Samsung investigating 'exploding' Galaxy S III in Ireland
Samsung has begun investigating an incident where its newly released Galaxy S III smartphone reportedly exploded when charging in a user's car in Ireland.
"Samsung is aware of this issue and will begin investigating as soon as we receive the specific product in question," the company said on its official blog. "Once the investigation is complete, we will be able to provide further details on the situation. We are seriously committed to providing our customers with the safest products possible and are looking into this seriously."
Details and pictures of the incident were first publicized this week by Engadget. The owner of Samsung's new handset originally posted their story and pictures in an online forum in Ireland.
"Driving along today with my Galaxy S3 in my car mount when suddenly a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of the phone," user "dillo2k10" wrote. "I pulled in to look at my phone, the phone burned from the inside out. Burned through the plastic and melted my case to my phone. The phone kept working but without any signal."
They went on to say that there was "no confirmation" that the incident was the fault of the Galaxy S III itself. They admitted the issue could have been caused by their car mount or the car's heating system.
The Galaxy S III is Samsung's new flagship Android-based smartphone. It launched in Europe on May 29, and debuted on all four major carriers in the U.S. this week.
Expectations for the Galaxy S III are high as its predecessor, the Galaxy S II, reached 20 million sales worldwide in 10 months. The latest Galaxy S phone has a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, a 1.4-gigahertz processor, one gigabyte of RAM, and available capacities of 16, 32 and 64 gigabytes.
"Samsung is aware of this issue and will begin investigating as soon as we receive the specific product in question," the company said on its official blog. "Once the investigation is complete, we will be able to provide further details on the situation. We are seriously committed to providing our customers with the safest products possible and are looking into this seriously."
Details and pictures of the incident were first publicized this week by Engadget. The owner of Samsung's new handset originally posted their story and pictures in an online forum in Ireland.
"Driving along today with my Galaxy S3 in my car mount when suddenly a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of the phone," user "dillo2k10" wrote. "I pulled in to look at my phone, the phone burned from the inside out. Burned through the plastic and melted my case to my phone. The phone kept working but without any signal."
They went on to say that there was "no confirmation" that the incident was the fault of the Galaxy S III itself. They admitted the issue could have been caused by their car mount or the car's heating system.
The Galaxy S III is Samsung's new flagship Android-based smartphone. It launched in Europe on May 29, and debuted on all four major carriers in the U.S. this week.
Expectations for the Galaxy S III are high as its predecessor, the Galaxy S II, reached 20 million sales worldwide in 10 months. The latest Galaxy S phone has a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, a 1.4-gigahertz processor, one gigabyte of RAM, and available capacities of 16, 32 and 64 gigabytes.
Comments
With the mention that the car's phone mount and/or heating system may have been at fault I suspect he may have been using a vent mount and overheated the phone with warm air. Certainly a possibility.
Or perhaps it suffered a melt down from the radiant solar heat - no phone can withstand the blazing hot deserts of Ireland.
Considering all the damage is done right next to the charger, and not the battery, I'd bet there's a strong possibility some $.50 car charger is more to blame than the phone, but still unacceptable. However being a fireman myself, I've been to more electrical fires and flareups in homes in the last year or two year in my area than I've seen reported from the millions of chargeable devices roaming the planet in the last 5, so these are still quite rare occurrences. Unless you remember those Dell Latitudes...
On the original forum thread he mentions in a subsequent post, no7, that:
"The mount did not have a charger, and no charger was connected. It just holds the phone."
So it's not the fault of a cheap charger at least.
Also, the weather here hasn't been great this week but I can't imagine having a car heater on at all, much less turned up full blast. But it could have caught too much of the occasional sun.
Woop! Double post.
To be fair Samsung was expecting explosive sales results for this handset.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbyrn
...no phone can withstand the blazing hot deserts of Ireland.
Yeah, it's weird that he has a car. Most people here use camels. Maybe he was using a camel phone mount by mistake. Common error.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Banalltv
On the original forum thread he mentions in a subsequent post, no7, that:
"The mount did not have a charger, and no charger was connected. It just holds the phone."
So it's not the fault of a cheap charger at least.
Also, the weather here hasn't been great this week but I can't imagine having a car heater on at all, much less turned up full blast.
To be realisitc, just because 'some guy on the internet' poster says he wasn't doesn't mean he's being honest, but still a fair point. The update to the original:
Quote:
After receiving no help from the Carphone Warehouse. Samsung contacted me, the head of customer services came out to see me and gave me a replacement phone. Even said he would send me out some free stuff.
There is no confirmation that it was a fault with the phone. It may actually have been caused by a combination of my car mount and my cars heating system.
Well I guess that was nice of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by saarek
To be fair Samsung was expecting explosive sales results for this handset.
But the explosion was "smooth."
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbyrn
Remember the story about the iPhone "exploding" on an Airline flight and the tech media was in an Apple skewering lather until they found it was due to an unauthorized third-party replacement of the the iPhone’s screen. So what's the problem with this fresh out of the box Galaxy III and why aren't the tech pundits skewering Samsung?
Only Apple gets skewered for exploding phones. Everybody else gets a pass. This is already a non story on sites like C|net. It's just the way the universe works.
[URL=http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169001/width/600/height/450][IMG]http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169001/width/600/height/450[/IMG][/URL]
Given the weather here this week, I can imagine him having the heater on, maybe not full blast, I can also see how he might have got it wet.
well, they do run hot....
I've had iPhones exposed to some pretty high temps using it as a GPS with a windshield mount while plugged in. It's even sat in my car with the windows up during a very hot summer day. While using GPS, the screen will dim very dark until it cools off. When trying to use it after it baked in a hot car, it just displayed a warning that the phone is too hot and needs to cool.
Oh... this was my iPhone 4... almost 2 years ago...
If this was truly a case of too much heat in the environment, Samsung needs to figure out how to make the phone protect itself, like the iPhone has BEEN capable of. Another thing Android does that iPhone doesn't, I guess...
The suggestion that the phone exploded because of the heater in the car working too hard, i.e. blowing nice comfortable air out at, say, 75'F (23'C) is laughable. If the car's heater was THAT volcanic the driver of the car would have exploded long before the phone, not to mention the heater matrix within the dash...
Samsung are clearly wriggling more than an eel on steroids, and probably desperate not to find a manufacturing shortcoming that prompts a huge recall. I'd laugh long and hard if that happened.
That is an invalid, sensationalistic, claim. One phone failed. Out of potentially millions sold. First, we don't know if the guy did something to it to cause it to fail (like the failed screen replacement that cause the similar iPhone problem). Second, even if he didn't do anything to it, a single failure is not cause for a recall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Samsung has begun investigating an incident where its newly released Galaxy S III smartphone reportedly exploded when charging in a user's car in Ireland.
The Galaxy S III is Samsung's new flagship Android-based smartphone. It launched in Europe on May 29, and debuted on all four major carriers in the U.S. this week.
Expectations for the Galaxy S III are high as its predecessor, the Galaxy S II, reached 20 million sales worldwide in 10 months. The latest Galaxy S phone has a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, a 1.4-gigahertz processor, one gigabyte of RAM, and available capacities of 16, 32 and 64 gigabytes.
A dozen replies and no one posted "Another thing they copied from the iPhone"
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbyrn
Remember the story about the iPhone "exploding" on an Airline flight and the tech media was in an Apple skewering lather until they found it was due to an unauthorized third-party replacement of the the iPhone’s screen. So what's the problem with this fresh out of the box Galaxy III and why aren't the tech pundits skewering Samsung?
Actually it was a battery that was apparently replaced. Which is how a screw got under it to puncture the battery when it was pressed in. They found the screw and the puncture site when they x-rayed the phone
Bloody IRA.