What was prematurely derided by some as mere "clickbait" is anything but, given Samsung has now officially halted Note7 sales.
iTWire first covered this breaking story yesterday in two articles, entitled 'Explosion reports: Samsung may recall Note7 devices’ and ‘Is the Samsung Galaxy Note7 smoking hot? Exploding batteries say yes!’.
While the news of exploding batteries was met with claims of mere "clickbait" by some around the world, as always, a blogger or journalist doing their job will do more than scream "clickbait" and will actually investigate the issue as best they can from their keyboards – unless, of course, they happen to be on the ground in the countries concerned where battery explosions occurred, whatever their cause, to investigate in person.
Contacting the company concerned for comment also helps, whether it has been done by others as yet or not. You never know what the response will be.
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In any case, as you’ll see below, Samsung states it “conducted a thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue,” which presumably is that very cause.
So, what is the full Samsung Electronics Australia statement?
The statement issued on Friday evening reads: “Samsung is committed to producing the highest quality products and we take every incident report from our valued customers very seriously. In response to recently reported cases of the new Galaxy Note7, we conducted a thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue.
“To date (as of September 1) there have been 35 cases that have been reported globally. There have no reported incidents in Australia. However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7.
“For customers who already have Galaxy Note7 devices, we will provide a resolution of their choice including a replacement, repair or refund over the coming weeks.
“We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause in the market but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the highest quality products to our customers. We are working closely with our partners to ensure the customer experience is as convenient and efficient as possible. We will have an update for Australian customers early next week,” the statement concluded.
News reports online say the action is global, with the same reports dubbing it a "recall".
Now you know. Presumably the reason for the delay of "the coming weeks" listed above is because Samsung will need to continue its checks to ensure future Note7s coming out of the factory are free of the battery cell issue or any other issue that could cause a recall.
All eyes will now firmly be on how fast Samsung can safely rectify the issue and repair/replace/refund all those Note7 owners worldwide, with Reuters reporting from a Sasmung source that sales number 2.5 million.
However, this number apparently does not include devices in stock or in transit for stores worldwide, which will add to Samsung’s troubles in returning to sales as quickly as possible.
That said, all eyes will also be closely following what issues might appear with Apple’s iPhone 7, with iPhones certainly having their share of antenna bands, maps, flickering screens, bendable cases and other issues in the past.
There always seems to be something conflated into a global conspiracy when it comes to Apple, even though none of those cases resulted in global recalls.
So, the next time anyone is inclined to cry "clickbait", they might want to do some additional research first, because you never know if the issue is real, or not, until further investigations have been done by the manufacturer itself, whoever that might be.
