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Comment by dingo_bat | Hacker News Reader

I think there is a small chance of any modern phone catching fire. I saw a news article about the same thing happening to a new iPhone 7. The first batches of note 7 were defective so they had a higher chance of combustion. I'm pretty sure that's not the case with replacement phones. This is just some sensationalist "journalism".

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I hadn't heard anything about an iPhone 7 catching fire, so I just looked into it. And it's pretty obvious that the box was badly damaged. So no, the iPhone 7 did not catch fire under normal conditions, it was heavily damaged first.

Photos of the packaging: http://imgur.com/a/LrhYz

A small chance does not show up with 3 phones catching fire within a week. How many of these phones would have even made it into customer's hands during that time.

I doubt it is eve fair to say there is a "chance" they will catch fire, but let us say there is. What is the "chance" that they will all catch fire within the first few days of use?

This is all quite damning, and unfortunately is probably going to put a dent in Android adoption. With Samsung being the more premium Android brand, I suspect many people will pick-up an Apple instead. But that is just speculation.

>This is all quite damning, and unfortunately is probably going to put a dent in Android adoption

Not likely. There are tons of other Android phones that people can use (including the new pixel). Everyone I've talked to (including non technical people) about this have associated this with Samsung, not Android.

You have to imagine it will have some affect. I purchase the phones for my company and the (all non-technical) people who come me to generally ask, "Should I get an Apple or a Samsung?".

This is kinda the point. Those people aren't saying "android", they're saying "Samsung. This isn't going to affect android sales in general, other than the fact that Samsung accounts for a big chunk. Google is aiming to take that chunk, and more - they'll be saying "pixel" this time next year.

Except that Samsung is the largest supplier of Android. So if somebody was going to get an Android, it is likely they were going to get a Samsung.

https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Rankings/comScore-Reports-...

If they don't get a Samsung, it is possible they will go to Apple, the other large supplier.

I acknowledged that and predicted that Google will increasingly encroach on Samsung's market share.

This is in no way sensationalism and comparing the unconfirmed single iPhone fire in shipping to a bungled recall in which replacement devices are still defective is a false equivalency.

As the article says, this is three replacement Note 7s catching fire in less than a week (that we know about). If that incidence rate were normal for other devices, I think we would know about it. (And I imagine far fewer people would carry phones around in their pockets.)

That chance seems elevated with the newer Samsung devices. I haven't seen anything close to this for other hardware manufacturers.

The S7 also has had several reports of fires. A family member of mine woke up to her S7 screen completely burned through. A quick search reveals many similar cases.

Samsung has been slow to acknowledge the severity of the issues, which has led to customer support requests via press release such as this article.

i wonder if thats why my screen has cracked... (S7 edge)

very strange crack pattern. (barely visible marble pattern) Im fairly certain it happened while i was using it on a hot day and it got to hot to hold. But not certain. Want to swap it for a blackberry priv anyway but not got around to it.

The batteries in modern smartphones are very easy to get wrong. So, it's not specifically the phone itself which combusts, but the battery.

Lithium batteries are very sensitive to the charging process. It could be that Samsung tried to optimize that and it worked in a lab. But when they produce millions of phones some devices just by chance will be outside the very tight safety margins.

Meh, it is too close to the rise of Goole as smartphone fab, the competition between Qualcomm and Samsung processors and the rise of Chinese fabs trying to enter the western markets.

Their adversaries are very dangerous and I wouldn't be surprised if they have to disassemble a huge amount of their production to find the error.

I still remember that Facebook Executive mysteriously jumping planes after the Koreans refused to make a Facebook only phone, and the plane having some weird malfunction and the ensuing racist banter by American media. Even the Japanese turned around their flights to SF to check their planes for sabotage, and found some strange errors in their flight systems. Of course they were american boeing airplanes, and they might do well to begin diversifying their fleet if you ask me.

So your theory is that this is the result of industrial sabotage facilitated by a government?

Given that three letter agencies have assisted in industrial espionage in the past and industrial facilities have been damaged through remote exploits (iran's uranium centrifuges were targeted with a virus if I recall correctly) it certainly is not impossible.

However, we are discussing lots of sensitive batteries so problems in the errors of margin in manufacture or operations is a simpler explanation.

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