Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 fail is bigger than we thought

We’ve now got a better idea of the terrifying scale of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 recall debacle thanks to new information released by a US regulator.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Samsung has already received 96 reports of batteries in the Note 7 smartphone overheating – in the United States alone. More worryingly, 13 of these users reported being burned by the phone, while 47 users reported property damage.

When Samsung originally announced the recall, it had only received 35 reports of overheating issues globally – as of September 1. And on September 22, it emerged that Samsung had received a total of 26 “false reports” from Note 7 customers since the recall began on September 2.

The new information comes as the CPSC issues its second recall notice for the ill-fated Samsung flagship. According to CPSC figures, around 1.9 million phones in the US are affected by the recall. Samsung is now urging all customers to “stop using and power down” their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, including devices that were received as replacements in the original recall last month.

Samsung issued a global recall for the Galaxy Note 7 in early September, after an internal investigation uncovered a dangerous battery design fault that was causing some users’ handsets to spontaneously catch fire. However, things quickly went from bad to worse, as Samsung realised that users were still reporting overheating issues even with replaced – and supposedly fixed – handsets.

According to a number of sources, Samsung is still struggling to work out why replaced handsets are catching fire, with engineers having difficulty replicating the issue.

The Galaxy Note 7 launched on August 2, and features a 5.7-inch QHD display, 64GB storage, and an S-Pen stylus.

Related: Samsung Galaxy S8

Watch: Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review (pre-recall)

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