Samsung’s mobile chief apologizes, as second Note 7 recall gets underway

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is dead, and now a second recall has been announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in the US.

This time it covers the replacement handsets as well as the original ones, given there have been 23 new reports of overheating batteries since the initial recall. 

In the US alone, Samsung has received 96 reports of overheating Note 7 batteries, including 13 reports of burns and 47 reports of property damage, so the recall, which covers an estimated 1.9 million handsets, comes as no surprise.

We’d expect other countries will also be working on recalling the Note 7 for a second time, and if you’re still in possession of one you should turn it off and look into how to return it where you are.

Clearing things up

Credit: Korea Herald

Credit: Korea Herald

Samsung, as yet, doesn’t even know what caused the problems in its flagship, but the Korea Herald reports that Dong-jin Koh, Samsung’s mobile communications president, bowed his head to the South Korean press, saying he “would at any cost find the exact cause to restore trust of consumers so that they can use Samsung products without any safety concerns.” 

Reportedly Koh could be removed from his post as a result of the Note 7 fiasco, but whatever actions Samsung takes let’s just hope that it ensures nothing like this ever happens again.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.