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US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

bbc.com

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Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#21

Post by thaumasiotes »

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.

> I also hope it breaks the Samsung monopoly over Android and let brands like LG, HTC shine

I have a Nexus S (Samsung), a Nexus 4 (LG), and a Nexus 5 (LG again). As you might guess, I bought those without really bothering to consider who the manufacturer was.

The 5, the most recent one, has failed catastrophically and eaten my data. The 4 is suffering from a swelling battery, and will be thrown away as soon as my OnePlus 3 arrives.

The S, two years older than the 4, is still going strong, although it doesn't seem quite up to the demands of modern android software.

To the extent that a "Samsung monopoly" exists, it's not at all clear to me that breaking it would improve anything.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#22

Post by gogopuppygogo »

sho_hn wrote: post #19
icelancer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, the V20 looks amazing. I'll probably sell my iPhone 6+ and my Nexus 6P and get one. Not sure when I can get it in America, unfortunately. Any way to import it from Korea?

According to /r/lgv20 T-Mobile and Sprint are getting it in Oct. Not sure about the import part sorry, I live in Seoul these days :)

Sounds like a good side business for you to start :-)

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#23

Post by CamperBob2 »

userbinator wrote: post #3
CountSessine wrote: post #2

I doubt Samsung will try to find another sales channel for them in North America. Going back to the feature-phone era, one of their most important advantages over their handset competitors has been their loyalty to the big phone companies. Doing an end-run around them to sell directly to their customers seems...unseemly. So what happens to all of these Note 7's? Do they just get buried in a ditch somewhere? From read…

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...

This argument is made all the time, but I don't understand it. If the batteries were removable, a large number of owners would eventually replace them with low-quality Chinese lithium batteries whose brand names contain the word "Fire" somewhere.

The result will be, big surprise, more fires. The difference is that there won't be one central manufacturer who can be forced to take responsibility for them. Publicity, if any, will be too obscure for most users to notice.

There is no way on Earth you will end up with fewer battery fires if the batteries are replaceable. We just won't hear about them.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#24

Post by Uupis »

paulcole wrote: post #12
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.

You mean except for 12 or 24 months from now when the OLED iPhone is announced.

With the strong push for color _quality_ (please excuse my lack of a better term) on iOS devices lately, I find the OLED-equipped iPhone rumors a bit confounding.

Last I recall they looked a bit off. Nice, but a bit off. That said, my experience with OLED screens is a bit dated, so maybe the color reproduction has improved.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#25

Post by kayoone »

Screwing up once happens, even if it shouldn't. Doing it twice will seriously shatter peoples trust in these devices and make them think twice before purchasing a new Samsung phone again. Samsung is a behemoth but this can really hurt their smartphone division.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#26

Post by ssalazar »

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 read on an earlier discussion that the issue is caused by the positive/negative battery contacts pressing together and short-circuiting as a result of mechanical distress, so the fundamental issue would be due to how the battery is situated within the device.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#27

Post by acchow »

CountSessine wrote: post #10
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.

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.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#28

Post by eksemplar »

kayoone wrote: post #25

Screwing up once happens, even if it shouldn't. Doing it twice will seriously shatter peoples trust in these devices and make them think twice before purchasing a new Samsung phone again. Samsung is a behemoth but this can really hurt their smartphone division.

After 2 years my S2 became a slow unfunctional piece of dead tech. I tried resetting it through the Samsung tools, which didn't help, so I rooted it and tried different versions of basic android on it, which didn't help. At the same time I had two friends who were experiencing the same kinds of problems, who let me toy with their phones.

It's completely anecdotal but three similar model phones breaking in exactly the same manner at exactly the same period in their lives was enough to put me off Samsung for good.

It's been some years since and I've seen Samsung in one scandal after another. Like the time they had an entire range of flatscreen tvs break because they put the transistors too close to the cooling plates, fixing it by moving the transistors but replacing the $0.5 piece with a Samsung produced transistor which they've never sold, making repairs nearly impossible.

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#29

Post by Steko »

mschuster91 wrote: post #20
hueving wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you've been in an airport, but you can buy a bottle of water and bring it on an airplane.

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?

Re: US carriers halt Samsung Note 7 sales and replacements

#30

Post by bogomipz »

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…

This looks great and a removable battery! Thanks for the tip.
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