Samsung’s flagship Galaxy Note 7 recently wound up being recalled, due to some battery issues in certain batches that had a chance of literally making the device explode while charging. At the time Samsung issued the recall, their investigation had turned up 35 such cases, with 2 ending up on the internet and making headlines. You can add a third case to the latter list, this being the very first such documented case in Australia. Redditor Crushader, a native of Melbourne on business to Perth and Brisbane, was sound asleep in their hotel room in Perth when their Note 7 caught fire on the bed next to them. The phone burned the bed, burned their hand slightly as they knocked it out of bed, and burned the floor where it landed. The phone was reportedly so wrecked that Crushader was unable to retrieve their SIM and MicroSD cards, bringing the business trip to a screeching halt.
Crushader contacted Samsung about the incident, and wound up having to go to a local Samsung store in Perth to receive their loaner device, a Galaxy J1. Crushader had begun the process to participate in the recall as soon as the formal announcement came out, but continued using their Galaxy Note 7. Thus, it may come as a bit of a surprise to some that Samsung stepped up to the plate and paid for the damages to the hotel room, in excess of $1,800 AUD. At the time of the incident, Crushader was using the Samsung-made stock USB Type-C charger that comes with the device.
According to Crushader, there were no warning signs whatsoever leading to the meltdown. The Galaxy Note 7 unit had performed as admirably as always and showed no trouble or excess heat with charging, then suddenly exploded during charging on the night in question. Crushader attached some pictures to their post on Reddit to show the extent of the damage. From the looks of it, the explosion originated on the right side of the device, then spread leftward and outward until it had engulfed most of the phone. This goes to show that while the lithium-ion battery in the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is small, it is plenty potent enough to cause extensive damage in the case of a malfunction.
