Image credit – iFixit
As you might have heard, over in Korea Samsung has launched the Galaxy Note 7 Fan Edition. For those who are unfamiliar, basically these are refurbished Note 7 handsets that have the batteries swapped out for newer (and presumably safer) ones, which the folks at iFixit have pretty much confirmed in their teardown.
According to iFixit’s teardown, the innards of the Note 7 Fan edition remain pretty much identical to that of the original Note 7. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise since both devices are exactly the same, but like we said the difference is in the battery. They note that the date stamped on the battery says the 20th of June, so clearly these are brand new batteries.
They also point out the fact that these batteries are smaller at 12.32 Wh versus the original Note 7 which had a battery of the 13.48 Wh variety. It is also physically smaller as the measurements suggest that it might have lost some of its mass. Overall with the new batteries, the Note 7 Fan Edition should be safe to use, and given that not much has changed, it seems like Samsung could have easily avoided all of this from the get-go.
iFixit even suggests that had Samsung not gotten rid of the removable battery design that was present in previous Note devices, that this would not have been an issue at all, but either way we guess if this means that Samsung will now institute more rigorous battery testing procedures, then perhaps it might not have been all for nothing.
Filed in . Read more about Galaxy Note 7 and Samsung.
