The Galaxy Note 7 fiasco could probably be described as Samsung's worst and most humiliating period to date. To make matters worse, just after reported explosions, its rival Apple released the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
How bad are Samsung's woes? What causes the Galaxy Note 7 phones to explode? Is Samsung taking full responsibility on recent Note 7 explosions?
Here's what we know so far.
About 1000 Samsung Note 7 Phones are Bound to Explode
"Note 7's manufacturing defect affects less than 0.01 percent of all its handsets sold," an unnamed Samsung official said to Yonhap News.
With 1 million units currently out in the market, you're possibly looking at fewer than 1,000 defective phones. Since last month, 112 phones have already been reportedly catching fire, CNET reported.
Manufacturing Errors Caused Samsung Note 7 Explosions
Samsung has a manufacturing error by "placing pressure on plates contained within battery cells", "bringing both negative and positive poles into contact." Such occurence causes the phone to short-circuit prompting it to explode, this is according to an unpublished preliminary report sent to Korea's Agency for Technology and Standards
The company tried to solve the dilemma by issuing a firmware update that keeps the Note 7 from charging more than 60 percent of its full capacity. How could this possibly help if things heat up the moment a phone is plugged into the wall?
"By backing off to 60 percent charge, they'll be well below the threshold where explosions happen." an MIT chemistry professor Don Sadoway explained "Imagine we're trying to fill our gas tank, we don't have a really good regulator, and we don't want to spill the gas all over our shoes. We want to make sure we're cutting off the flow well before this thing gets to overflow conditions."
Samsung refused to comment when asked about Sadoway's theory.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Debacle
News about Samsung Galaxy Note 7 catching fire on a plane led the company to halt its sales just yesterday. Several U.S. carriers including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have said that they won't sell the phablet, or replace recalled units until Samsung sorts it out, BGR reported.
"Based on recent reports, we're no longer exchanging new Note 7s at this time, pending further investigation of these reported incidents," an AT&T spokesperson told The Verge on Sunday.
It seems as though each time we think Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 fiasco can't get any worse, things do in fact get much worse. What makes it even appalling is that despite all issues and complaints, Samsung has kept relatively mum - as if not clearly hearing the woes of most Note 7 users.
Are they really taking the overheating Galaxy Note 7 issue seriously? I hope they do, otherwise more and more people will be shifting to other flagship devices causing a decrease in their sales and maybe, just maybe, Samsung may also lose its game over time.
