Samsung Recalling Millions of Galaxy Note 7 Phones Because of Batteries Catching Fire

Only a few reports of exploding Galaxy Note 7 phones have come in so far since the device’s release on August 19, but the preferred number of exploding phones is zero. Samsung would rather be safe than sorry, so they’ve put out a global recall of the Note 7, which accounts for 2.5 million devices worldwide.

CNN reports that the recall was announced at a press conference, and it also comes along with a halt in sales of the devices in ten countries, including the United States. Over the next few weeks, Samsung will offer Note 7 owners a brand new (non-exploding) phone at no charge. Not every country needs a recall, as some—like China—used a different battery supplier and don’t appear to suffer from the same issue.

It’s going to be a tense two weeks for current owners, though, as that’s how long Samsung estimates it will take to mount the actual recall, and there’s nothing to do in the meantime but hope that your phone doesn’t exhibit the problem. (Though if you think yours may have a problem, you can take it for a checkup at a Samsung service center.) They’re also unsure at this point when new devices will be available, so this will likely be a major inconvenience to Note 7 owners who are very dependent on their smartphones—so probably all of them.

It’s relatively unlikely that your phone has an issue, though, with Samsung acting on just 35 reports of problems in the wild with an estimated 24 for every million sold. That’s about a one-in-41,666 chance of any individual phone having a literal meltdown, which isn’t lottery bad but still pretty unlikely. It’s still not great for Samsung, but their major competition is having problems of its own: Apple just had to drop a quick iOS update mere weeks after the last one to plug a fairly large security hole.

Stay safe out there, smartphone owners.

(via Digital Trends, image via Samsung)

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