The woman has sued Samsung claiming that she was using the new handset on September 3 when it suddenly became “extremely hot.” She stopped using the phone and placed it in her purse where it caught fire.
The past has come to haunt Samsung. After sustaining the knock received by exploding Galaxy Note 7 batteries two years ago, the South Korean giant again has a daunting task of responding to a lawsuit filed against it in the US. According to a New York Times report, real estate agent Diane Chung has sued the company after her Galaxy Note 9 phablet allegedly caught fire in her bag. Samsung says that it is looking into the matter.
In her lawsuit, Chung claims that just after midnight on September 3, she was in the elevator of a Bayside building when her brand new Galaxy Note 9 phone “became extremely hot.” She claims that she stopped using the phone and put it in her bag. Suddenly, “she heard a whistling and screeching sound, and she noticed thick smoke” pouring from her purse, she alleges. Chung put the bag on the elevator floor and tried to empty it but during the process, she burnt her fingers as she grabbed the phone.
She said that she was trapped alone in the lift, “extremely panicked,” and dropped the phone and started hitting elevator buttons as thick smoke emitted from the phone. When she reached the lobby, she kicked the phone out of the elevator. Later, a person grabbed it with a cloth and dropped it into a bucket of water, Chung claims in the Queens Supreme Court lawsuit. Chungs dubbed the experience “traumatic” and says that Samsung should have known the phone was “defective.” She also wants unspecified damages and seeks a restraining order barring the sales of any Galaxy Note 9 smartphones.
Meanwhile, a Samsung spokesman said that the company is looking into the matter. “We have not received any reports of similar incidents involving a Galaxy Note 9 device and we are investigating the matter,” the spokesman was quoted as saying. Samsung had previously claimed that “the battery in the Galaxy Note 9 is safer than ever. Users do not have to worry about the batteries anymore.” Kate Beaumont, Director of Product Planning, had also claimed that the company now uses a multi-step “battery safety check” in place and the Note 9 would “absolutely not” catch fire.
The Galaxy Note 9 was launched with a 6.4-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED display. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 10nm 64-bit Octa-core processor and runs on Android Oreo 8.1. For countries outside the US, Samsung is expected to incorporate its Exynos 9810 chipset. The phablet includes Samsung’s Water Carbon Cooling technology to keep the phones cool during intense gaming sessions. It features a 4,000mAh battery which, the company claims, gives users all day power. The phone is available in two variants, 6GB RAM + 128GB storage and 8GB RAM + 512GB storage. Both the phablet variants support a 512GB MicroSD card support.
When it comes to optics, the Galaxy Note 9 comes with a dual-camera system with Dual OIS on the rear. Both the wide-angle and telephoto lens have a 12MP sensor. The wide-angle sensor has F1.5/F2.4 variable aperture and the telephoto lens has a F2.4 F-spot. The front camera has an 8MP sensor with F1.7 aperture. The Galaxy Note9 supports fast wireless charging and is IP68 rated. The Galaxy Note 9 ships with Samsung’s defense-grade Knox security platform. It has a S-Pen with bluetooth with Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) support. Users can click the button on the stylus and take selfies, group pictures, present slides, pause and play music, and more.
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