suit against them, and it will actually work against you in this regard. All you're doing is pissing away your chance at settlement and compensation.
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What, I may ask, could you expect an independent party to do? with it? Only Samsung is truly qualified to determine if the fault was in the design of their entire product line as it was with the vulnerable Note 7's, or if this was a one-off occurrence... or if the person sabotaged his own device and was simply claiming it had exploded.
I'm not saying third parties shouldn't be involved here... someone needs to keep Samsung honest in all of this. Ultimately, however, it is Samsung that is going to have
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Sorry but no. Just no.
Your whole premise is extremely flawed. There is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing super special about any of the phones on the market that makes it so any competent Electrical Engineer can't do a post mortem AND competently indicate to the maker what exactly the order of events were. Samsung knows what was where and can piece together scenarios from that, and request further clarifications.
Samsung is not the only company that can make determination about devices, any competent
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Re:Refused to hand over "evidence" (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much exactly this. If I had a new anything and it 'exploded' on me then I'd expect the manufacturer to warranty the product, cover any medical costs, and cover any other damages. And if its not a shit fly by night company, I'd expect them to be volunteering a settlement without me having to sue them for one.
But I'd also expect them to want the exploded product back. That's just a given. Not only to validate my claim that it exploded due to a fault in the device... (which they should do) but also to determine whether the fault is a one off or something that will affect other devices. At this stage, like you, I think he's at best trying to scam himself a new macbook, and at worst an apple fanboi trying to create some bad press for samsung... and scam himself a new macbook. Maybe he even shorted Samsung stock as well (what prescience!)... their equivalent to the SEC ought to check.
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Or maybe he should be suing Apple. Connecting their machine to his phone and hey presto the latter exploded!
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Do you have the proper training to behave yourself in a clean room for hours while they do forensic testing?
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I was unaware it took special training to stand there in a bunny suit and not touch / do anything.
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You don't know a lot of people, do you? Have you SEEN how hard it is for the average person to not touch stuff?
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Here's a quote from an article about Samsung's washing machines exploding [cnn.com].
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, references similar reports collected by local news and filed online with regulators. It also claims Samsung "has moved aggressively to collect and destroy all evidence of the defective machines" after they exploded.
Given that this is a company that's trying to silence news of this sort, it isn't fishy in the least to hang onto the only evidence you have so that you can either hand it over to the police or use it in a lawsuit against them. That's called common sense.
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Yes some random person claims a company is trying to destroy evidence while filing suit against them. No ulterior motive what so ever. No sireee.
Common sense would be realising that you don't need the device to file a claim against the company and realising that if they can't produce the device in court that it would work very VERY strongly in your favour.
But oh hey look corporation = evil so let's just throw common sense out the window and side with the guy making the fishy claim.
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Allegedly (Score:1)
Aren't reports suppose to use this word when describing events?
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Why would you want to give up your piece of evidence to the very company that will try anything to hide any problem the device may have?
Is that a serious question? Because any company would just be foolish to believe you and replace alleged damage without proof. Hey MS, your Xbox blew up and destroyed my $10k tv. Give me a new one. You can't possibly not see how that would be a problem.
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Proof? They visited him, easy enough to see if it blew up or not.
A Samsung representative visited him soon afterward and asked to take away the phone, he said, but he declined the offer
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They are in the middle of the largest and most widely-publicized recall in the history of cell phones. I think we are a tad past the point of "trying anything to hide problems," don't you?
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1975: I'd like a red phone please. Do you have one?
2016: I'd like a phone that won't kill me or burn down my house please. Do you have one?
Ordered from where? (Score:2)
What's to say a local supplier didn't import models from out-of-country?
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More likely has to do the updated macOS platform. Here's a snippet of the code:
if (self.usb.vendor == 'Samsung') {
self.usb.amp = 1000;
self.usb.volt = 1000;
}
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If there was ever an appropriate time:
[citation needed]
Seriously, just shut the fuck up unless you can actually point to a single person or document showing that Apple is paying people to falsely claim phone fires.
Heh (Score:2)
I was expecting this to happen sooner or later, and now we'll see the media reaction to it.
There are just too many factors concerning possible smartphone explosions in this generation (faulty USB Type C cables, more power going into charging making any shoddy accessory a potential cause for thermal runaways)... and now that the press knows these stories sell, they'll bank on them more heavily creating a warped sense that these things started happening now.
Reports so far have been incredibly superficial, wit
You sure it wasn't an iPhone 7 that went poof? (Score:2)
http://imgur.com/LYppQjZ [imgur.com]
I'm curious (Score:3)
Not enough evidence (Score:2)
It's hard to have complete faith in this report because technically if you accidentally crush a phone with a lithium battery or you somehow manage to punch a hole into it, there's always the risk of it exploding or catching on fire. Samsung likely wants the phone to ensure they're not being blamed for something they are not responsible for. With the number of Samsung 7 owners in China having one or two explode from consumer mis-use or accidents isn't entirely surprising. I recall a few years ago a studen
Says common sense.... (Score:2)
That won't stop the media from reporting it as fact because no one really reads past the headline. It's kind of shameful for Cnet to even report on this since the previous case was external issues and this story is little more than that.
Headphone jack? (Score:2)
'spose someone tried the user-applied fix to give it a headphone jack?
Don't you think that I know that? (Score:2)
I beamed my crew down to the 3rd planet.
Matt, there is no 3rd planet.
(sobbing) Don't you think that I know that?
Permanent Batteries Suck (Score:2)
My Samsung SG S5 was the last Galaxy to have a user removable battery and will be the last Galaxy that I buy. Even today's top of the line phones only last about 4 hours when under heavy load like video calls and 3D gaming. And there's the fact that every charge cycles reduces the battery's capacity. The extra 1mm that having a permanent battery may shave off the thickness is not worth it. Never mind the fact that nearly everyone that drops $800 for a phone puts it in a fat protective case totally negating
I don't see the contradiction. (Score:2)
I don't see the contradiction. Then again, I'm nowhere near China.
"explode"? (Score:2)
>"'Safe' Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Explodes in China."
Catching fire is not "exploding", it is "burning". But I know that is not sensationalist enough.
Oversight!!! (Score:1)