‘Aggressive Design’ Led To The Note 7’s Battery Explosions

At the moment no one seems to be 100% certain as to why the batteries from the Note 7 handset from Samsung exploded. There has been quite a bit of speculation as to why, but over at Instrumental, Anna Shedletsky and Samuel Weiss seem to have come to their own conclusion that an aggressive design of the phone could have been the issue.

In fact this isn’t the first time that the Note 7’s design has been blamed for the problem, but Instrumental’s dissection seems to reaffirm it. For starters they note that if it was purely battery-related, wouldn’t a new set of batteries have fixed it, instead of forcing Samsung to ultimately kill off the Note 7’s production? That’s how they came to the conclusion that it could be the design of the phone itself.

Basically they suggest that because Samsung wanted to up the competition and maintain their product line, they tried to stuff a battery that was too big into the phone. “A smaller battery using standard manufacturing parameters would have solved the explosion issue and the swell issue.  But, a smaller battery would have reduced the system’s battery life below the level of its predecessor, the Note 5, as well as its biggest competitor, the iPhone 7 Plus.”

They also point out that had Samsung followed the standard testing procedures, as opposed to doing it themselves, it is possible that the problem could have been identified earlier on. The supposed rush to beat the iPhone 7 to the market could have been another factor that could have compromised the testing process. In any case Instrumental does make a compelling case, but Samsung is expected to make the official results known by the end of the year.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Galaxy Note 7, Samsung, Social Hit