Galaxy Note 7 autopsy
In the next few weeks, Samsung will re-launch the flagship smartphone Galaxy Note 7; it will be in new regalia and rechristened Galaxy Note 8 or anything more glorious.
Twirling from catch-fire-batteries hindsight, it is only natural that Samsung cleanses us off the bad memories it littered our memories with.
The South Korean company announced recently that it had pulled together a squadron of 700 engineers; upped the wager by outsourcing additional three more test labs: UL, Exponent and TUV Rheinland. The team toyed with 200,000 Galaxy Tab 7s and 30,000 batteries before arriving at a conclusion.
The verdict has been passed and two different batteries by two different manufacturers are the culprits.
Rewind a bit and we are back to where it all started; Samsung had contracted out two battery manufacturers for the Galaxy Note 7 job. Not as a premonition that something would go wrong; no, just in case. If that is not being pragmatic; what else is?
Supply X was first used and phones turned into suicide bombers. Supply Y was called to the fore and the problem was adamant. Stop, right there. If you asked any engineer to solve the miasma, the answer would be that it is very unlikely that two batteries from two different fabs would have similar faults.
Perhaps that is where the Apple alleged connection was coming from; Apple paid reporters to throw mad on the Galaxy Note 7. It then follows that Apple may have paid incentives to both battery manufacturers to cause mischief.
Samsung’s official explanation is that the first battery had design flaws; on one corner, the positive and negative terminal wires would bend, touch and boom!
Some injudicious engineer was too ambitious to think that it was cool to leave the wires without anyinsulation. And the second battery? Some robot did not-so-good soldering job. Electrically, that can cause sparks and fire loves such.
It is important to note at this point that Samsung Galaxy Note 7 came with non-removable battery, perhaps to mimic iPhone (no grammar issues there! You don’t call it the iPhone, it is named like a child; we don’t say the Donald Trump).
Samsung worded its press release very shrewdly. It paints an artist’s ‘sculpture’ of two batteries being responsible for the entire debacle. With my marketing eyes I do agree that the battery manufacturers failed to perfect their act, however my technology instincts are seeing a different story.
We are talking about contract manufacturing here. It is like Foxconn assembling iPhones. Foxconn does not spec nor design the smartphone, Jonny Ive and Tim Cook and their associates do at Apple.
Dilute the concentrate and we have Motor Engil contracted out to construct the Jali-Phalombe road. Let’s assume a situation where the Government of Malawi blames Motor Engil for late completion noting that the Portuguese company constructed too many bridges along the stretch.
Samsung was obsessed with a burning desire to be responsible for iPhone’s death. The bullet’s trajectory missed by a whisker. I rest my case, my ladyship.
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