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'Safe' Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Explodes in China (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the phone-on-fire dept.

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.

4 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Refused to hand over "evidence" by thegarbz · · 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.

    1. Re:Refused to hand over "evidence" by krouic · · Score: 4, Funny

      Having both a macbook and a Galaxy Note 7 smells even fishier...

    2. Re:Refused to hand over "evidence" by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    3. Re:Refused to hand over "evidence" by vux984 · · Score: 4, 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.