This Is What Millions Of Samsung Galaxy Note 7s Are Being Used For Now

samsung note7 being used as cameras now

Remember when we reported Samsung’s inability to come up a use for the 4.3 million dumped Note7 phones? The crisis began when their flagship phones started bursting into flames just a few weeks into their arrival in the market, and just like that scores of complaints started to pour in about the flammable phone costing damage to life and limb. Suffering from one of the worst public relations disasters in the recent history, Samsung finally decided to pull the plug and ordered a mass recall of the phones, offering incentives to the angry customers and issuing apology statements. 

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In a press statement that soon followed, Samsung claimed:

“There was a tiny problem in the manufacturing process, so it was very difficult to figure out. It will cost us so much it makes my heart ache. Nevertheless, the reason we made this decision is because what is most important is customer safety.”

But with this “heart aching” decision came another problem; what to do with all the recalled phones? Surely they couldn’t refurbish them and sell them again, although surprisingly a small number of people have done that with their Note 7s.

But the latest reports show that Samsung has finally found a way to put the trouble makers to use, which first featured in an ad showing Samsung’s phone torture lab where hundreds and thousands of phones were seen being tested to their limits.

This was a PR repair bid to win back the trust of their customers in anticipation of the Samsung Galaxy 8 phones released on 30th March. But now it has become clearer that the testing lab was actually a quality assurance line for testing the incoming Galaxy 8 models. Note7 phones are also being used directly in the manufacturing process, with their cameras being used to keep an eye on a bank of charging phones. Obviously, Samsung had the good sense to first replace their batteries with a much lower-powered model.

 

Mashable‘s Pete Pachal elaborates on this,

“As Samsung took me and some other journalists on a tour of the company’s smartphone factory and battery testing facility in Gumi, just outside of Seoul, South Korea, we saw several parts of the company’s new eight-point battery check, created in the wake of the Note 7 debacle and subsequent recall.“One of these is the charging/discharging test, which does exactly what it says. Rows and rows of Galaxy S8 phones, each with a USB cable connected, alternately charge up and charge down, as cameras look on. But those cameras are actually smartphones, and those smartphones – at least the ones in Gumi – happen to be Galaxy Note 7s.”

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6 comments

  1. Eric B Reply

    So is Samsung going to produce a tablet with a phone (sim csrd) in it to replsce the Note 7?

  2. Stephen Gresoro Reply

    It was a total rush to market with a more powerful battery which sounded great.
    at the time. It is obvious that no one really gave the proper attention to the potential forLithium battery failure.
    Sadly, this type of battery design caused fires on mega million dollar aircraft, which had switched to this lighter technology. Aircraft Engineers had to incorporate a major overhaul
    of the designs and isolation
    Techniques.
    I love Samsung, and it’s a very touch lesson for this extremely competitive industry. Samsung woke all the main players to this issue. It’s not going away, with lithium until something safer comes along. Extreme testing is tantamount in the mass production process.

  3. Stephen Gresoro Reply

    It was a total rush to market a more powerful battery which sounded great.
    It was obvious that no one really gave the proper attention to the potential for fsilure. Sadly, this type of battery design caused fires on mega million dollar aircraft, and had to incorporate overhaul
    of the designs and cooling and isolation
    Techniques. I love Samsung, and it’s a very touch lesson for this extremely competitive industry. Samsung woke all the main players up to this issue. It’s not going away, so extreme testing is tantamount in the mass production process.

    • Skp1 Reply

      It was a small problem in production that led to a major problem for samsung. The whole thing was a bit strange for a company who has made billions of phones duddenly cant get it right? The failure rate was quite low & it should’ve been as simple as recalling a certain batch number rather than the whole phone. It was a bit fishy & reaks of industrial espionage to me. Maybe just disgruntled workers? There’s 100s of thousands of people like me who use a note 7 safely every day,yet no trouble on that front & no more fires since cancellation. I believe the effected phones were small in number but i have to admit had they not been recalled maybe failure rates wouldve been a lot higher? The media jumped on this like never seen b4& all this in the midst of real news in the world & the US election going on. It was like a worldwide media campaign stirred up a nightmare for samsung who acted decisively once flight bans & law suits threatened their reputation. But they are that huge a consortium that it barely touched them financially & they could even win out as they twist it in their new never again campaign with torture tests proving the new s8 & knowledge gained from note 7 problem. Now only to see if its enough to make the masses jump from their s7 to the new face of the s8? Note customers are pretty loyal as the pen is what matters to most & no other phone has the option of the wacom s pen. It will be interesting seeing how the s8 goes as the s7 is a hard act to follow & a lot of people out there run on a 2yr cycle of upgrading their handset. So will the 8 get people with its wow power? Skp1 Note 7?????????? living dangerously. #almostgotitwrite

    • Gkorman Reply

      There was no rush. The “rush” rumor has been categorically proved false. The Note 7 came out exactly one year after the Note 5, on schedule. It was not rushed out early.

    • Gkorman Reply

      The Note 7 debacle was caused by engineering with unrealistic tolerances. They pushed too far by design. However, there was a rush on the second batch of Note 7s since they had just lost millions of devices in stock (due to the recall).

      But the initial release of the Note 7 has proven not to have been rushed out. This is an undisputed fact.

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