If you bought a new phone lately you may need to exchange it in case it, um, explodes, and here’s how
If you just bought a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 you may want to strongly consider returning that phone because they’ve kinda been, uh, overheating and exploding?
As Verve reports, on Friday morning, after 35 reports of overheating/exploding phones as a result of batteries burning up while charging, Samsung has halted sales of the phone and issued a worldwide recall. As this short vid shows, it’s a kinda scary defect:
The exploding phone thing is straight out of a Stephen King novel, but it’s important to point out here that 35 phones blowing up means that the phone explosion phenomenon has happened to 24 out of every million phones sold.
Which means if you’re reading this article on your brand new Galaxy Note 7 you probably don’t have to throw it across the room like an unpinned grenade and run screaming from your house.
That said, it probably would be wise to make a soon-ish trip to the phone store to turn your Galaxy Note 7 and replace with a new device (new non-exploding Galaxy Note 7s should be available early next week) or Samsung is also willing to exchange the Galaxy Note 7 for a Galaxy S7 or a Galaxy S7 Edge.
And, as an unnamed Samsung official reminded viewers in a statement to Korean news agency Yonhap, the problem isn’t with the whole phone, but rather faulty batteries that are in a tiny percentage of the Galaxy Note 7s on the market.
“Products installed with the problematic battery account for less than 0.1 percent of the entire volume sold,” said the official. “The problem can be simply resolved by changing the battery, but we’ll come up with convincing measures for our consumers.”
Still, better safe than having your phone explode right in front of you. If you have a Galaxy Note 7, we’d suggest a change-up ASAP. Happy not-having-your-phone-blow-up-while-it’s-charging!
