According to a new report published by the Wall Street Journal, Samsung is still no closer to identifying what caused its recalled flagship Galaxy Note 7 to spontaneously burst into flames while charging. The South Korean company prematurely blamed the so-called explosions on malfunctioning batteries, but it was later revealed that was not the case when replacement models started catching fire.
It's thought that if Samsung didn't rush to solve the problem by diagnosing the issue as a flaw with its in-house battery, the Galaxy Note 7 would still be around today. Its efforts to solve the problem in a timely manner, likely aggravated it instead. Its “voluntary recall” didn't help the situation, either. If the firm opted for a formal recall right from the word go, fewer explosions would have occurred, which would have preserved the Note brand.
“Outside experts have pointed to a range of possible culprits, from the software that manages how the battery interacts with other smartphone components to the design of the entire circuit. Engineers are also looking into the possibility that the battery case may have been too small to house a battery of that capacity, according to one Samsung mobile executive,” writes The Wall Street Journal in its report that went live on Sunday evening.
The South Korean government is running its own comprehensive investigation to determine the exact reason for the demise of the Galaxy Note 7, but it hasn't produced any findings just yet. One thing's for sure, though: Samsung's hoping that it pinpoints the cause of the problem before it takes the wraps off the long-rumored Galaxy S8 at MWC next year in order to prevent a similar situation from occurring.
