US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements • Hacker News Board

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#61

Post by CountSessine » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:30 AM UTC

acchow wrote: post #27

CountSessine wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope it doesn't turn out to be fatal for them but I also hope it breaks the Samsung monopoly over Android and let brands like LG, HTC shine. OLED displays are so good they still sell themselves, and Samsung is the only handset maker that seems to be committed to the technology. I doubt this will change much.

What's so great about OLEDs? They consume much more energy and don't produce the most accurate colors.

They only consume more energy when displaying white. They consume very little energy when displaying black.

OLED displays have a very wide color gamut. If you have source material that was tuned to it, there's really nothing like it. To get a similar gamut with LCD you need a quantum dot backlight. Samsung devices all have a screen mode where they constrain their gamut to sRGB for more accurate colors, though.

In terms of color accuracy, they've consistently been the best around, when set to limit their gamut to sRGB. This (http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_Note7_ShootOut_1.htm) site has test results for most recentish smartphones and tablets and declared the Note 7's display to be "the best performing Smartphone Display that we have ever tested." Every Samsung device with an OLED display released in the last few years has achieved this.

And of course the contrast ratio is much better than LCD. In terms of display quality, provided the phone can be set to sRGB mode, OLED is as good or better than LCD in every metric. And this doesn't even touch on all of the novel uses a display that uses no power when displaying black can be put to - for example, Samsung devices can typically display the time or notifications in white-on-black on the display persistently when the screen is otherwise 'off'. With OLED, only the pixels that are active are drawing power.

The only problem with OLED has been blue pixel decay. I have an OLED display in both my tablet and my phone and I'm a heavy user, and I haven't noticed any change in the 2 years I've owned them though.

Really, it's just a better technology. It's shameful that everyone has allowed Samsung to maintain a lock on it. I really wish I didn't have to buy Samsung devices to get this fantastic technology.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#62

Post by chipperyman573 » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:37 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #58

userbinator wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung said in a statement last month that the issue of overheating was caused by a "rare" manufacturing error that resulted in the battery's "anode-to-cathode [negative and positive electrodes]" coming into contact. Looks like the fault is in the batteries, internal shorts are both uncommon and also extremely dangerous since they will essentially dissipate all the energy in the cell as heat and can't be stopped ext…

>This is partially why I'm wary of devices with batteries which aren't easily removable. Why? It seems like the batteries burn out fast enough that it wouldn't be possible to safely remove one once it starts smoking. In any case doing so might save the phone - unlikely but it might - however now you have a completely naked ignited incendiary device lying on your carpet, rather than one enclosed in a protective case.…

I think he's saying that it's a lot easier to ship or give out a free replacement battery than recall an entire phone line and manage all the repairs.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#63

Post by bambax » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:37 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #32

CookieMon wrote: post #16

Why did Note 7's have this problem? I assume the fault is entirely in the battery (?), so did Samsung change how the batteries were manufactured this year? Does the Note 7 have power demands that mean they can't go back to tried and tested battery manufacture? (Hoping there are EE's or manufacturing people here that might have some educated guesses)

I believe Samsung doesn't make the batteries. Whoever does, however, is probably not feeling too good... It also means that this could've easily happened to another company's phones; remember the laptop fires a few years ago (Apple, Dell, IBM, Toshiba, etc. all issued recalls) that were determined to originate from defective Sony cells?

Are the batteries made by just one contractor, and are they exploding at random? Or are there more than one contractor, and are the exploding batteries coming from one of them in particular? Is this known?

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#64

Post by mrmondo » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:41 AM UTC

breakingcups wrote: post #46

mrmondo wrote: post #41

This adds to Samsung's long covered up history of phones that kill SDcards, bloated batteries, uncompliant USB spec connections, under-specced voltage regulators throughout, cheap USB chargers suspected as built to fail, screen colour imperfections and second hand parts discovered in new phones discovered during new phone tear downs. They regularly spend so much more money on advertising on bus stops and trains than…

[citation needed]

I know what you're saying, but I often comment on public transport and you're quite welcome to do your own research and dispute what I said.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#65

Post by easytiger » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:43 AM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #9

maxpert wrote: post #4

I don't know how fatal this will be for Samsung next time they go out and sell phones; but people have got a taste of buying from a company that doesn't have any sales or customer rep centers easily accessible where people can go and complaint. I really hope it doesn't turn out to be fatal for them but I also hope it breaks the Samsung monopoly over Android and let brands like LG, HTC shine.

LG has a top competitor out right now in the V20. Removable battery, MIL-spec drop proof, second wide angle rear camera, concert-capable stereo mics with manual controls, a second screen that's actually useful (it's located in what would otherwise be dead bezel next to the front camera, and shows e.g. notifications while fullscreen, or can be used as a taskbar), usable software (read: close to vanilla Android Nougat…

> Madness, it's by far the most compelling phone available right now.

It is completely insane. I'd buy one tomorrow. But I cant

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#66

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:48 AM UTC

Steko wrote: post #29

mschuster91 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and it costs 10x as much as in a regular super market, despite being the same water. I really, really dislike flying. Not because of the flying itself, but because of being treated like a potential terrorist all the time.

So carry an empty bottle/tumbler/thermos and fill it up at the water fountain?

You're not allowed to do so, at least when I tried taking an empty bottle it was confiscated (Munich Airport, EDDM).

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#67

Post by kriro » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:48 AM UTC

manojlds wrote: post #57

As someone outside the US, I first associated "US carriers" with US Aircraft Carriers. I thought this was about the navy banning Note 7 aboard the carriers, before sales and replacement brought me back to thinking this is about mobile carriers. In India we just call them mobile networks :) NLP and AI is tough, no wonder.

That was my initial association as well. I actually thought there was some sort of sea blockade to not let note 7s into the country. Then I thought that would be a bit too ridiculous and only then did my brain recognize the other meaning of carrier.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#68

Post by hocuspocus » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:56 AM UTC

Steko wrote: post #53

CookieMon wrote: post #16

Why did Note 7's have this problem? I assume the fault is entirely in the battery (?), so did Samsung change how the batteries were manufactured this year? Does the Note 7 have power demands that mean they can't go back to tried and tested battery manufacture? (Hoping there are EE's or manufacturing people here that might have some educated guesses)

This is the best writeup I've seen of how this happened: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-18/samsung-c... tldr plus my speculation: * Leaked iPhone 7 specs made Samsung shoot for the moon with Note 7 design * Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery and a lot of internal room taken up by t…

> Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery and a lot of internal room taken up by the stylus (and sure insert headphone jack punchline here).

And that's an understatement :)

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Samsung-G...

The Note 5 was already pretty impressive compared to the iPhone, and they went from 3000 to 3500 mAh with the Note 7.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#69

Post by dotancohen » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:57 AM UTC

What phones are an alternative to the Note? I use my Note 3's stylus dozens of times a day. No other stylus comes close, as it uses Wacom technology as opposed to standard stylus' capacitance sensing. The Wacom technology needs the phone to support it.

Are there any good stylii for writing text (i.e. dragging across the screen) for generic capacitance screens? All stylii that I've seen are good for selecting things (i.e. pushing against the screen) but terrible for writing.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#70

Post by CountSessine » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:58 AM UTC

Inconel wrote: post #44

acchow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so great about OLEDs? They consume much more energy and don't produce the most accurate colors.

I'm fairly sure the new OLED displays from Samsung can produce extremely accurate colors. I don't remember exactly where I read so, perhaps AnandTech, but I believe the Samsung displays were considered some of the most accurate smartphone displays prior to the new iPhones. I should note that for some reason it seems like most smartphone manufacturers, basically everyone aside from Apple, way oversaturate their displa…

I absolutely love the deep blacks and the fact that when I have the phone on low brightness using a dark theme it barely produces any ambient light

Yup - completely agree. When I got my Tab S, I knew that the exynos 5420 was grossly inferior to the a8x in the Air 2, but I wanted my tablet for watching videos in bed at night.

I was right; the 5420 is execrable and makes web browsing very painful compared to the Air 2 (my kids have Air 2's). But the display is so much better than the Air 2's in every way you'd care to mention or measure. It's unbeatable for its intended purpose.