It has been almost six months since the incidents of exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7s began, and after 2 recalls of their flagship phone, Samsung has finally released a statement on what caused the incident. In a report done by Cnet, Samsung said in a press conference that battery defects were the cause of both the original and replacement Note 7 units.
The initial Note 7 units had batteries with casings that were "too small", which caused it to short-circuit and ignite spontaneously. The phones were then recalled and replaced with another battery from a different supplier. However, the replacement batteries had a different defect that lead to the same result. Hence, a second recall was issued for millions of Note 7s.
Samsung then inspected every aspect of the Note 7, according to The Mirror UK, to find what exactly caused the problem. According to Samsung, they dedicated over 700 Samsung researchers and engineers to test more than 200,000 fully-assembled Note 7s as well as 30,000 batteries. It is here where Samsung finally came to a conclusion as to what caused the incidents.
In a statement by Koh Dong-jin, Samsung's head of mobile business, he said "We sincerely apologise for the discomfort and concern we have caused to our customers." According to the report of The Guardian, he also added, "We are taking responsibility for our failure to ultimately identify and verify the issues arising out of battery design and manufacturing."
Though the Note 7 incident may have cost Samsung billions of dollars, and more importantly the trust of the people, they are still going to push through with the release of the Note 8. Further steps have been taken to ensure that this type of incident does not happen again. That includes extensive testing of the quality of the Galaxy Note 8 and other future mobile devices.
"There are going to be some tests we're going to do that we believe go well above and beyond the industry standard." This was a statement of Justin Denison, the head of product strategy and marketing for Samsung's US arm.
