Samsung is in deep trouble with the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. They’ve been doing their best to deal with the issue of the exploding Note 7s, but have been making one mistake after another, perhaps inadvertently.
Either way, the company is digging a nice, deep ditch for itself and it won’t be long before they’re so deep that they can’t claw themselves back out. I think it’s time they just swallowed the bitter pill and moved on. The Note 7 is dead.
The Galaxy Note 7 is a fabulous device to look at, a marvel of design that even Apple would be proud to acknowledge. If the pre-explosion reports are to be believed, it’s also a great device to use. If the battery issue hadn’t popped up, it would have been yet another feather in the company’s cap.
Many are blaming Samsung for rushing out the device without sufficient testing and others are decrying the lack of quality control. Samsung has placed the blame on its primary battery manufacturer (SDI) and seem to have crossed their fingers and hoped that their other battery manufacturer’s (ATL) batteries are fine. After all, those phones weren’t exploding.
It’s entirely possible that ATL batteries are safe and that the recent reports of ‘safe’ Note 7s exploding was just a result of exceptionally bad luck and that these reports are just one-offs or the work of bad actors.
In the larger scheme of things, this doesn’t matter. Samsung has lost face with its customers, and not just once. You know that old adage about once bitten, twice shy? What happens when you’re bitten twice?
It doesn’t matter if the Note 7s are now actually safe or if the recent fires were a one-off. The Note 7 has a bad reputation and I don’t think anyone is going to feel safe around that phone anymore. You might want to risk carrying the phone around, but would you want it in the hands of your kids or your loved ones? It’ll always be a ticking time bomb.
Samsung needs to stop scrambling to do damage control and kill off the Note 7 altogether. I don’t think they can do anything else to save face. They should just issue a full apology, Kill the Note 7, offer free alternatives (like their stellar S7 Edge) or full refunds and just focus on making an awesome, safer, Galaxy Note 8. There will be some backlash, but it won’t be so bad as it is now.
Samsung’s ability to build a great phone is beyond question, but the Note 7 fiasco is putting its reputation at stake. And that is a risk that no company should be willing to take.
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