Galaxy Note 7: Phone or Bomb?

The all new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has been released, but the phone is already seeing technical difficulties. There have been cases of the phone exploding in consumers’ pockets, leaving them injured and without their mobile devices.  There have been 92 complaints about batteries overheating, phones exploding, and phones melting; 26 of the reports are burns on one’s body because the phone was in contact with the consumer, and 55 of the reports relate to property damages.   

On September 15, Samsung company called for a recall of all Galaxy Note 7’s, offering a new phone after the problem was solved or a total refund.  This totals in about 2.5 million phones worldwide, 1 million being from the United States.  Samsung has been a leading phone company comparable to Apple company.  During the week of the Note 7’s release, Samsung beat Apple in the market, but the recalling of the phones is estimated to be a 5 billion dollar loss in revenue.

Tim Baxter, President of the Samsung Electronics America, apologized to the consumers of the phone: “We did not meet the standard of excellence that you expect and deserve.”

Initially, the company did not tell consumers to stop using the phone; on September 7, they told the consumers that the Note 7 would stop selling but didn’t mention the severity of the problem.  A week later, both the commissions and the company told users to stop using the phone.   

According Techtimes.com, in an interview with Fortune, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said that “six months from now nobody will remember that there was a Note 7 recall.”  

Claure passes it off as nothing more than a minor error that consumers will not think about when the buying the Galaxy Note 7 when it is released again.

Monica Lee, a consumer of the Note 7, told JSR, “I haven’t had any problems with it since I got it, but after reading articles about the phone explosions, I became fearful that the same might happen to my phone.”

Monica has no problems with the recalling of the phone and says that she would be happy to get a safer and newer version of it.  

During an interview with JSR, Richard Choe, a student at Fairfax High School said, “When the Note 7 released, I begged my parents to buy me it.  Good thing they said no.  I wouldn’t want my house burning down.”  

Richard believes that the company’s name will be tainted because Samsung is directly responsible for damage done to the public.  They weren’t careful enough with their own product and rashly put it out onto the market so that they could compete with the iPhone 7.  

The company has released a safer model since September 15, but there are still reports of overheating batteries.