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Nokia Investigating Reported Cell Phone Explosions
Iphtashu Fitz writes "C|Net's news.com is reporting that a man in the Netherlands suffered burns to his leg when the Nokia phone in his pants pocket exploded. This is the second reported incident of Nokia phones exploding, the first one being back in August when a Dutch woman's phone exploded in her hand. Nokia blamed the first incident on a third party battery that the woman was using and warned customers to only use Nokia parts and accessories with their phones. However this most recent explosion involved a new Nokia phone with a Nokia battery installed."
Most definetely the battery. Lithium Ion batteries are known to explode when they go out of the normal operating specs. ALL LiIon batteries have control circuits which keep the dis/charging within the safe bound (keeping from overcharging/discharging). LiIon batteries are very explosive when they are not in a controlled environment, so it seems that the control circuit simply failed.
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
Please get your facts straight. For $300 you get a $100 gameboy and a $20 phone. But without a library of games.
I used to work for Radioshack/Tandy Electronics and have good experience with batteries. All rechargeable (and normal Alkaline) batteries heat up when large amounts of power are drawn from them. When you are on a call the phone is using the most power.
We has remote control cars that took 10 NiCad AA batteries and lasted about 20 minutes. When you took out the batteries they were really hot due to how quickly the power had been drawn out of them.
It is quite normal for a battery to heat up when it is put under a high load or used for an extended period of time. When its both, as in >20 minute call, I can understand that it would heat up quite a bit.
The thing about this incident that I find concerning is that this phone exploded in the guys pocket when battery consumption is at its lowest. The other case mentioned was while the person was on the phone and if there is a defect that is when it would be most likely to show due to it being when the battery is under the highest load.
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Given that it has happened twice so far after they sold X million phones I'd worry more about lightning strikes if I was you.