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Samsung Permanently Discontinues Galaxy Note 7 (twitter.com)
After the replacement units of Galaxy Note 7 also started to catch fire, Samsung is now permanently discontinuing its latest flagship smartphone (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source), the company said today. The news comes a day after Samsung halted sales of Note 7 once again and began asking users to return the device. So far nearly 50 incidents of Note 7 causing fires have been reported. More importantly, many people have been physically injured with their new Galaxy phone catching fire. WSJ reports: Samsung said in a filing with South Korean regulators on Tuesday that it would permanently cease sales of the device, a day after it announced a temporary halt to production of the smartphones. "Taking our customer's safety as our highest priority, we have decided to halt sales and production of the Galaxy Note 7," the company said. The move comes on a day when Samsung shares tumbled 8%, its biggest one-day decline in eight years, amid increasing pressure after a new string of reported smartphone fires in the U.S.
great story
The US CPSC has asked consumers to power down all Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones, whether original or replacement. As in, permanently.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ok I admit that I use iOS devices more than android. But why the hate towards Samsung with the good riddance.
I would much rather see them fix the phone so it's users will have a nice safe phone. Vs what it would be now a possibility exploding collectors item. That in 20 years you can sell to a collector for about a grand.
Samsung has been pushing the quality of Android phones. They are no longer cheap Apple rip offs but their own phone market. Where Apple has to take notice and the competition impress their phone as well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I heard about the touch disease. But not the phones exploding when using approved devices. There were some issues a while back where people got some third party chargers that they were plugging there phone straight into the AC socket.
As for the Touch Disease it is a problem but it isn't affecting people's safety.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's not a dupe. The previous story talked about Samsung halting sales of Note 7. The company has since changed its stand on the matter. Please read before commenting.
Heads are going to roll all around after an event like this one.
Somebody will probably end up writing a book on what went on inside, because I imagine that the internal meetings had some serious drama involved.
I hope there's going to be a post-mortem at some point, because it would be very interesting to find out what went wrong in the end. Rogue manufacturer? Bad quality control? Maybe the phone doing something wrong with charging, as somebody suggested on reddit?
I could care less, but then I wouldn't have posted at all.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
How is this possible if only 50 phone fires have been reported and the majority of those reports are unsubstantiated? Is this a new use of the word "many" that I have been unaware of? Does the word "many" mean "extremely few compared to the number of sold phones" in this context?
Please read before commenting.
Wow, you really must be new here.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Kind of funny how people call Apple users "worshippers" and "fanboys" while at the same time pretending Samsung's exploding phones are just a minor problem that people shouldn't make such a fuss about, on the same level as a touch display glitch.
Worshipping Samsung a little too much, perhaps?
if they are unwilling to make a phone with user replaceable battery, serves them right. this could have been so much cheaper for them.
Get some perspective man.
Samsung's phones are a health hazard. They could kill you.
Apples touch disease, though unnaceptable from a consumer point of view, falls squarely in the domain of "first world problems". They won't kill you. They won't harm you. They'll just cause you a slight annoyance (having to ask Apple for a replacement, which, depending on specifics, they might do for free).
Also, the instances of Apple devices catching fire are extremely rare, and are caused by mishandling the device (like, for example, using some crap charger).
Samsung's instances are caused by a defect that they themselves have already admitted existing. Though they haven't exactly clarified what they've fucked up, leaving people - such as yourself - a thin hope that it might just be a bad batch of batteries, totally ignoring that a) replacing the batteries didn't fix the problem and b) that there are only a handful of battery suppliers, and they supply everyone else.
A manufacturing defect on the batteriez would not just affect Samsung devices, they would affect everyone's devices.
Who are you accusing of hating here? The Wall Street Journal for publishing this article? Samsung for discontinuing the model? Or maybe msmash for submitting the story here?
Is this not a newsworthy topic? Is this not a current red-hot issue in the tech world? Is this not news for nerds?
How is it that you think that this is a political issue, or one driven by hate? Do you think that we should meekly accept phones that explode on us? You accuse others of being fanbois, but I can't think of any excuse to wanting us to remain silent on this issue other than you being a fanboi yourself.
Now, Samsung, kindly go back to producing 10 and 12 inch tablets with proper S Pen support and Miracast.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
And yet the most recent bit of information on Samsung's own website is this release which is the one quoted in the previous story. Their investor relations site doesn't contain any references to a permanent end of production either.
So are these stories reporting new facts and Samsung just hasn't updated its websites yet, or are they misunderstanding the earlier release, inferring the word "permanent" when it wasn't in the original information?
...for new year's eve. It will make an amazing firework!
I am more concerned with my exploding toploading washer
As far as I know all exploded notes were caused by using cheap and broken usb cables so I'm not sure that point is valid.
Considering that the charger is in the phone itself and all the usb cable does is provide 5v power to the phone, how could the cable cause the battery to catch fire?
While both vendors definitely have their fanbois, a more empirical stance would be to take a look at the level of impact vs. probability of it happening and assess accordingly. The Samsung Note 7 issue appears like it might be a major issue with a minor probability (so far, at least - based on the number of confirmed incidents vs. phones shipped), where as Apple's is a more moderate issue but with a higher probability - quite how high is hard to say as hard data is lacking, but when multiple repair shops are saying it's "quite common" it seems likely it's significant. Factor in Apple's problem covers a few year's worth of shipped products across multiple models whereas Samsung's only covers a relatively small number of pre-orders and other early adoptors for a single model, so yeah, I'd say Apple has the greater problem to solve.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Considering that the charger is in the phone itself and all the usb cable does is provide 5v power to the phone, how could the cable cause the battery to catch fire?
Pretty easily, if your name is Wile E. Coyote.
Wow, can you imagine the amount of upset this will cause to the supply chain and also to the thousands of people involved in designing, building, and who were supposed to sell this phone?
The assembly and manufacture of these phones employs thousands of people, spins up parts supply chains for years (and already did for months in preparation), and was planned to use a significant chunk of the global capacity of glass, machine tools, electronic components, transportation, labor, etc. Now which all will have to find new places to go, which will take more than a few months.
Regardless of how you feel about Samsung in general, the "hidden", not as public, effects of this very big mistake will affect many, many peoples' lives in a real way (aside from a handful of people at the top).
AC fanbois' diversionary tactics are working marvelously in this thread
It's totally legitimate to contrast the pooh-poohing of Samsung completely abandoning a flagship product over safety problems with how Slashdot would be reacting if this were Apple
I bet that at some point one of these two tings have been brought up by engineers within the company:
Why was this information not passed on? What manager didn't react to it?
This goes way beyond a simple hardware issue.
"more moderate"
Indeed.
Moderating this as flamebait is silly. Having a user-replaceable battery is a desirable feature, at least for me.
To discontinue a flagship product, now THAT takes courage.
What if we look at it as a feature, not a bug? An initial hypothesis for further brainstorming, - imagine if a person breaks a law, and there is a court decision for it, the special message is sent to the criminal's smartphone, wherever he is, and the smartphone ignites.
It could be used also in cases when a smartphone is stolen.
To be fair to Samsung, they acted quickly (for a large corporation) and did the right thing with an recall and then halting production. Compare to Apple, who typically deny the problem for a few years and then create a repair scheme for people who didn't already discard the device or pay to have the hardware fixed. Usually seems to require a class action lawsuit too.
Samsung aren't perfect by a long way, and I don't buy their hardware any more because of lack of features and their annoying Android skin, but compared to Apple... Well, you can't really compare them, can you? Apple knew about the bending problems, didn't do anything, denied warranty replacements and is now in denial about the inevitable failures resulting from repeated flexing a year down the line.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I imagine Samsung will issue a statement later saying that removing the Note 7 from production took "courage".
Summation 2
get a room, you two!
Apple deny all problems related to his products? The consumers accept [and defend] it? If so, this seem a psychiatric illness to me...
Listen DC fanboi, at least he didn't kill poor Topsy the elephant to provide a distraction, you insensitive DC clods.
Thank you!
Now I have a perfect example of what the term 'false equivalence' looks like.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Only because people haven't yet died from exploding Note7s.
Given some of these incidents, they've just been lucky.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
When Apple screws up, there's a missing headphone jack.
When Samsung screws up, people's lives are at risk.
Same same, but different.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Unless it was the charging circuitry that caused the explosions instead of the battery.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
There was nothing wrong with the phones except the smart battery management was being hijacked by malware. Typically its hardware but often there is a bus and if it is possible to update the firmware remotely then it's a hacking dream to full on make phones explode.
To be fair to Apple, they've yet to have a phone routinely catch fire and/or explode on people. Compare to Samsung, who initially tried to ignore the fact that replacement phones from their recall were also exploding, and one of their employees accidentally sent an internal SMS to a person who was calling support to report his phone exploding with the following text:
"Just now got this. I can try and slow him down if we think it will matter, or we just let him do what he keeps threatening to do and see if he does it."
Comparing the response of a company's phone bending versus another company's phones exploding is reaching.
Considering that the charger is in the phone itself
This circuitry's job is "only" to take care of the lithium cells.
It's a very critical task (avoid over current, avoid over voltage, avoid over heating, avoid over charge, avoid too fast charging, avoid a deep dis-charge, refuse to charge after a dangerously too deep discharge, etc. Basically Lithium has a tendency to explode if you look it the wrong way).
But it still only just this task.
It guarantees nothing else beyond this task.
and all the usb cable does is provide 5v power to the phone
THAT is the point of failure.
Everything assumes that the cable will provide more or less around 5v.
And there's circuitry to shut down the input if veers a a little bit too much away from the safe zone around 5v.
But some ultra-cheap no-name chargers are built hastily.
To save costs and speed up deliveries, the circuitry tends to be over simplified and the skip on some security features.
The cheapest sub-5$ chargers ARE NOT fail safe.
how could the cable cause the battery to catch fire?
The shitty after-market charger could over heat, melt some electrical paths, and suddenly wire it's output path straight to the 100-240V AC input.
Suddenly this USB charger has managed to transform your 5v USB charging cable into the USB cousin of The "Etherkiller".
And the security inside most smartphones was never meant to be exposed to 100-240V AC 10-20A.
The 5W it usually operates at is magnitude smaller than what can be delivered when such a fault happens.
At that point everything overheats massively and catches fire:
- charger, cable, whole smartphone...
Even if the battery by some magic wasn't exposed to the shock, the subsequent fire of everything around it will make it explode.
In other words (incoming ob. car analogy !) you're complaining that the wind-shield of your car is damaged although it was supposed to be bullet proof when in practice the whole street was levelled by a nuke dropped from low-orbit.
Final score:
Smartphone : 0
USB-killer : 1
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
A simple google search would answer that for you.
http://mashable.com/2016/10/11...
"The news comes via Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, and the difference between yesterday's news is in the wording. On Monday, Samsung said it would "temporarily adjust" the production of the Galaxy Note7. Now, the company's move is permanent. "
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I find touch screens really awkward to use. I got a note 5 specifically for the stylus and love it. I will be getting a Note 8/9 as well. I'm just glad I'm not an early adopter type or I would have been stuck with a Note 7. I'll be waiting for the new Note to be on the market at least a year before I get one.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm not certain as I haven't seen Samsung, or anyone else, release any failure analysis. But then I haven't been looking that hard.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
It required a lot of force to make it happen (Samsung phones were easier to bend but more flexible),
Sure. If you read all of the test results backwards.
Moderating this as flamebait is silly. Having a user-replaceable battery is a desirable feature, at least for me.
Not quote. Whether it's a desirable feature or not for a few people is entirely separate for someone flaming a company for removing a feature that by en large nearly all people couldn't care less about.
It's even more flamebait given the history of Samsung and the justification to make the battery removable: "Hey boss. We totally need to make this phone more difficult to design with a user removable battery in case it explodes!" "How many phones have exploded so far?" "Zero" "How many phones have we shipped?" "Over 1 billion" "Denied. Seal it shut."
this could have been so much cheaper for them.
There's a huge assumption as to if this is even remotely relevant for a company that has shipped over $1bn phones.
Call it a minor operational expense and move on.
A manufacturing defect on the batteriez would not just affect Samsung devices, they would affect everyone's devices.
Batteries for devices are typically custom ordered and batch made. So no, it would not affect everyone's devices and that should be clear from pretty much every exploding device situation we have seen in the past 10 years as no one manufactures their own battery and each problem was related to the battery itself.
Considering this is /. professional coders club
and
2 biggest players in mobile market always at war, amount of money and market share involved and facts that phone hardware or batteries are not a rocket science, yet it is such a mystery!
How about a possibility of a different approach?
Something along the old and famous Iranian centrifuge mystery maybe?
You do that before you start trying to blow people up.
I heard about the touch disease. But not the phones exploding when using approved devices. There were some issues a while back where people got some third party chargers that they were plugging there phone straight into the AC socket. As for the Touch Disease it is a problem but it isn't affecting people's safety.
And if you do any Googling, you will find similar touch/display issues on EVERY BRAND of phone and laptop at one time or another. It's a RoHS thing. Blame the EU for removing lead from solder.
Cite? I have yet to see one solid article on the nature of these failures. If it is a bad USB cable then why did Samsung do a recall on the device?
It isn't the USB cable. That is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
To be fair (as an Apple user, occasional fanboy, and not any of the ACs above) I do respect Samsung doing this. It's really the correct way to go about things - any other option would hurt their reputation far worse and cost them more long-term sales and good will.
Just a few days ago I thought Samsung were likely building up to a full "You're holding it wrong" tantrum after the replaced phones started catching on fire. Now I have to hold all my Android quips in.
Any other option would have left them sued out of existence and permanently banned from all airlines.
fanboi: (n) One who uses the word "fanboi."
They should pull the batteries, fill the spot with epoxy (to prevent people from putting batteries back in them), and resell the devices as cheap tethered tablets.
They won't be able to sell them high enough to make up the cost of the device, but at least they'd get some money.
All phone manufacturers should wake up and realize they could have easily run into the same issue from their battery supplier.
Going back to removable batteries would reduce the risk of such a costly recall and give consumers what they want.
Do many customers really *want* removable batteries? Sure, some do, but overall, there doesn't seem to be much demand for them given the popularity of phones without easily replaced batteries.
This has been occurring with every iPhone model since the iPhone 4 up to and including the iPhone 7, and Apple's stance is to blame the third-party USB chargers, completely ignoring the fact that all USB chargers do is provide 5VDC (or up to 9VDC for most QC chargers or higher for Class B QC 3.0 chargers) and it is up to the USB charger to cut off current to the battery pack when the target voltage is reached.
Apple loves to blame their users, third-party devices, or anything else that they can and Apple fanbois never call them out on it.
Antennagate? "You're holding it wrong."
Firegate? "Don't use third-party USB chargers."
Bendgate? "Don't put your phone in your pocket" (despite that Samsung phones are thinner and do not exhibit this problem - although putting your cellphone in your back pocket is moronic to begin with; you are begging to be pickpocketed)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
You should read the post "Level of disaster prevention" by DrYak ( 748999 ) Alter Relationship on Tuesday October 11, 2016 @09:53AM (#53054675). The person explained why it could be USB chargers. Apple provided a charger which has passed QC and approved by them that it won't cause the exceeding voltage (5V). They, however, do not guarantee if users want to use a charger manufactured by a third party to charge their phone. If users do, then Apple won't take responsibility. I think it is fair in this case.
The most recent bending issue, resulting in touch disease, is not overblown. At the company I work at every iPhone 6+ has failed before 24 months. My wife's 6+ failed at 14 months and would not be covered by apple.
Hmm... I don't know if you are supposed to have it covered. Did you buy their extension plan? I'm just curious. Their website said they only warranty up to 1 year...
In a properly designed phone, the internal charge circuitry will regulate the voltage down to maintain a safe charge rate. In a poorly designed phone, they depend on the charger not being capable of providing a dangerously high charge current. In that case, the "approved" charger will have voltage sag reducing the charge rate. When that is the case, if you use a high capacity power supply that doesn't sag, the battery may blow.
Will they even continue the Note line? They'd be better coming up w/ a different brand, and making removable batteries the norm, rather than the exception
How quickly they forget. OK, it was an iPod rather than a phone, but they have had their issues.
Ship all the remaining Note 7's to North Korea, so that they can use them in their weapons
They'll just make a permanent fix for the problem and issue a new version of the phone. It's not like they don't know how to make phones that won't catch fire.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
GM has managed to keep the problems with the locks on their cars under the radar for almost twenty years. People have died because of that and I don't know if it ever really got solved. So I wouldn't be so sure about Samsung being sued out of existence if they had acted otherwise. They are also rich enough to bribe the US government.
-- Cheers!
The reports of 'exploding' (more like incendiary) Note 7's starting popping up days after its release. It was a small fraction of phones, but there is no evidence to say that affected phones would burst into flames within the first couple of weeks, or never at all. More likely, it's a situation that Note 7's have an x% chance of bursting into flames on any given charge cycle, and given enough time, the chance of any given Note 7 having a flame-out over its life would approach 100%.
Yes. Yes I am.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
As an owner of an iPhone 7 I can say that the claim that the adapter being output only is purely false. I have used the adapter with my existing headphones that have the mic, volume, and track controls without any problems.
The primary level being it's *APPLE*?
I'm not saying the Note 7 situation is fine (it isn't even vaguely OK), just that Apple isn't perfect either. Google "exploding iPhone" if you don't want to take my word for it. Do feel free to report back.
Having a user-replaceable battery is a desirable feature, at least for me.
It's a desirable feature for anybody... except companies that change you $80 to replace your phone battery.
Pure FUD. The adapter they ship is bi-directional. An X-ray of the adapter reveals both a DAC for audio output, and an ADC for input to the phone.
Go tell lies somewhere else, we're all stocked up here.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I am more concerned with my exploding toploading washer
Have you tried putting a Galaxy 7 inside your washer ?
No, silly, he's talking about their exploding washer line. If the load is heavy enough, and the washer agitates just enough, the power circuit board shorts out and blows up.
Maybe he thought the two explosions would cancel each other out.
True - hence the bit I put in brackets, but by initiating the recall and issuing the advice to power down Samsung mitigated much of that risk, barring a probably unlikely scenario of a faulty Note 7 catching fire when powered off, anyway.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
There fixed it for ya.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Having read past slashdot discussions on the topic of Note 7 devices combusting, then one salient point was the existence of very many variables with lithium batteries, such as overcharging, undercharging, discharging and also the speed at which these processes happen. The second and more important point that a different comment expressed, took note, that a Note 7 caught fire when it was shut down, which (as I recall) seemed like an issue with non-replaceable firmware in the phone's cirquitry. Well, that's how I remember it.
What Apple defect affected 100% of their devices? Hint: it wasn't the antenna issue on the iPhone 4, which wasn't a problem on mine. (Well, if I licked my finger to make it more conductive, and deliberately put my wet finger in the right spot, I got minor degradation.)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Looking at the market, it appears that most people don't care about easily replaceable batteries.
So you've spent $60 on two battery replacements in two years? What kind of batteries are you using that only last a year? My iPhone batteries have consistently lasted three, with pretty heavy use, and it's only $80 to replace, whereas apparently you'd spend $90 on batteries every three years. I'm not impressed.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Ever designed such a circuit?
Note that Apple sure seems to think that can happen since when the battery blows, they blame the charger.
Then how do you explain the heating issue claimed when the "wrong" USB power supply is used?
I didn't say it's unregulated, I said it's inadequately regulated. A linear regulator, for example could explain the heating issues if the power supply doesn't sag.