Samsung Stops Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone Shipments as Safety Suspicions Spread | Hacker News Reader

Samsung Stops Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone Shipments as Safety Suspicions Spread

wsj.com

113 pointsDoolwind108 comments

Samsung just announced that they will replace all 2.5 million Note 7 sold so far.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/reuters-america-brief-samsung...

That's not going to be cheap! Must be pretty serious for them to come to that conclusion. No doubt somebody will have some stern words said to them over this, been in one of those meetings.

Got mine 5min after @Samsung told me they stop delivery.

Now unopened package on my desk.

Very angry at Samsung, their ecommerce shop (3 tries until ordering worked), delivery notification (10 hours late for every update), delivery (wrong delivery address from their system to DHL) has been very bad already. For an 850 EUR premium device. I will never buy from them again.

And now this.

Probably returning and getting an iPhone7.

You really have no idea how much crap Samsung is doing. Their entire business model is basically copy what the established players are doing, but not obviously enough to get sued and then undercut them on price. They screwed up once with Apple, but otherwise it works fine for them.

Then there's the bizarre sexist ads, refusing to pay the return flight for bloggers if they don't praise Samsung and other stories.

I wouldn't buy anything from them even if their customer support were great.

Yet, they absolutely dominate the smart phone market outside of the US, having not just a relative majority, but an absolute majority.

That's true, but market share is a pointless metric, since ultimately all it takes to get market share is money - the more you spend on advertising, the more you discount your product, the more people will own it regardless of how good or bad it is.

What matters is profit share, and Apple vacuums up nearly 100% of the profit in the smartphone world, and meanwhile Samsung silently prays that some day it will be within earshot of just breaking even.

Matters to who? Why?

I don't give much of a crap if my vendor makes a profit, I care about user experience and app support. A big market share certainly impacts the latter.

Samsung do make profit on their smartphones, by the way, not sure what makes you think otherwise.

( Edit -- 1Q 2016 they reported a profit of around 3.3 billion dollars on their mobile operations, source - http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/samsung-has-got-its-mojo-back... )

"Then there's the bizarre sexist ads, refusing to pay the return flight for bloggers if they don't praise Samsung and other stories."

Got sources for that? Quite interested in learning more.

The stranded bloggers story discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4468037

In much of the world Samsung are the established player.

I'm not sure which 'established players' you think they're copying. They were the first to market a phablet at all...

Miele and Nokia come to mind. Dyson too, although they dropped their latest lawsuit.

Not sure about Sony, I've only heard rumors about that.

I also realized that I focused just on copying and forgot about all the other nice things they did - see wikipedia.

Ah, I guess we are talking well beyond mobile phones now. I guess what I find odd there is the idea that they copy established players, when they are an establshed player, one of the worlds largest.

What did they copy from Miele?

Nokia effectively disestablished themselves some years ago now so I'm not sure they're relevant any more.

In a lot of tech they are pioneers, I'm not sure it's fair to say their business model is based on copying when they are frequently ahead of the market and even making it (phones). NVMe drives are another area they are leading at the moment.

Well consider it lesson learned for not just going with an iPhone in the first place

"Well consider it lesson learned for not just going with an iPhone in the first place"

Been there bought the tshirt.

I had the first and second and third generation iPhone, first iPod (the one with a drive), first iPod touch, first iPod mini, first and second generation iPad, a Cube (upgraded with everything possible), XServes/XSans, a decade of MacbookPros, Airs and some iMacs (which currently I code on).

Apple quality went down and they don't care anymore since they wanted to become a luxury brand (e.g. screen with yellow blobs, bad iPhone reception, Wifi trouble on every Air, forced hardware upgrades b/c new iOS versions are slow). OSX is especially buggy with every release, especially SMB.

So I'm not a happy Apple user either.

I was annoyed with Apple when it took them so long to release a bigger phone so I switched to Android. Had an HTC One, then a Nexus 5 (I also have a Nexus 7). I switched back to the iPhone for many of the same reasons you list for not using it.

Buggy Android versions, abysmal performance on a devices just a year old if they were upgraded at all, random processes spin out of control and kill your battery in about 10 minutes and the phone feels like it's melting to list a few. While the iPhone isn't perfect, none of the issues are as bad as what I had on Android. Heck, I have older iPads here for testing that are running betas of the new iOS, and while slow they are usable. Compare that to all the issues the Nexus 7s have had with Android updates.

" older iPads "

How did you manage that? I have some unusable iPads I was using for watching e.g. Amazon videos. I can't use them as their OS no longer updates and Amazon (as most) only support new iOS versions.

Also: After buying a max specced Dell XPS 2016 I fear that you are right, Apple has many problems but others have even larger ones. The Dell with Windows (doesn't run Linux because of nvm) is not even close to working to my satisfaction for a 2500 EUR device.

I don't know what you count as useable, but I have an original iPad Air here (3 years old) that still works fine for my use - some games, email, reading, and internet.

It was only this year that I stopped testing our apps on the iPad 2. It was workhorse, and for many apps was much better than the iPad 3. With the 3 Apple went to retina, but IMHO the rest of the hardware was not quite retina ready.

Cool, just switch to whoever makes the bug free OS then.

You know, there is such a thing as a middle-gound between "especially buggy" and "bug free".

Try getting Samsung support in the US, hah. Where I work most of the employees prefer iPhones, but a few have Samsung. One of the Samsung users had an issue with his screen blanking randomly after about a year so I figured we'd find a local certified dealer or something and get it repaired under warranty. Turns out that in the US there are only three Samsung stores (LA, NJ and NY) that can do warranty repairs on site.

So we scratched that and went through an excruciating online form and eventually sent the phone to some repair center in Texas, I think. After about a month the ticket was updated (but no alert email sent about it, the user just happened to check the website) saying that the phone's warranty was void and it could not be repaired (no further explanation).

After a couple of calls, I finally got someone to tell me it was void because the battery was replaced with a third party one (which was, admittedly, news to me). Then, similar to your issue, they shipped it back to the wrong address (leaving out the suite number) so it took another month just to get the phone back.

I was really stunned at how awful the process was overall, compared to driving ten minutes to an Apple store and usually just having an in-warranty phone with a legitimate issue swapped out on the spot.

Technical merits of iOS vs. Android aside, one reason I like buying Apple products is their after-sales support (if you need it) is fantastic.

In US most likely.

At the Düsseldorf Apple store, they manage to give such an wonderful service three times in a row that a friend of mine doesn't care about any Apple product anymore.

That's odd. Here in Singapore we don't have an official Apple Store - but the "Authorized Retail" store (Wheel lock) has done repairs on my keyboard, on my power connector inside phone, and on my keyboard a second time (I'm very rough with my gear) - two of the three times they were able to do it while I waited by the counter, third time it was trickier, they quoted me '5 days' - but had it done the next day.

Also - nice thing about wheel lock - they have fifteen+ simultaneous counters available, so wait to check in gear is almost always less than 10 minutes, no advance appointment required.

I agree with Parent though - 10 years in, and probably twice as many apple care appointments later - being able to just take in broken gear under apple care and have them fix it is a major benefit of buying the (admittedly expensive) gear.

On the flip side - Dell has onsite repair for their Desktops/Laptops.

As I answered to sibling comment on her case it was a matter of failed expectations.

Regarding other PC manufacturers I have long learned not to expect anything.

This feels like a blast from the past to say, but I have been a lifelong Gateway customer and they have always provided me great support, even replacing things that I clearly broke on my own.

"had been" - Blast from the past indeed. Gateway ceased to exist around 2007.

Yeah I imagine the experience is very different by region (and perhaps even regions in the US). I was just surprised how bad Samsung's support is here in the US given the popularity of the phones. But I'm sure it's the exact some way with Apple in many places outside the US.

Incidentally, I also support a number of users in various countries in SE Asia and they also mostly have iPhones but I don't think any of them have ever had issues that required warranty repair.

I certainly do find vast differences in support from computer manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo (and a higher rate of issues with the region-specific models out there).

Not saying the others are in any way better, actually I don't have positive stories to tell about PC OEMs.

On her case she was put off, because the experience was just like other companies instead of what most people talk about.

I'm in Australia.

Singapore as well. My iPhone 6 had a bloated battery, instantly replaced without any question. My LG Nexus had a bloated battery, all emails and FB messages ignored. Tell me who to love.

And you paid what money for iPhone 6 and how much for the Nexus ? That's the merit how they love you back. ;)

> After a couple of calls, I finally got someone to tell me it was void because the battery was replaced with a third party one (which was, admittedly, news to me).

Wait, using a third-party battery voids your warranty?!

I wish I had more documentation to back it up, but that is what I was told (and I believe ultimately it came down to somehow qualifying as "tampering"). I am a very unreliable source here, hah. At some point in the whole process I became so put off by the service that I just wanted to be done with it.

Ultimately it was the limited service options, crappy website, slow response times and bad phone support that I found appalling for such a popular product line.

Obviously not, unless the replacement battery actually caused the damage. But like anything you might have to go to court to force the issue.

EDIT: After hours waiting in Samsung support lines without success, their shop not working with returns I give up for now.

My, rather cheap, Samsung phone had it's battery puff up and after I put the battery in a metal container for a month, it did catch fire and burn for a short time inside the container. That's a rather known problem for a Galaxy S3 Mini and such. I had to buy a new battery. So it might not be surprising that a same problem has occurred with the Note 7, it might be a bad battery supplier.

The surprising part is that Note product line is supposed to be pretty mature after all these years, but we still observe these childish issues in the final product. If you're copying from Apple or others, at least do it right.

Apple has copied more from the note series than vice versa.

Like what?

And no, Android features Apple copied from Google don't count.

Well, the phablet form factor - the Samsung note range did create (or perhaps reveal) that particular market, which Apple eventually decided to move into.

Software-wise, I have no idea as I've never really used an iPhone.

If you're going to credit Samsung for the phablet form factor then you need to credit Apple for the iPhone and iPad form factor it built off, and so on and so forth.

I'm not the initial poster and have no interest in defending the initial claim about who contributed more, I just wanted to give one example where Samsung lead the market and Apple followed.

Presumably we should also be giving credit to MS for their early pushing of the tabletpc form-factor. It's all evolutionary...

Remember the old "This is your thumb" ad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O99m7lebirE

The Note line also had NFC first I believe.

Like the big screen form factor. And multi window apps. And moving screen elements so you can easily reach them.

Batteries are (un)surprisingly hard to get right. You store an incredible amount of energy in a very small space. Any issue in the supply chain - anyone cutting corners anywhere - can cause serious issues.

This is what people get for demanding incredibly powerful computers with reasonably long battery life at the smallest possible sizes.

The timing re the iPhone 7, which is coming out in a few days, is terrible for Samsung. I imagine customers will have to return their Note, and then many will strongly consider the new iPhone. If this happened even a month ago, that would be far less of an issue.

I feel a sense of schadenfreude over this after Samsung decided to disregard their loyal Note series customers and put a non-removable battery in the Note 7. Terrible decision.

I'll never buy Samsung again after owning Note 2. Memory failed after 2 and a bit years. I found out it was a known issue. I had bought it with the intention of using it 4-5 years. When spending that kind of money I'd expect only the best components. The fact that they used poor ones in their flagship product doesn't speak well for them.

How do you handle security issues with such an outdated phone?

I'd root it and install latest Android.

That only works if you can get device drivers.

Outdated phone? The Galaxy S4 i9500 is the newest model with a discrete modem that is supported by Cyanogenmod. The Note 2 is only one generation behind.

Reuters has a short article (sans any named source) that Samsung will issue a global recall [1].

http://www.reuters.com/article/samsung-elec-smartphones-reca...

Unfortunately the last two release cycles of the Note series have been feature downgrades ever since Note 4.

Fun fact - this is not a maths error, Samsung skipped Note 6 branding and went straight to 7 to match their S7 release names.

What features did the Note 4 have that the Note 7 does not? I think the IR blaster is definitely missing.

Removable battery for one.

UV light sensor which for some reason needed location data to measure correctly. I've never understood why this is required as it should be able to read raw data based on incoming light.

And less megapixels for the camera, although this is not a conclusively bad thing...

expandable memory

It's there.

Note 4 had a removable battery cover that could be replaced with the S-Case. That made the phone very small. You are totally right, (I have the note 5 and its only a faster phone, everything else is worse.)

Slackware Linux jumped from version 4 to version 7 so that people wouldn't think that Slackware was less up-to-date than Redhat 6.

Solaris versions went 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 7, 8... since Sun got tired of people thinking that point releases only meant minor tweaks and bug fixes.

If they'd just made the damn thing with a removable battery like the note4 and older this would be a much easier, and cheaper, problem to deal with.

I might have actually have bought one in the first place. I don't buy any phone I can't get a replaceable, extended battery for.

I'm still rocking a Galaxy S3 with a Hyperion 7000mAh battery which easily lasts 3 days without recharging and am only looking to replace it because I got the international version, with no LTE and only 1GB of RAM. If I had gotten the South Korean version I would keep on using it until it broke.

Didn't knew until today that there are 7000 mAh batteries which can fit in samsung phones, interesting. Why do you think the companies are not going for these kind of batteries in the first place?

Fashion, mostly. Skinny jeans and thick smartphones are a problem.

Also the mentality that thinner==better being mainstream.

What boggles my mind is companies like LG, who offer phones with replaceable batteries not selling their own high-capacity batteries. Maybe they fear people will see someone with the extended battery and believe that is the regular phone?

Aggravating is the fact that this device goes into the new GearVR, so strapped to your head and just a few centimeters from your eyes.

I hope Samsung (and others) learn from this clusterfuck and decide to employ user-replaceable batteries in the future.

I had my Note 1 battery also expand in volume - probably due to a crappy charger and the electronics didn't filter voltage fluctuation enough - and had to get rid of it before it exploded.

> I hope Samsung (and others) learn from this clusterfuck and decide to employ user-replaceable batteries in the future.

Na. Won't happen and honestly I'm fine with it. Replaceable batteries are a very tiny niche that the vast majority of users not only don't care about but don't want to have to deal with. It also further complicates waterproofing. You can even shove a larger battery in the phone if it's not replaceable.

> I had my Note 1 battery also expand in volume - probably due to a crappy charger and the electronics didn't filter voltage fluctuation enough - and had to get rid of it before it exploded

To be fair it's supposed to expand versus catching fire / exploding so it doesn't necessarily indicate that it will explode though you should most certainly get rid of it ASAP.

> It also further complicates waterproofing.

I own a CAT B15Q, which sports a replaceable battery and is waterproof enough to have earned back its price by betting random people in bars "can this phone survive dunking into a mug of beer".

> To be fair it's supposed to expand versus catching fire / exploding so it doesn't necessarily indicate that it will explode though you should most certainly get rid of it ASAP.

Yes, but with a fixed backplate you won't see the battery expanding until it's too late. Also, phone vendors can't ship the battery separate from the phone, which has two issues:

1) no more "take out the battery" to reboot the phone, as vendor you have to rely on a secondary processor to monitor a key combination for rebooting - and if this goes wrong, no way short of disassembly to force a reboot.

2) as Samsung is experiencing right now (and various manufacturers before them), extremely expensive callbacks in case of battery defects. With replaceable batteries, just give any store (or the consumer!) a way of checking if the battery is vulnerable (a simple web interface with a serial number input), and a stock of replacement batteries, and it's done in under 5 minutes. Disassembling will usually require specially equipped stores (clean rooms, replacement glues, special training for nondestructive opening, ...) and time, both of which are expensive and reduce the number of service points available to the consumer.

I have to respect Samsung for doing a recall correctly, not like how Whirlpoint are bungling their dryer recall. Years wait for someone to come around and fix it! In the mean time do they really think that people can just stop using the dryers.

Never liked Samsung phones (Google Nexus 5 user still), but this is really annoying for their customers. I'm even sadder for those who buy these expensive phones unsubsidized.

wonder what they're going to do with 2.5 million phones they take back. I don't think they would dare sell them as refurb units.

Replace battery, sell them as new is what I bet on. Fishy yes. Compared to taking a 1B$ hit easy for excecutives.

> sell them as new

That's what they did for their washing machines that also caught on fire [1].

[1] http://www.samsung.com/au/washingmachinerecall/ "Did Samsung apply the rework to machines prior to sale? "

Have a long line of people take out one battery and put in another. Then carefully repackage the entire lot.

Will airlines ban carrying the Note 7 on board?

The might ban putting them in luggage. Most people carry theirs.

EDIT: The Korea Herald indicates that the issues appear to be originating from faulty ITM battery packs [2].

OLD:

Going along with the assumption there is some fault with the devices...

Essentially they should just sit there in shipping unless there is an external/internal battery short, extreme temperature or puncture. I assume the batteries were not punctured sitting in their target package after all the testing they must do and the fact these batteries can handle the temperatures of shipping (this is done all of the time).

"Sister company Samsung SDI Co Ltd (006400.KS) said that while it was a supplier of Galaxy Note 7 batteries, it had received no information to suggest the batteries were faulty." [1]

These batteries are made and tested all of the time, I would hope the technology is quite well understood my now which for me would rule out the likelihood of internal battery failure. Samsung also tend make quite high quality equipment in general in my personal opinion.

For me that leaves two likely possibilities, the phones were somehow switched on during travel (potentially through vibration or bad software) or bad circuit design meaning some current draw in given scenarios allowing the batteries to warm up.

My money would be on the devices turning on during shipping due to a crate knock or large shock. If a pallet fell of a fork lift or some semi-large force to the devices, I wouldn't be surprised if the low-profile power button was pressed inwards, switching the devices on.

If I remember rightly, Samsung devices ship in cardboard, acting both as insulation and something to get the fire going. A nice large hot display and hot battery well insulated would be enough to do a bit of thermal escalation. I would imagine it would only take one to turn on to do the trick. If I were Samsung I would switch one on, stick it back in it's packaging and wrap it in bubble wrap to simulate the condition of being in the middle of a pallet.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-smartphones-i...

[2] http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160901000855

That theory (issue with shipping) doesn't seem to be consistent with a global recall.

I stand corrected.

After reading "The Korean Herald" [1], it does appear you're right about them considering a global recall.

"Thus far, explosions have been reported on the phones using the ITM battery pack." [1]

"Amid growing concerns among consumers, Samsung is considering recalling all the Note phones and exchanging the battery free of charge." [1]

I'm really surprised, seems like the suppliers of the batteries have some lacking quality control. This isn't something I would expect from a major competitor to Apple, usually there is ridiculously over-the-top quality control from these companies.

[1] http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160901000855

My Samsung Galaxy S7 heats up aswell while charging and using phone.

It's not okay too... I fear that it will blow up someday.

not sure whether to worry

well, it will some day blow up.

i'm glad that i don't play Pokemon anymore, because it's turning off everytime i've played it after 15 minutes or so.

I know news sites making viewing a paid-for experience is relatively new, but it feels kind of wrong to bring closed source information onto HN. Regardless of quality, it's generally frowned upon.

This link could be replaced by the link below without sacrificing quality (it may actually be the original source too):

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-smartphones-i...

It's not new for the WSJ. They were one of the first major news orgs to impose a paywall, and it's one of the few success stories in the news industry.

I know and in a general sense I agree with their decision to do it - it makes sense. I just don't think it's appropriate for HN. If you do pay to bypass a news wall, chances are you will only pay for one. If there's three hypothetical equal competitors, that'll limit the audience by a third.

Or just click the "web" link and read the article?

All I get is "To Read the Full Story, Subscribe or Sign In". That's it. No other options. Maybe I could get around it, but it's a lot more hassle for the average reader than it's worth.

there's a "web" link at the top of this page, it google searches the title, which will get you what you want.

To be fair, it's completely unobvious. (I'd have never have found it if someone hadn't pointed it out to me a while back.)

Look in the menu of links just under the title, between 'past' and 'comments'.

Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that. I would have thought it was another more formal way of accessing the link or something.

Thanks for also pointing it out for me.

Only in some countries. For example, for me, I have to use a second workaround to actually get the article content.

That doesn't work for me, or for a lot of other people as well.

Whenever you encounter a pay wall add a "? " (questionmark space) in front of the the URL (I do this by F6 Home) press enter and click the first result.

Neat. So, uh, why does this work?

It Googles it

Because newspapers have to show the content to GoogleBot so people can find it; and Google has a policy that they shouldn't show you something different, so the pay wall is missing on this side of the house.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Are paywalls ok?

It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.

In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.

Also, the "web" link under the story auto-googles the story title, which circumvents most paywalls.

In general, thanks. Not sure how I feel about the default HN policy is not to complain about HN policy.

I wasn't even aware that FAQ existed (not looked for it). It explains a number of other questions I've had about it's workings/policy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

For future reference ;)

- Add refcontrol[1] for Firefox, or some alternative for Chrome.

- RefControl > Options > Add Site

- Enter site as www.wsj.com and Action as https://www.google.com

You can also use this trick for ft.com and probably a few other sites.

1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/refcontrol/

Okay, that's pretty neat! Thanks for that - hopefully it'll be around for a little while. Is it open to allow web crawlers?

Thanks for the tip!

Works for me on Chrome with "Referer Control" extension:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/referer-control/hn...

HN is really bad about this and I don't know why. My guess is that a small number of people are actually submitting and for whatever reason this circle uses WSJ a lot.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com