Samsung Halts Galaxy Note7 Production, Urges Customers To ‘Take Advantage Of Remedies Available’

Following a few weeks of reports of replacement Galaxy Note7 smartphones catching fire, Samsung has done the inevitable and requested that global retailers stop selling and replacing the model, while it ceases all production and while “further investigation takes place”. Simply put: if you own a Note7, it’s important to stop using it, regardless of how inconvenient it might seem.

To say that it’s been a tumultuous past month or so for Samsung seems like an understatement. While it’s not uncommon to see a product be issued a recall, it’s unprecedented to see the replacement of recalled products be recalled as well. While Samsung doesn’t explicitly word it as such, it tells customers to “take advantage of the remedies available“. That involves returning the phone – so it’s a recall, plain and simple.

This is all unfortunate as the Galaxy Note7 was an excellent phone, well-received from the get-go. It doesn’t even seem certain right now exactly why the phone is prone to this issue, but considering that even the replacements seem to retain the severe issue, it must be a deep-rooted flaw that can’t be easily fixed.

So what do you need to do if you’re a Note7 owner? The first thing would be to power it down, and second, you should head on in to the place of purchase, and either get a refund and / or get a replacement model (but good luck finding one with a built-in stylus).

It’s hard to wager right now how much this will affect Samsung in the long-run. A recall of a product that replaced a recalled product is almost hard to fathom. No company would want to be in Samsung’s shoes right now: it launched a product to much fanfare, and enjoyed instant success. That success quickly turned to turmoil. Will people stop trusting Samsung? It’s hard to say – mistakes happen, but this is a mistake on a much greater level.

We can already predict the jokes to come for the Note8 launch – if Samsung even continues to stick to that naming scheme.