Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Answers Burning Note 7 Questions, Vows Better Batteries (cnet.com)
From a report on CNET: During a press conference Sunday, Samsung said two separate battery defects caused both the original batch of Galaxy Note 7 phones and the replacement units to overheat. The first battery, it said, suffered from a design flaw. The battery's external casing was too small for the components inside, causing it to short-circuit and ignite. The second battery, which came from another supplier, didn't have the same flaw, Justin Denison, head of product strategy and marketing for Samsung's US arm, said in an interview ahead of the press conference. In the rush to pump out enough batteries for the replacement units, though, the supplier introduced a manufacturing defect that led to the same result, he said. The explanation puts to rest the mystery behind the exploding Note 7, but it kicks off a new challenge for the embattled company: winning back your trust after a disastrous several months that included two recalls and the decision to kill the critically acclaimed phone. The Sunday press conference marked the start of a Samsung campaign to rebuild company credibility, which will include the upcoming launch of the flagship Galaxy S8 phone, as well as another Note later in the year.
So the problem was only the battery? That means all they needed to do was make a decent battery for it and it would have been good to go. I'm kind of surprised they couldn't have fixed the problem with a recall unless it was cheaper just to trash the entire system. I think that says a lot about the entire phone business. One component and the entire Note 7 was dead. A component I swap in and out of my S5 routinely.
Push the limits until massive monetary damages are incurred. Of course, if we didn't have those 'burdensum regulatons', they could just shrug their shoulders and say tough luck suckers.
The recall of the note7 was voluntary, and not the result of regulations...
Just make a phone with a headphone port and a stylus and I'll be a happy camper.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They dont answer anything, they just try to shift the blame to their two suppliers of the battery.
So nooooo, Samsung didnt make mistakes by making the battery compartment exactly the size of the battery they ordered from two suppliers, it was the fault of "two suppliers" who did deliver a battery up to the specifications, and not one that didnt expand or heat up during usage, silly "two suppliers". So nothing to see here, move along, and get in line to buy the new and non-catching fire S8...
Oh yeah, totally unrelated, one of "two suppliers" is Samsung SDI, which has absolutely noting to do with Samsung (exept the name and same owner)...
Orly? Maybe it was, in the same way that your boss may tell you to resign or be fired. They knew if they didn't recall voluntarily, they would be forced and it would be a public relations shitstorm worse than the one they already were facing.
Better batteries? For real?
Removable ones?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
it was supposed to be slotted into was too small.
It wasn't a engineering problem that was at fault, it was an aesthetic one. Trying to make things too thin and too fragile all in the name of keeping up with Apple. Samsung over-engineered the housing where any imperfection in the battery used could cause trouble. And imperfections did cause trouble. Imperfections, if reports are to be believed, that should have been well tolerated.
So maybe it's time to back off the thinness race and, you know, work on creating a unique look and feel.
When the FAA bans the phone from flights it's hardly voluntary.
and the lack of an battery swap cover.
If they had that then it would of easy to send new battery's out!
Of course, if they hadn't been so greedy and stupid as to design a non-user-replaceable battery into the phone, they would have been able to simply send out a relatively low-cost component to the afflicted users, instead of incurring a 5.3 billion dollar loss and severely inconveniencing every one of their note 7 customers (at the very least.)
It was their insistence on screwing the customer with planned obsolescence that bit them. They deserved to be bitten.
As does any company that designs in a non-replaceable, limited-lifetime component — much less one that is non-replaceable, limited-lifetime, and potentially dangerous.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I really like the S5, it is extremely rugged and we'll designed. However, the company put in place controls to keep me from rooting the phone that I find malicious, in that they can keep bloatware from being completely uninstalled. If the company made their phones root friendly, I might give them another chance, but as it is, I will never buy another phone from them.
Fear of a public relations shitstorm is what makes the burdensome regulations not just unnecessary, but counter-productive as well
When you specify that a batteries maximum envelope is X, and the supplier provides a battery which has a maximum envelope greater than X then, yes, it's a supplier problem.
When you request 2 million batteries instead of 200,000, and your supplier changes the process which induces a flaw into the product then, yes, it's a supplier problem.
This is critical because the "engineers" (idiots) over at ExtremeTech published "findings" (a middle school essay on their thought experiment backed up with zero observed failures) said that the problem was in the case and had nothing to do with the design of the battery. Blaming the phone case for the problem is like blaming users hands for the iPhone antenna problem. It's not a problem with what it holding the (iPhone, battery) but rather that the (iPhone, battery) was not designed properly for the specified requirements.
In both cases, it's imperative that the overall product producer take responsibility to the end users for products which do not work as intended. Which they did - recalling the devices, offer full refunds and - in many cases - a credit for accessories that you didn't even purchase from them.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Truly explosive answers to this fiery torrent of questions that have consumed the world like a gas station attendant making their final call on a Note 7! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Have you never heard of ANSI Y14.5? Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing? Manufacturing since the last 19th century?
The batteries were too big, the case was sized properly.
Imagine this: You order a Large hat. The company sends you a hat with a Large tag in it, but it doesn't fit because the manufacturer actually sent you a Medium with a Large tag sewn into it. Who's fault is it that your hat doesn't fit? Blaming the Note 7 case is the same as saying that your head is just too fucking big for the hat they sent.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You effectively can't do a glass-back anymore (which is great for rigidity).
Why not? In most cases phones are glass-backed over top of something else anyhow.
However, glass-back on phones is STUPID. Why? Because phones inevitably get dropped, and it's enough of a pain worrying about breaking the screen without this.
So what do most smart people do after buying a new phone? They buy a case or bumper to ensure that the screen and/or glass back don't get destroyed the first time the damn thing falls out of your pocket. It also renders the whole "thinner is better" thing rather stupid for similar reasons, as that "life proof" or "otter box" case is adding a hella whole lot more thickness to the phone than either a headphone jack or thicker battery.
When I see the list of upper management people who were fired over this, I will consider buying another Samsung product. Otherwise, and especially in light of their "exploding" washing machine fiasco in November, I will continue to operate under the assumption that their QA problems have not been fixed. Disappointing too, since I used to think quite highly of Samsung products.
Proverbs 21:19
Based on this response, I'm 95% sure that it was Samsung that did not allow enough space for the battery to expand under load in the battery bay of the phone. The battery case is typically not strong enough to compress the battery as it expands, intentionally. Given the fact that the Samsung CEO is looking at bribery charges and how they handled the failures and recall in the first place, I don't trust Samsung as far as I can throw them without a lot more detail than what was provided today.
The fact that they acknowledge that the first round of failures was not enough room for the battery to expand (but blame it on a paper thin battery case, rather than their much thicker and more rigid phone structure), and fail to describe what the failure mode was for the replacement batteries, (just calling it a manufacturing defect) leads me to believe that both failures were Samsung's fault for not allowing enough expansion space for the battery to expand in the battery bay. It will be informative when the lawsuits go through discovery to see what they can find. (Unless Samsung just buys them off.) The smoking gun will probably come from the battery manufacturers recommended expansion volumes vs what the Note actually had in terms of battery bay space.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Without blowing an efuse permanently losing you KNOX support and invalidating the device warranty would be nice too.
- KNOX is mainly used so that you can access a corporate network with a phone that you can also use personally. If you are using KNOX, it is most likely using a company issued phone, and one that shouldn't be tampered with.
- At least in Europe, you don't invalidate your device warranty by tripping the KNOX flag.
Yeah, it would be better if we could reset this flag but it is way way down in my priority list.
What a disappointment. I had grown fond of Samsung's explosive devices.
I don't understand the argument that "thin phones are stupid because people are just going to put a case on it". It's still going to end up thinner than a thick phone with a case, right?
Do you think people put cases on their phones specifically to make them thicker? Maybe some, but most people use cases to protect their phone from scuffs, scratches, and cracks--all of which still apply to a thicker phone.