Roger Fingas
Although the short-lived Galaxy Note 7 was plagued by battery fires, the Galaxy S7 line should be safe — despite some rare incidents caused by damage, Samsung said in an unusual press release.
"Samsung stands behind the quality and safety of the Galaxy S7 family," the company publicly said. While saying there have been "no confirmed cases of internal battery failures" among over 10 million devices being used in the U.S., it acknowledged "a number of instances caused by severe external damage."
The company also remarked that it couldn't judge the cause of any incident without being able to examine a device.
The S7 and S7 Edge have been available since March, and the S7 Active was released in June. There have been periodic reports of the phones swelling up or exploding — one lawsuit is underway, according to Fortune — but the number of incidents is well below that of the Note 7.
Indeed Apple devices have periodically been subject to battery fires, though these have typically been blamed on issues like faulty third-party chargers.
On Sunday, Apple launched a replacement program to deal with iPhone 6s users experiencing sudden battery-related shutdowns.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
22 Comments
Right. Sammy also stated they have a bridge for sale.
Waaaaaiiiit a second. Did Samsung just confirm sales of only 10 million in the US?
Wasn't there an article from some asswipe analyst that said the S7 was beating the iPhone 6S in sales in the US? 10 million sounds like a dismally small number for the biggest smartphone market in the world.
To be fair there are also “scattered incidents” of iPhones catching fire too. Lithium is a very reactive element being #3 on the Periodic Table and all. While it’s fun to mock Samsung they will be back with a vengeance. Consumers have very short memories and when the Note 8 comes out they will scoop it up. I had a furnace technician out to the house a few days ago. In the course of conversation he said had a Note 7 and had exchanged it for a Galaxy S7 after the recall. He was miffed he had to pay sales tax and other fees for the exchange yet he plans to get a Note 8 as soon as it comes out.
Didn't they say pretty much the same thing about the Note 7?