So it's official now. The Consumer Product Safety Commission put its stamp on the Galaxy Note 7 recall today, which means the phone sitting on my desk right now, the one I've been using for about three weeks, is a legally recalled consumer product. Not "hey maybe bring it back if you're worried," which is basically how Samsung's own announcement two weeks ago read. Actual CPSC recall, actual case number, the whole deal.
I bought mine the first week it was out. $850 outright because I didn't want to deal with a two-year contract, and I'll admit I was pretty into it at first: the curved glass, the stylus that actually feels useful instead of gimmicky, the iris scanner that mostly works if you're not wearing sunglasses. I wrote some of that down here back in August when I got it, gushing a little, and now I get to eat some of those words.
The number that's sticking with me is something like ninety-something reports of batteries overheating that CPSC cited, with a chunk of those involving actual burns and property damage. Not a huge number out of the millions of units Samsung's shipped, but enough that "just don't charge it overnight" isn't really acceptable advice for a phone company to be giving people. And that's basically what the guidance has amounted to for two weeks now: power it down, stop using it, wait for a replacement. My carrier's already got a page up about swapping it, either for a new Note 7 once the safer batches ship or for a Galaxy S7 edge plus a refund of the price difference.
I haven't decided which way I'll go yet. Probably the swap-for-another-Note-7 route once that's actually available, because I like the phone and I'm stubborn like that. But I'm annoyed at the logistics of it. I've got a trip in three weeks and now I'm mentally budgeting time to stand in a Verizon store swapping SIM cards and restoring from backup, which is exactly the kind of afternoon I don't have spare right now.
What gets me is how fast this whole thing moved. Samsung announced their own recall September 2nd, barely a week after people started posting videos of scorched nightstands and melted car interiors on Reddit and various forums. Two weeks from "some units are having issues" to a full federal recall is quick by the standards of, well, basically any other consumer electronics problem I can remember. Whether that's Samsung being unusually responsive or just a company trying to get ahead of a PR disaster before it becomes an actual regulatory nightmare, I genuinely don't know. Probably both.
Meanwhile I've got a friend who upgraded to iOS 10 the day it dropped and has spent the last two days sending me screenshots of the new Messages app, the bubble effects and the handwritten notes thing, like it's the most exciting update Apple's shipped in years. I use an iPad for reading and basically nothing else, so I haven't bothered updating it yet, and honestly the redesigned lock screen widgets don't seem worth the download time on my apartment's wifi, which has been garbage since the building next door started construction. That's a whole separate complaint I could write a post about.
Anyway. If you've got a Note 7, go check whether your specific unit is one of the affected ones — there's an IMEI checker up on Samsung's site now, and mine came back flagged within about ten seconds of typing it in. Power it off if it is, or at least stop charging it past 60% like some of the more cautious advice going around suggests, though that feels like a workaround nobody should have to think about for a phone that costs as much as a decent used laptop. I'll post again once I've actually gone through the exchange and can say whether it was as painful as I'm expecting.