In an announcement yesterday, Samsung has told that they have exchanged over 93% Note 7’s in the United States. For those who don’t know, the US refund and exchange program for the Note 7, allows Galaxy Note 7 buyers to exchange their recalled devices with any Samsung phone. Moreover, Samsung also pays $100 to every Note 7 customers as a way of saying sorry.
In the US Samsung has sold more than 1.9 million Note 7’s. With 93% of them already returned Samsung now intends to get back the remaining devices too. Starting from December 19th, Samsung will be pushing a software update which will disable the Note 7 devices from charging. The company says this update “will eliminate their ability to work as a mobile device”. As per Samsung, the update will be out over 30 days.
To prevent more devices from catching fire Samsung already pushed an update which restricted the device from getting over 60% of charge. Later this year they decided to recall the Galaxy Note 7 as on many units the batteries overheated and caught fire. Samsung is encouraging all people who have not yet returned the device. As per reports, there are still 1,30,000 units still to be recovered. Many of these devices could have defective batteries and that means it could be potentially dangerous.
Along with the ability to charge the devices won’t be able to connect to any of the wireless networks. Which means a Galaxy Note 7 user will no longer be able to use the cellular network, Wi-Fi or even Bluetooth.
For me, other than the battery problems, Galaxy Note 7 was a wonderful device. Well, this is a really unfortunate end of the device as the largest market of the phone finally disables it. In other markets where the Note 7 was available might see similar actions to prevent users from keeping the phone. It is worth mentioning that Canada and New Zealand has gone through same methods.
Users can get more information on the recall policy on the full refund or exchange policies from here.
