Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Launched With Battery Design Flaw, Reveals Teardown

By Mara Anton

Posted on December 5, 2016

The probable reason for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 explosions appears to be a flaw in battery design. As a new report shows, engineers left little room for the battery to expand, causing pressure build-up and immediate fire #mobilemagic

A teardown from Instrumental exposed the battery Samsung phablet sported after release. From their images, it seems that the team of engineers tried to fit a large battery in an insufficiently big case. As you can see in the picture below, the battery inserted by Samsung sits in a CNC-machined pocket that leaves less than 0.5 mm distance between it and the rest of the components. It’s not enough space for the battery to expand, which happens after repeated charging:

As Instrumental points out, the phone tested “had no ceiling: the battery and adhesive was 5.2 mm thick, resting in a 5.2 mm deep pocket. There should have been a 0.5 mm ceiling.” It’s sad to admit it but Samsung got greedy. In the race for bigger batteries, they wanted to come out first at the risk of launching a flawed device.

Of course, this is simply a problem noticed by the Instrumental team, not the official report from Samsung. It’s possible that their findings are different, so we’ll have to wait before drawing a conclusion. Let’s hope next year everything goes as planned!