It’s fairly safe to say that this Fall hasn’t gotten off to a great start for Samsung. Their early launch of the Galaxy Note 7 seems have failed them, as batteries from another Samsung Group subsidiary, Samsung SDI, were faulty in launch units. This has led to a number of reports of exploding devices, fires caused by overheating devices and damage to property. For their part, Samsung has continually acknowledged just a small number of reports have resulted in some sort of fire or explosion. Even so, the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 is still underway, and the South Korean firm has made a lot of progress. Earlier this week, we saw that US Carriers were starting to put the devices back on sale, while the software on these new devices comes with an indicator to show that they’re safe. Devices that are deemed to be unsafe however, have had a software update that limits the battery capacity to just 60 percent of what it’s capable of. This could have changed now, though.
According to reports, it looks like there is a toggle buried within the advanced settings of the Galaxy Note 7 that allows users to turn on or off the option that limits the capacity to just 60 percent of the full 3,500 mAh cell under the hood. This toggle is rumored to take the maximum capacity up to 80% on these units that are deemed unsafe. Of course, this is not recommended, as the update that limits the battery to just 60 percent was put in place in order to keep heat when recharging the Galaxy Note 7 to a minimum. The hotter that any battery becomes, the more likely it is to misbehave or, worse, overheat and lead to some sort of explosion. This is true of the Galaxy Note 7 of course, but with a battery that’s known to explode or overheat and catch fire due to an anode-to-cathode defect it’s definitely something to take heed of.
New Galaxy Note 7 devices are now steadily becoming available in key regions where the device has gone on sale, including the United States. Speaking of which, users in the United States using a device they should have already handed back in are now likely to get some sort of warning from either Samsung or their carrier when using the phone. Hopefully, this will lead to more users handing in their potentially dangerous devices and ending up with the phone that they wanted in the first place.
