Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 received strong reviews when the smartphone launched in August. Then reports started to come in that some of the phones were catching fire. The company issued a recall, started selling new units that were said to be unaffected by the defect causing problems with the first batch… and then reports that replacement phones were combusting started to come in.
Yesterday Samsung told its partners to stop selling the phones and advised users to power them down and return them.
Now the company is taking things a step further: it’s giving up on the Galaxy Note 7. Samsung is ceasing production of the phone and discontinuing the product altogether.
Reports from news sites including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Bloomberg indicate that Samsung has filed a statement with South Korea’s stock exchange saying production of the phone will stop.
Samsung continues to sell its popular Galaxy S7 smartphone, but folks who were in the market for the company’s top-of-the-line phone with a big screen and stylus… might want to look at last year’s model.
On the one hand, the move is probably a bit disappointing for folks who’d wanted a Note 7. On the other, Samsung spent a lot of money on the initial recall and would probably spend even more on a second. Even if the company could clearly identify the issue that causes some phones to catch fire, fix it, and launch the phone for a third time, it’s likely that some potential customers would stay away from any phone called the Note 7 at this point.