New in our buyer’s guide: The iPhone 7 and Fitbit Charge HR
Well, well, well. After just a few months of phone releases and reviews, our smartphone buyer’s guide section looks very different than it did recently. New to the guide, as you’d expect, are the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, both of which earned strong reviews from us. The HTC 10 and Galaxy S7 have held their spots there, with the OnePlus 3 rounding out the list at the lower end. (And yes, we are thanking our lucky stars that we didn’t have time to add the highly rated Galaxy Note 7 into the guide before it was recalled and discontinued.)
We’ve also made some changes to our wearables section, with the Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 both making the cut (the Series 2 is the best in absolute terms, but we recommend the Series 1 for more people). You’ll also find the Fitbit Charge 2, our new favorite all-around fitness tracker. Find all that and more right here in our buyer’s guide, and be sure to check back soon — we plan to review some highly anticipated releases like Google’s new Pixel phones as well as the PlayStation Pro.
Source: Engadget Buyer’s Guide
Samsung Offers Note 7 Recall Customers $100 in Credit to Stay Loyal
Samsung is offering $100 bill credit to U.S. customers caught up in its ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 recall if they’re willing to stay loyal to the brand (via TechCrunch).
Samsung discontinued the Note 7 earlier this week after handsets deemed safe by the company began setting on fire just like the handsets they replaced. Samsung is now offering those who choose to exchange the phone for any other Samsung device up to $100 credit as a goodwill gesture.
Those who opt to exchange the Note 7 for a full refund or for another brand of smartphone are being offered a smaller $25 credit for the hassle. Currently the goodwill credit appears to be limited to U.S customers.
Commenting in a statement on the U.S. refund and exchange program, Tim Baxter, president and COO of Samsung Electronics America, said: “We appreciate the patience of our consumers, carrier and retail partners for carrying the burden during these challenging times. We are committed to doing everything we can to make this right.”
According to a report by The New York Times, Samsung still doesn’t know exactly why Note 7 smartphones have been catching fire. The company was apparently unable to replicate the problem at their labs and have so far been unable to identify the exact cause of the issue.
Samsung’s recall of the devices was made official today via the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, citing “serious fire and burn hazards” to consumers. According to the statement, Samsung has received 96 reports of batteries overheating in the U.S., including 23 new reports since the September 15 recall announcement. Samsung has also received 13 reports of burns and 47 reports of property damage associated with Note 7 phones.
Some reports predict the recall could cost the company $17 billion. Samsung has already issued a profit warning and slashed its Q3 estimate by a third, with $2.3 billion in lost operating profits, down nearly 30 per cent from a year earlier.
Tags: Samsung, Galaxy Note 7
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US couriers issue strict guidelines for returning your Galaxy Note 7
If you can’t walk into your carrier’s store to turn in a Galaxy Note 7 in person, you’ll have to ask them for Samsung’s fire-proof box and wait for it to come in. FedEx and UPS have announced that they won’t ship out the phone unless it’s inside one of the special containers Samsung has prepared for it. This container is actually comprised of several boxes you’ll have to stack like a Russian doll, though the outermost one is lined with ceramic fiber designed to keep potential fires under control. Meanwhile, the US Postal Service will accept your shipment, so long as it’s inside hard cardboard or plastic boxes.
While it could be a hassle having to wait for the insulated box to arrive, it’s still a step up from the couriers’ previous stance: they originally refused to ship the plus-sized phones back to carriers altogether. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for our friends in the UK. The Royal Mail has banned sending the devices entirely, suggesting that Note 7 owners get in contact with the retailer that sold them the phone in the first place.
Take ‘note’ that you might have to wait a while before the phone gets to your phone carrier, since Note 7s are not allowed on planes anymore. To comply with the Department of Transportation’s rule that prohibits recalled products with lithium-ion batteries on planes, the devices are now only eligible for ground shipping.
Samsung’s earnings for July to September weren’t affected by its Note 7 problems, but things likely won’t be the same the next quarters. After it decided to stop making the phones completely, the chaebol adjusted its profit guidance to expect a $2.34 billion loss for the current quarter. Analysts also believe that the conglomerate will end up spending around $1 billion to make and ship out the insulated recall boxes. While Samsung’s growing display and chip business could make up for those losses, the future of its extra-large phone line is now up in the air.
Source: Bloomberg, Fox6Now, The Washington Post
Samsung offers Note 7 owners $100 off another Galaxy phone
In an attempt to keep users, Samsung is issuing a $100 credit to exchange the defective Galaxy Note 7 for a Galaxy S7 Edge or other Samsung device. By comparison, it’ll give you just $25 if you switch to Apple, HTC or any other brand. It has also expanded the recall to include all Galaxy Note 7 devices, including those issued as replacements for the original defective phones. That move was expected, since both have proved to have defective batteries that can cause fires and explosions.
Following the initial recall of the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung issued refunds or replacement devices to consumers, along with a $25 credit. However, the new phones also had problems and caused incidences like a fire on a Southwest Airlines flight. The company has now killed the phone altogether, and advised buyers to shut it off immediately.
Samsung is trying to keep users from straying to other brands, while also trying to stop further financial bleeding from the debacle. In a post, it said that the incentives are to compensate customers for the “big inconvenience” of exchanging the device. That’s an understatement, because customers have been forced to handle devices with gloves and return them in a fireproof box. Then, they must wait a considerable period for the replacements, which can only be shipped by ground.
The best option might be to avoid the exchange and get a full refund. Buyers likely paid full price for the Galaxy Note 7, which was just released. The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, on the other hand, have been out for six months, and can be found at a considerable discount. For many users, the difference likely amounts to more than the $100 exchange incentive.
Source: Samsung
The Galaxy Note 7’s death creates an environmental mess
Samsung’s decision to discontinue the Galaxy Note 7 and recover remaining units isn’t just a blow to smartphone fans… it’s not so hot for the environment, either. Experts speaking to Motherboard point out that phone recycling is still a very young field, and that many of the rare earth elements (such as cobalt and indium) won’t be recycled at all. There’s going to be a significant amount of e-waste when all is said and done, in other words. And while the waste from about 2.5 million barely-used Note 7s isn’t going to trigger an ecological disaster, it’s considerably worse than refurbishing those phones.
And yes, as you might have gathered, Samsung’s decision to seal in the battery isn’t helping. It couldn’t just have users toss out their old batteries and wait for replacements, provided batteries are the cause — it had to ask everyone to return the phones themselves. While these kinds of calamities aren’t widespread among phones with sealed-in batteries, the Note 7 incident is a reminder that removable power packs can be friendlier to the environment, not just convenient.
Source: Motherboard
Samsung’s Note 7 Discontinuation Poised to Cost Company $2.3 Billion
Following confirmation that Samsung has discontinued the Galaxy Note 7 amid its well-publicized fire-catching problems, the company today gave the first indication of how much the move will cost it for the third quarter of 2016. In a report by Bloomberg, Samsung is said to have cut its third quarter operating profit by $2.3 billion and adjusted profit expectations from 7.8 trillion won ($6.9 billion) to 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion).
The company’s projection “effectively erases all the mobile business profit that analysts had been projecting,” with revenue expected to dive from 49 trillion won to 47 trillion won. On the wave of Samsung’s woes, Apple shares reached a record high this year, but Samsung had yet to divulge its potential quarterly loss. Analyst Greg Roh said that Samsung’s prediction accounts not only for defective units, but also “the inventories of Note 7s in the channel as well as the components they bought a few months back.”
“This is a huge cutback,” said Greg Roh, an analyst at HMC Investment Securities Co. “It means Samsung has reflected not only the sales loss from the shutdown but it also means it would bear the costs of the inventories of Note 7s in the channel as well as the components they bought a few months back.”
Samsung’s mobile division was projected to report operating income of 2.7 trillion won in the quarter, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. HMC’s Roh said the revised outlook probably erased that number. “We expected the mobile division to see about 2.6 trillion won previously but it will only see a mere 0.3 trillion won in the third quarter,” he said.
Samsung’s manufacturing division — which sees the output of semiconductors, glass panels, appliances, and other materials — is expected to keep the company profitable for the quarter.
As the recall of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones continues, the company has begun delivering fireproof shipping boxes to customers affected by the exploding smartphone (via TechCrunch). In one video shared by XDA Developers, the contents of the box are revealed to include three smaller boxes within the larger packaging and a static shield to place the Note 7 in.
The outside of the shipping container notes that it is “forbidden” to transport the contents of the box by aircraft, and can only be returned via ground shipment. Samsung’s return box contents also include plastic gloves, reportedly due to the surface of the fireproof layer inside the main package having the potential to irritate some people’s skin.
Tags: Samsung, Galaxy Note 7
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Samsung’s Note 7 crisis will cost at least $2.34 billion
Do you know what’s really bad for your business? Selling a smartphone with a tendency to explode in your customer’s pockets. That’s why Samsung has revised its quarterly profit guidance, suggesting that it’ll lose out on $2.34 billion in the current three-month period. That loss is all down to the Note 7 and its propensity for self-immolation that has so baffled the company’s engineers.
It’s worth pointing out that this is a profit forecast for the quarter, and so that figure won’t be the real, total cost of boomgate. For a start, the company will have spent millions on developing, manufacturing and marketing a device that it can’t now sell. Then there’s the potential financial fallout from any sort of fines or lawsuits that arise in the wake of the product’s cancellation. Not to mention the angered carriers who will have been looking to sell this device and will now have to deal with customers.
It’s also a worry for Samsung’s brand itself, since it’ll need to run a highly-visible recall to prevent any further injuries. For the average consumer, that means that Samsung may quickly come to mean fire-prone in popular consciousness. Don’t forget it only took a few months for self-balancing skateboards to go from the hip toy of the year to a fire hazard that Amazon refused to sell. Then again, market researcher Ban Bajarin believes that the damage to Samsung’s reputation is “not as bad as you may think.”
Early indication from our fall smartphone sentiment study (US and UK markets) is brand fallout for Samsung not as bad as you may think.
— Ben Bajarin (@BenBajarin) October 11, 2016
It may be several years before we know the true cost of boomgate to Samsung’s business, but at least we’ve got a figure that’ll do for the next few months.
Source: Bloomberg
NYT: Samsung engineers can’t replicate Galaxy Note 7 problems
Even though Galaxy Note 7 production has shut down and the phones should be on their way back to Samsung in fireproof boxes, the question of how everything went so wrong has yet to be answered. When it initiated a recall on September 2nd, the company said that “we conducted a thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue.” However, today when it announced a permanent end to manufacturing, there was no word on the problem. A report by the New York Times indicates that despite assigning “hundreds” of employees, they have not been able to reproduce the spontaneously smoky, blazing hot phones too many customers have experienced.
This video obtained by the Associated Press shows a woman in Honolulu with her Galaxy Note 7 as it began to smoke Sunday morning. The initial recall focused on phones with batteries built by Samsung’s SDI subsidiary and came alongside a software update to limit charging, but that has clearly not solved the problem. While some speculation has centered around USB-C cables or quick charging, there’s still no indication of exactly what is wrong.
In an interview with the Times, Park Chul-wan, the former director of the Center for Advanced Batteries at the Korea Electronics Technology Institute, said that based on a review of regulatory documents and speaking to engineers “I think there was nothing wrong with them (batteries) or that they were not the main problem.”
That news may be bittersweet for another company: TDK. The Financial Times writes that it was contracted to provide batteries for the replacement models, and the decision to scrap the devices entirely may put a hold on any suggestion that its batteries were to blame. In response to the NYT report, Samsung pointed to its earlier statement about cancelling production, we will keep you updated if there are any new developments in this story.
Source: New York Times, Financial Times
Samsung ships fire-proof boxes and gloves to recover Note 7s
If you purchased a Galaxy Note 7 from a US carrier or retailer, you can (and should) return it to a store immediately. If you bought the phone straight from Samsung, though, the process was a little trickier — some customers complained early on about FedEx and UPS refusing to handle return units out of fears they would blow up. That’s why Samsung has adopted an elaborate recall box that allows affected phones to be returned to the company via UPS Ground. It’s… sort of a doozy.
The folks at XDA have received that new return packaging, and very quickly you get a sense of how big a headache this must be for Samsung. After powering off the affected phone, you’ll have to stick it in an anti-static bag, which goes in a cardboard box, which goes in another cardboard box, which goes in one last thermally insulated box lined with ceramic fiber meant to help to keep potential fires under control. Oh, and since there’s a chance that ceramic fiber could irritate skin, there’s a pair of blue latex gloves in there for good measure. According to Twitter, Samsung started using these more durable boxes in late September, just in time to accommodate people freaking out over multiple reports of burning replacement phones. (We’ve reached out to UPS and FedEx for comment on all of this, and we’ll update this story this if they have anything interesting to add.)
And another thing: how much must these things cost? Samsung and CPSC have worked to try and recall around 1 million Note 7s in the US, and whipping together specialized packaging for even a fraction of those devices must’ve set Samsung back quite a bit. Financially, things are starting to get pretty hairy — early analyst guesses pegged the cost of the company’s recall at about $1 billion, and it’s estimated that by completely stopping Note 7 sales, Samsung may have lost out on nearly $17 billion in revenue. Then again, the chaebol makes most of its money from other avenues, so don’t expect Samsung to up and disappear any time soon.
Samsung’s built-in smart appliances blend in with your decor
Smart home appliances are all well and good, but they’re rarely options if you need or prefer that machinery built-in. What if your oven has to blend in neatly with the kitchen? Samsung wants to help. It’s introducing its first-ever built-in smart appliances, all of which tout WiFi-connected features while integrating with your home. They’re expensive, but just might fit the bill if conventional equipment simply won’t do.
The centerpieces are double- and single-wall ovens (ranging from $2,199 to $3,999) that let you control and monitor your dishes from your phone. You can also snag connected cooktops that use gas ($1,199 to $1,699), electric ($1,099 to $1,499) and induction ($2,099 to $2,499). And if you get one of its smart range hoods ($1,099 to $1,299), you can sync it with the cooktop below. Just be ready to wait a bit before outfitting your kitchen — Samsung doesn’t start shipping them until November.
Source: Samsung
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