Samsung’s Rush to Take Advantage of a ‘Dull’ iPhone 7 Led to Galaxy Note 7 Shipping with Faulty Batteries

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Published 19 Sep 2016

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Note 7 explosion

In a detailed report, Bloomberg reveals that the reason behind the Galaxy Note 7 exploding is not just due to faulty batteries. When the company heard at the beginning of this year that the iPhone 7 would look similar to the iPhone 6 and 6s and might not sport any new innovations, high-level Samsung executives went into overdrive on the development of the Galaxy Note 7.

They were very confident that the Note 7 would be loved by customers thanks to its high-resolution curved screen, iris scanner, and battery life. The company’s obsession to beat the iPhone 7 and launch the Galaxy Note 7 early led it to force suppliers to meet tight deadlines.

After a select group of top managers got their hands on early versions of the Note, they gushed over the upgrades and praised each other’s work, according to one of the people. If Apple wasn’t going to offer consumers anything exciting, Samsung certainly would.

To meet the stringent deadlines, Samsung employees and suppliers worked late into the night, with some even sleeping in the office to save time from commuting.

Though it’s not unusual to have a scramble, suppliers were under more pressure than usual this time around and were pushed harder than by other customers, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

It initially looked like Samsung had met the deadline as it managed to ship the first batch of Galaxy Note 7 units to carriers in the United States. However, soon after the phone went on sale in around 10 markets of the world, reports about the battery inside the phone exploding started surfacing. The company’s engineers blamed the battery inside the phone for the explosion, while others blamed the design of the phone itself. While the company was busy debating about doing a full-blown recall or take some less serious steps, an engineer from the company wrote something very moving on the company’s bulletin board.

“Please recall all Note7s and exchange them with new ones. I don’t have to get my PS,” he said, referring to his profit sharing, or bonus. “It’s humiliating.”

Samsung then announced an official recall of all the Galaxy Note 7 units it has sold so far on September 2nd.

While reports had claimed that Samsung SDI supplied Samsung with faulty batteries for the Note 7, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman says that the 3500mAh battery inside the device is slightly too big for the compartment that leads to the battery getting pinched eventually causing a short circuit.

Considering that the Galaxy S7 edge comes with a bigger battery than the Note 7 while coming with a smaller display, I find this a bit tough to believe. Nonetheless, the Bloomberg reports goes in great detail on how Samsung poorly handled the official recall of the Note 7 units as well, so do make sure to read it.

[Via Bloomberg]