Samsung to Permanently Discontinue Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone
wsj.com
wsj.com
They have spent a huge amount of money on marketing this phone. I wrote a week or so back it could be the end of Samsung and people told me I was an idiot - they make so many other things, their spread is so broad, they can just produce the next phone and move on.
This has done untold damage to their brand in the eyes of the average consumer and has wasted so much money, I think they are going to need to get smart, and quickly.
First, all those sales are now refunded. That is going to hurt cashflow and cause ripples across the entire business. Sure, it's not going to hurt some of their industrial projects but hampered cash flow is like having a respiratory disease: most people who get pneumonia don't die of the pneumonia, but organs shutting down because of the lack of oxygen they get as a result of the pneumonia.
Secondly, a lot of marketing dollars are now wasted, gone. They did a global campaign around the Olympics for this phone - it doesn't get much bigger. Just be glad that they didn't launch this in early February otherwise they would have taken every Super Bowl slot available. Those who do remember their advertising around this spend will remember it as them talking about a phone that scared airlines into thinking it might take down an aircraft.
Finally, many consumers won't buy Samsung phones again as a minimum when they're first released, maybe never as a worst case scenario. This has done long-term damage, we can't deny it.
I know a lot of people are fans of Samsung, and it's true they are a great company, but objectively this has got to be damaging to them.
Remember that? It affected all Samsung EVO drives, which is marketing speak for all Samsung SLC based drives, which means budget drives, the Pro versions based on MLC were unaffected.
But, the way Samsung handled my case, to deny warranty, and in general case to release an .exe file on their website called "Slow fix something.exe", has me stay away from Samsung SSDs for ever.
The other "fix" they had was to release a firmware which would shuffle data around in the background - reading and rewriting/updating cells - so as to appear that there is no problem - but read speed would anyway decrease with age, and increase the write-cycles on the cells even if the SSD is idle... Fun.
I recommend SanDisk Extreme Pro -- they are awesome good value drives - may exist newer on the market now, but last autumn those were and still are the best SSDs ever.
The 850s use 3D NAND at 40nm process, and in terms of performance and capacity per dollar are pretty much still unmatched.
Consumer SSDs use MLC. Enterprise SSDs use SLC almost exclusively or eMLC which has less issues than consumer grade MLC.
MLC is about storing multiple bits in a single tiny cell. This results in more capacity at the cost of total write cycles, read errors being more likely and slower read and write speeds.
TLC is MLC but with three bits per cell.
I haven't kept up with that, I'm still using Samsung 470, 830 and Crucial M4 SSDs, which are rock f&^king solid, knock on wood.
But when they were released, with their much lower price tag, their TLC chips (with a huge SLC buffer to make it seem faster) seemed a bit suspicious - basically cheaper MLC, and that's not a good thing in this case.
I've heard actually that people are having an enormous difficulty getting refunds for the phones they already purchased, with Samsung responding to their requests with verbose but meaningless legalese.
I think this is an overreaction. I have a Samsung, and will buy another if it's the best value for what I need next time I'm phone shopping.
Consumers have short memories and there aren't that many legitimate alternatives to Apple.
They make everything from cutting edge phones to air-conditioning. One product in one business area going wrong like this is not going to be fatal.
Samsung SDI is going to struggle in a World with cheap coal prices and political inclinations (cf. Trump campaign) to not care about environmental impacts.
Samsung Heavy Industries is already struggling because of market demands for new container ships dropping off sharply in recent years - there has been a glut of supply for some years.
Their Engineering and Construction groups have moderate turnover on focused/strategic projects that go to lowest-cost bidders, they can't keep the entire company going.
They have a reasonable sized Financial Services group of companies, but they're not exactly global players, and it's going to be hard to see them picking up enough growth to keep things going if their consumer electronics division flounders.
They have a group dedicated to health and medical equipment, that might do well, but the largest market for healthcare in the World (the US), is currently playing political football with that industry, so, you know, tricky.
Their washing machines are exploding, and demand for products like air conditioning remains high but might be curbed by issues in the power sector within developing nations as people try to figure out what that infrastructure looks like on the 10-year, 25-year and 50-year terms, which again, they are fighting in another group.
They have a ton of electronics businesses that will continue to do well, but ironically because Apple is one of their biggest customers for their products.
It's not obvious to me that they are more robust than Nokia was. They have a lot of risks across a lot of their groups, with their phone division being perhaps the lowest risk group of the lot.
Good luck to them, but the Samsung fanbois (and yes, there are many of them), need to realise this is going to be a tough time for the company. For the sake of the smaller stockholders and the employees, I hope they get through this.
One phone will not kill this.
Having just bought a new Samsung washing machine, the story that they are exploding seems to have passed me by.
I'm not a fanboi - I'm typing this on a Nexus 6 and considering another motorola next - I just think that saying this might be fatal is somewhat silly.
Nobody in the UK has a top-loader, which I suppose is why it hasn't been that public here.
The irony!
Look at Toyota's unintended acceleration issues as a good example. Has it really impacted them many months on?
Since the flagships are all pretty close these days, it will be more challenging to get them back due to the upgrade cycle.
40% of Android users upgrade as soon as provider allows (usually every 2 years) while 58% wait until their current phone dies or becomes obsolete. [1]
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/07/09/how-oft...
This was on the local news where I live: http://www.wfaa.com/news/samsung-washing-machine-explodes-in...
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/95yearold-woman-rescued-from-samsu...
http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/samsung-overhauls-wash...
Second link claims 49 fires in 3.5 years
But you backpedalled on that point already as well, and no one, even the biggest fanboy, would argue that they are not going to have large problems. Like every large company somewhere on its track.
I think that if you compare Samsung's Note 7 to Nokia's Burning Platform, the prospects for Samsung are significantly better (Nokia not only destroyed the value of 100% of their inventory but also all of their future inventory until the OS changeover happened; Samsung has a branding problem but can release another device).
Honestly, they should just rename it to something else (at the very least not the Note, but maybe even call it something other than Samsung in the US).
Edit: I do agree with your supposition that mobile is the primary revenue driver for Samsung, but I don't actually think they're generating a profit from mobile any more. I continue to contend that the only company that makes a profit on mobile is Apple and they continue to dominate that market for reasons that are fairly obvious (supply chain, silicon superiority, and software that works faster for the workloads consumers run on their devices).
I think this will hurt Samsung significantly but not fatally. They'll come back with a nice fancy new phone (although they may not re-use the Note moniker) and they'll price it at barely above break-even to encourage people to give them another chance, and people will love them again.
They are both true. If Samsung faltered, the Korean economy would take a hit, but the government would almost certainly prop it up such that it wouldn't actually fail.
Presumably a bailout would take the form of an injection of liquidity sourced from sovereign debt denominated in KRW, much like the US bank bailout a few years ago. If it were large enough, it could depress the won against other global currencies. In the limiting case, the Koreans can always -- if they really need to -- print money until their exports get attractive again. People may not want to buy Samsung phones, but they'll certainly buy Samsung steel or Samsung heavy industrial equipment, if the price is right.
Nokia was around 4-5% of Finland and some say its loss was the best thing to happen of the country's tech sector. I haven't seen any real analysis however.
They're not going anywhere as a corporation.
I'd expect a certain amount of bloodletting in their leadership, depending on exactly how bad the recall and consequent damage to their mobile electronics business is. But it's not an existential threat to the entire organization.
I wouldn't have initiated such name-calling, but I do think the OP's reaction is over the top and silly, given the context.
Its gonna hurt their sales for now and probably next year.
I think that samsung will continue to dominate the android market whatsoever for the next years to come.
tech sites tend to over exaggerate impact of technologies because many fail to associate the fact common interest brought them to the discussion site in the first place
This seems like a huge overreaction, even if their phones are exploding - why would that matter if I'm looking at a monitor? They've produced millions of non-exploding product, so this is just some mistake that dropped in.
The average consumer won't remember this in a month.
People still buy Ford cars even though they made the Pinto and their SUVs used Firestone tires. People still buy Toyota without even a thought as to whether the brakes work. People still buy any car whatsoever with an airbag without worrying if it'll spontaneously explode and, if not kill them, shred their face.
Besides, driving is really dangerous, but calling your girlfriend isn't supposed to leave you with full thickness burns.
The rest of the company has much thinner margins. This undeniably hurts their business.
I am sad because they discontinued the phone. I really like this phone, and can't wait for my next Samsung toy.
You'd be surprised about how much of the general public even knows that there is a type of Samsung phone that can spontaneously combust, and the proportion of those people that care and will continue to remember that fact when they are looking for a new phone is also going to be quite small.
I have had to explain the story to friends who gave me blank looks when I explained that my Samsung S7 was not the kind that exploded...
In Samsung's shoes, I'd kill the Note brand.
I think there would be relatively less people who won't buy a samsung because of this event. There are other much larger reasons.
There have been reports of ultrathin phones from several different brands bending and cracking in people's back pockets for years. Honestly I'm impressed that manufacturers lasted so long without a bunch of explosions, given the energy density of these fragile gadgets. I also don't quite see the point of anything thinner than 9-10 millimeters.
Lack of durability may have been more acceptable in an era of incredibly fast innovation on the hardware front (planned obsolescence, hurray!) but now that most flagship phones have comparable features, perhaps someone will begin to design phones that last more than a year or two. With replaceable batteries, of course.
The damage will be to their stock and missed profits from Note 7 sales, as well as some loss to lawsuits. Maybe it will teach them to not rush phones or listen to engineering. Who knows, maybe they'll even add removable batteries or fix the AMOLED flicker.
Why do you assume that it wasn't an engineering screw up to begin with? They had two chances and didn't get it right. Not all technical problems are the fault of MBA's.
And I get down voted... Stay happy in your silos HN
People have short-term memories and will vote with their wallets if they see a new product that seems "worth the cost" of ownership.
VW has a huge customer base in enterprise and government. As long as trucks are not affected by faked emission tests, both won't dump Volkswagen. And even if: many large corporations and government institutions run their own car/truck repair shops, sometimes even their own parts storage (the most extreme is certainly UPS) in order to save money - and you can't just switch over all that to a new manufacturer.
> Similar situation with BP - they are not in the doldrums.
For gas directly sold by BP to customers: who cares? Consumers only look at the pump price, they're not as politicized as e.g. during Brent Spar 1995. The other branches / customers of bp are all corporate, where there is no incentive except prices to switch suppliers.
Will this hurt them in the short run? Yes, but unless they die before the next phone is out and gets rave reviews from at least a subgroup, this won't matter long term - does anybody even remember antenna gate?
OTOH, the Galaxy S3 wasnt too bad, but perhaps that's b/c I have been conditioned to bad phones since every phone I've owned since the Motorola flip & the Razr has been complete shit.
The remote is a terrible piece of shit, and I disabled the "Smart" TV features the moment that thing showed be a goddamn ad, but as a front end for my Apple TV/Playstation 4 it's quite good.
there is no excuse for putting ads on any tv without explicitly state it.
I'm not actually getting 4k video out of my TV, (since neither the apple tv or playstation support it), but I'm not terribly concerned about that (as I can't tell the difference at the distance I sit from my television).
I wanted a dumb TV anyway, but costco didn't have any at the size I was looking for when I purchased it.
But then again, I have an LG Optimus L9 that I thought would kick the bucket tomorrow for over a year now, and it keeps working...
There is no scenario under which the failure of one product, particularly the Note (far less popular than the Galaxy), ends the massive conglomerate known as Samsung. It's ~13% of South Korea's GDP and is very diverse. Samsung is so large and diverse it could end their entire lineup of smart phones and would still continue on as a successful technology company.
It's a pretty nasty trick the Americans pulled on Samsung, and we'll see how this plays out in the end. It was bound to happen as Samsung completely began to dwarf Apple, and snubbed the CIA operated Facebook. Taking on American tech corps is akin to taking on the NSA and CIA.
For now their best bet is to narrow down the culprits, reassess who their friends are if they have any (I think they're heavily dependent on Americans). It's obvious there's a move to break Samsung apart and to feed their remains to the American tech corps, so Samsung will likely have to play second fiddle to US intel lackeys like Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc...
Manufacturing defects happen. Design defects happen. Even criminal activities by employees happen, but it's up to the leadership and the culture of the company to get on top of these issues and steer the ship back on course.
Overall Samsung has a decent reputation at competently engineering phones and batteries. But the way they've handled their responsibility for this issue is inexcusable. Ceasing manufacturing is about managing their own costs. What are they doing to actually help their customers?
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-will-ask-all-global-...
Offering refunds to customers isn't the same as issuing a formal recall of all devices. They're doing the absolute minimum they can possibly get away with and trying to sweep the 'fixed' replacement Note 7 situation under the carpet.
At best they might be trying to put the replacement Note 7 non-recall recall under the umbrella of the original Note 7 recall, in order to avoid the embarrassment of issuing two formal recalls. But that's pure bullshit.
Now I really want a postmortem on the real cause of these fires.
4 degrees later, we are all gone. The batteries remain, for a while. In 2135 CE, the last Samsung battery too will catch fire, starting an unstoppable wildfire that will consume much of Eurasia, along with whoever survived the previous social collapse. Then, only ashes will remain.
Fuck the pandas, save ourselves.
To be fair, the lack of fucking pandas do is a major hurdle in their conservation.
(There's still plenty of phones with replaceable, more-or-less standardized batteries available… but it's $50-200 phones that nobody wants to buy because they're not sexy enough. Even though they've been fast enough for years…)
While the stories are all over the media, the truth is that there are less than 100 failures out of something like 3 million devices. I don't know about you guys, but if a bug only appears in my code in 0.003% of the time, I know I have a really hard time finding it.
It's especially surprising because most people who have the phone seem to love it, aside from, y'know, the risk of spontaneous combustion.
Maybe they'll revive the "Galaxy Mega" branding. Or maybe they'll come up with something new.
At this point, they are probably mostly worried that the damage will spread to other Samsung properties. Some news stories are already trying to connect appliance failures.
BTW, this isn't the first plane to be evacuated due to a phone fire. Remember this story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-272965...
There are others if you Google it.
Hello, Tim Cook on line 1. He'd like to quibble with your generalization.
What I find interesting about those earlier reports is the lack of follow-up. We know that the Note 7 explosions are happening "out of the box"; iPhone failures of this nature have often been attributed to cheap 3rd party chargers, but I can't find any information about the iPhones that led to evacuated flights.
Anyway, we're going to have to agree to disagree. There have been dozens of documented exploding Note 7 devices, which as best as I can determine is unprecedented. Any phone manufacturer would be under heavy fire.
> "The airline says the flight had landed in Sydney when the phone started emitting a "significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow"."
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-29/iphone-catches-fire/37...
I do expect to see a Note 8 next year.
Nevertheless, their other phones have been good (and I'm assuming that apart from catching fire this one was as well, though catching fire is a pretty big downside).
if (osName.startsWith("windows 9"))
The last Samsung phone I bought was an S5 I still have it I skipped the S4 before that it the S3 which was not bad except for the screen glass quality.
I was impressed by the S2 the glass is nearly indestructible even my elderly dad with his pocket full of change and car keys never scratched the screen.
A replacement S3 I managed to scratch about a week after getting it but before that my original S3 screen cracked from end to end suddenly. When I was at Starbucks the barista said "Hey mine did I that too!" her phone had the same exact crack pattern S shaped top right to lower left.
This overall quality problem at Samsung shouldn't be a surprise. But really any modern phone cramming so much into a small thing with an enormous amount of energy crammed into a battery something had to give maybe Apple is next?
I always shied away from the Samsung line of Android devices (except for the Galaxy Nexus), due to heavy handed re-skin of the UI. I have owned almost all of the Nexus phones, except for the Nexus 4. Each of the Google-blessed devices had compromises either battery, screen, camera (always), or MVP like design. The Google Pixel announcement pushed me over the edge to try a new product line. The Pixel looks just fine and is probably a good performer, but something about it feels very Gen 1. My wife has had the Note 7 since launch, and she claims its her favorite phone to date. Note 7 it was, TMobile had them in stock after the first recall.
To be honest, I have made a few changes to the Note 7 experience. After an hour or so of tweaking with the settings and installing a new launcher, I was holding a power-user Android device. It was just the right amount of stock Android and Samsung enhanced feature-set with strong hardware.
In the last week, the Note has quickly replaced the Surface Pro in more "mobile" scenarios. For example, client meetings, coffee chats, and jotting down notes in a quick huddles. I am an avid note taker, I love having the ability to archive all my notes to the cloud. OneNote does a great job of converting my notes to text, allows for searchability.
There is not a clear heir to the phablet throne. I have been keeping my eye on the Huawei Mate 9, Pixel XL, and a LG V20. They all have compromises and don't match the swiss-army knife approach of the Note 7. I love the idea of a master device with the ability for digital ink (S Pen) that also replaces media-consumption focused tablets (large sceen).
Hopefully current Note 7 users and future ones are vocal with Samsung to keep the Note series alive. It might raise awareness to other manufacturers to create similar devices. The majority of negative sentiment is coming from non-users (not to dismiss the real threat of injury). Which holds less water than positive encouragement from the users who planned to purchase or did purchase the Note. By positive encouragement, I mean asking for Samsung to fix the issue and we will be here waiting (hopefully its a fast turnaround).
I can't see myself parting with this tool. I am sure some of you here will understand when a device comes around that meets and exceeds all your niche needs, its pretty awesome! I would hate for it to disappear.
I wish Apple would make a phone with an integrated stylus.
For those of us wanting a phablet, what are the options right now?
Pixel is, IMHO, too expensive. The Note was top-end too, but at least had Wireless charging, which I like. Now it's gone. I don't 'do' iOS.
What's left? Most of the other phablets have got smaller, the Moto Z looks quite good (no QI, but otherwise great). People rave about the OnePlus 3 but the screen is low-res compared to many. I have found a device called "LeMax 2" by "Le Eco" which is dirt cheap by comparison, 5.7" QHD, snapdragon 820-based... Has anyone tried one?
Definite possibility.
http://consumer.huawei.com/en/tablets/MediaPadX1/index.htm
the only downside being the batter life is reduced if you let it drop to 2%.
I'd love to see a V20 with a stylus, but I don't see that happening.
The only other thing I can think of is they've identified an issue with the phone itself that's causing this and either they or, more likely in my opinion, their insurance providers aren't willing to take the risk putting any more into the wild.
I pretty much never charge my S4 these days. I have an external battery charger at home, a charger at work, and 3 batteries. It takes about 30 seconds to swap in a new one and then my phone is at full power instantly.
Additionally, pushing the device to the thinnest possible by not protecting the battery well enough was AFAIK the root cause of the problem at hand.
Yes. Please.
Seems ballpark to me.
No they are not. The LG's flagship the v20 which is launching any day has a removable 3200mAh battery.
For comparison the Samsung S7 Note has a 3500mAh.
Also the footprint of the V20 is comparable to that of the S7.
If we're lucky it will be ultra-capacitors that charge in seconds rather than hours. Unfortunately that tech still has 5x less capacity than lithiums.
I'm not saying everything should be free. I build paid-for services on the web myself. But how is “To Read the Full Story, Subscribe or Sign In” useful on the Hacker News?
The "web" in this line, just below the title. It takes you to a google search.
> N points by someone 2 hours ago | flag | hide | past | web | N comments | favorite
The OP was referring to the one that says "web"
Let's just hope Rupert Murdoch doesn't sue us all.
1. Click "web" (or alternately, Google the title of the article, verbatim from the article itself)
2. Click the appropriate link from Google, so that my referrer will be google.com.
When I do that, I still get the pay-walled article. I've tried deleting my wsj cookies and doing the same. I've tried using another computer on another network, with the same result.
That raises two questions for me: What am I doing wrong? Why do I get dinged without explanation for suggesting a second approach that does work for me?
Am I the only one who thinks this sucks? If so, I will bite my lip and shut up.
I believe in the open Internet. I don't even run an ad blocker for sites that aren't complete assholes with their ads.
But this is just stupid.
You sound entitled. Be glad you can use the google referral trick at all.
However, I think Hacker News is not supposed to be a place where ads to buy subscriptions are among the top news.
I don't love it, but I don't have a problem with it, mostly because I have no idea what other route they could take.
Ad-supported is something Buzzfeed can make viable, but it means tailoring both the substance and the form of their content to optimize for that. Doesn't work for WaPo.
I don't like that a link to a WSJ paygate page gets this amount of votes on Hacker News, when there are numerous free links available for the same information.
If anything, I'm saying "don't vote for paygate links" to whoever clicked to upvote on the OP link.
Nobody really wants to cross them here; if you want your content indexed and displayed in search results, you have to show the full content to users inbound from search result pages.
I think the idea of putting links on HN is its better to know about it asap, rather than possibly using a slower or less comprehensive source.
I'm not so sure if Hacker News should be an outlet for breaking news. The HN platform is not very well suited for real-time news in general.
Myself, I use Hacker news for "daily important news" much less than breaking news.
Is there anything in the WSJ article that isn't in another source, like The Telegraph?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/10/11/samsung-tel...
This story has been in Reddit home page for last 14 hours pointing to the original source on the official Samsung website[1]. This content is neither exclusive nor breaking.
[1] https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-will-ask-all-global-...
This WSJ article on samsung PERMANENTLY discontinuing sales is a substantially different development.
ok, so @arjie is a bit on the snarky side, but he does have a point.
I agree, but in light of the comments above about their horrific and unethical subscription-cancellation policies and practices, I think there should be a clear warning attached to every link from a news source like this, highlighting exactly what you're getting into if you choose to subscribe in order to read the article.
[1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en
The call centre employees will even discount your subscription to try to keep you. Not at all cool.
After that, any new charges that appear result in a call to the Amex Fraud Dept. Sadly there have been a couple services I had to do this with.
I cancelled my card and somehow they managed to cancel the account once payment didn't go through.
Only fucking subscribed because of one article we were in, ended up paying for almost a year of none-usage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/business/international/sam...
> SEOUL — Samsung Electronics is terminating production of its troubled Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, according to a person familiar with the decision, in a major and embarrassing about-face for the South Korean electronics giant.
> In a statement filed with the country’s stock exchange late Tuesday, Samsung said it had made a “final decision” to stop production. That means the company will no longer produce or market the smartphone, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Samsung did not publicly disclose further information about the decision.
Clicking the first result will bypass the paywall.
WSJ should not be classified as having an easily-bypassable paywall.
Thanks.
[0]
I don't think HN should contain links to paywalled sites like wsj.com
But i read that it is not possible anymore on another topic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680380#unv_12680507
They "upgraded" their paywall game. Also, the first topic with the most votes is ALWAYS a link to another article with the same information or a TLDR; for those who can't access the paywalled article.
Please just ban the wsj domain, so people would search for an alternative article immediatly. This is, after all, what wsj seems to want :)
Even from Google I only get the paywall now.
At least for me, the fire risk would make me entertain the other less flammable options in the vast market of android devices - regardless of a pricing point. The thought that it could combust into flames unsupervised while I'm say, in the shower is enough to make me really not want it.
I know the chances are small but reputation goes a long way especially if that reputation is "may explode".
I'm not one to try and time the market, but if I were to gamble, this might be a fun one to try to get in on now.
I'm wondering how this news will affect sales of Googles new phones.
The Note 7 looked crazy innovative besides full waterproofing, iris scanning..it be turned into a deadly weapon that could be used for mass destruction :-/
On a side note such a phone that floating around could be used by terrorists on planes. How will airlines handle this?
Having said that, this is a pretty small incendiary that we are talking about, and aircraft are several layers thick everywhere that a passenger can access. How would a terrorist actually use this to put a hole in a plane?
Is this recall only available in the US? Is the rest of the world basically screwed, unless their own governments put some pressure on Samsung?
From the FAQ:
> 4. I participated in the U.S. Note7 Exchange Program. Is my replacement Galaxy Note7 affected?
> Yes. This applies to all Galaxy Note7 phones _in the U.S._ (emphasis mine)
Here is the Taiwan URL:
http://www.samsung.com/tw/news/product/galaxy-note7-announce...
Here is the Canadian URL:
http://www.samsung.com/ca/note7exchange/
Here is the Australian URL:
http://www.samsung.com/au/galaxynote7-notice/
Here is the Chinese homepage (see the pop-out note about the Note 7 to the left):
http://www.samsung.com/cn/home/
It is a global recall. You just cannot guess the URL in the way you think you should be able to.
> Canadian Note7 Software Update showcases Note7 device is safe for use.
At this point, I think that it is most likely that there will eventually be a global recall (how could there not be? that would be madness) but they just haven't gotten around to updating all of the other countries. Recalls are complex, I guess. But they should at least shut down the exchange program ASAP, that's just a waste of time at this point.