Slashdot Mirror
Samsung is Setting Up Note 7 Exchange Booths at Airports Around the World (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Samsung is setting up Galaxy Note 7 exchange booths in airports around the world, hoping to stop customers taking the dangerous device onto flights at the last minute. The first of these new "customer service points" appear to have been introduced in South Korean airports, but Samsung has confirmed the booths are opening in airports across Australia, with reports of the desks appearing in the US as well. The booths are located in "high-traffic terminals" before security screening, says Samsung, and allow Note 7 owners to swap their phone for an unspecified exchange device. According to a report from ABC7News in San Francisco -- where a Samsung exchange desk has appeared at the city's international airport -- employees for the tech company are on hand to help customers transfer their data onto a new phone.
This way a lot of people will just accept the ease of quickly getting a Samsung replacement, and not wander off and buy another brand.
Time to stop super thin phones and fixed batteries.
What is so hard about making it so you can swap the battery out?
While not a direct statement to what Samsung is going through, I do hope that the costs of:
is enough to make them look closer at what design stupidity they tried to get away with and stop with their nonsense. The consensus on Slashdot and other tech sites I visit seems to be "Give me a phone that I'm not afraid is going to break and goes longer than 8 hours between charges", neither of which are easily done with this race to paper-thin.
Samsung, take note. People like replaceable batteries. They like slightly thicker, stronger phones that don't feel like they are going to snap in half when you take them out of your pocket. People like being able to take their phone through an entire day of whatever, without worrying about recharging in the middle. You guys have the 10nm fab going, start getting better batteries and working on energy efficient phones. I don't care if a web site takes 0.05 seconds longer to load, I'd probably blame my cell providers network anyway.
When you can create a design with a user-replaceable battery that is equal or better than a fixed battery phone for all of the following:
1. Weight
2. Thickness
3. Battery life
4. Waterproofness
5. Cover never falls off
6. Battery itself is sufficiently armored so as to be safe in an average hand bag or pocket
then patent the design & retire comfortably.
Until then, it’s hard. Stop playing armchair phone designer & materials scientist.
while most service kiosks tend to blend in with their surroundings at major airports, the Samsung kiosks are refreshingly easy to locate. Just follow the acrid white smoke, blinding light, and searing heat. if you see a cinnabon, or the local fire department, youve passed it.
Good people go to bed earlier.
There's nothing about having a user replaceable battery that makes it impossible to have a water tight seal. Every digital watch I've had for the past 30 years has been waterproof and has had a user replaceable battery. My GPS unit takes regular AA batteries and is also very waterproof.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Let's see, 1 and 2 are distractions because half the outrage about phones (on Slashdot at least) is that they are too fragile, thicker heavier construction would improve this.
3 is inevitable because even if initial battery life is only 90% that of a fixed battery, replacement batteries result in such a device still having 80-90% of a theoretical fixed battery solution when the actual fixed battery device has been worn to a 40% charge capacity.
4 is a fairly new development in phones, but if you can make a waterproof charging cable port, you can make a waterproof battery slot. The challenges are barely different.
5 has been solved in cameras, laptops, personal portable recreational devices, and even old phones.
6 is not that hard, it just increases bulk slightly, which when we look back at how things are already too thin and frail, that will be a net improvement again.
This way Samsung might be able to mitigate a large amount of liability if one of their phones sets an airplane on fire, by saying the consumer walked right past an upgrade station.
Please hand your Samsung Note 7 to the technician at the counter.
Have gnu, will travel.
So passengers should bring their explosive cell phones directly to the airport? I feel safer already.