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Samsung Galaxy S8 Reportedly Delayed by 2 Weeks as Engineers Work to Find Galaxy Note 7 Fault

Samsung Galaxy S8 Reportedly Delayed by 2 Weeks as Engineers Work to Find Galaxy Note 7 Fault

By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 24 October 2016 13:17 IST

Highlights

Samsung Galaxy S8 work delayed by two weeks
Engineers still trying to find fault in the Galaxy Note 7
Samsung traditionally launch the 'S' series smartphones at MWC

Samsung's failed gamble with its earlier than usual Galaxy Note 7 launch is a story worth the big movie screens. The series of events that began in August, will haunt the South Korean tech giant for a long time. After a series of bad decisions, Samsung had to finally kill the Galaxy Note 7 altogether and grudgingly refund the money or replace units with Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones. Now, a fresh report hints that this fallout has even delayed the work on next year's Samsung Galaxy S8 by two weeks, and the company may not follow its tradition to launch the S series at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year.

It's been almost two months since the first explosion incident cropped up, but Samsung is still unable to find the root cause of the issue. All of Samsung's engineers are working hard to solve the puzzle, including the Galaxy S8 development team, and this has delayed work on the S series flagship by two weeks, the Wall Street Journal reports. This delay isn't too much of a stretch, but assuming that Samsung would want to be absolutely sure that the Galaxy S8 checks all the safety boxes, it will take its time to ensure that the 'S' series does not get hit as hard as its Note series did.

(Also see: Samsung Said to Launch Only 1 Flagship Smartphone a Year From 2017)

There was also a report earlier that claimed that Samsung was even considering killing off its 'Note' series altogether after the bad reputation it gained from this controversy. In any case, the Wall Street Journal claims that the demise of the Galaxy Note 7 is heavily attributed to the hasty decisions made by the executives in the time of crisis. Samsung's mobile chief DJ Koh announced the first recall hastily even though there wasn't enough solid evidence of the problem. The batteries made by SDI and China's Amperex Technology were of different shapes, and a 'certain bump' in the one's made by SDI was claimed to be the cause of the issue. Without any deep investigation, the recall was announced, and the company believed that the change in battery supplier would solve the issue.

Furthermore, Samsung's heir and vice chairman Lee Jae-yong also supported the initial recall in his bid to push the company to be more transparent. As we know, this decision proved to be fatal, and replaced devices also started to catch fire. After spending weeks on trying to find the problem, and failing to do so, the company had to finally kill the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone and shift its efforts to pull all of the units from the market.

There were several things that Samsung could've done to prevent this downfall. After initial reports of explosions started flooding in, Samsung could've been more transparent of its investigation, and possibly even open-sourced it, if they were unable to do it in-house. Instead of a hasty recall on its own, the company should've roped in the Consumer Product Safety Commission for a thorough investigation before taking a step in any direction.

In any case, the Galaxy Note 7 is now a thing of the past, and users who pre-ordered are given the option to either go for a Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, or just take a refund. This controversy is to cost the company billions of dollars, not to mention users' loss of trust. With the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung even skipped a numeral, and was definite that this would be the year where it would dominate the smartphone market scenes. However, this controversy proved to probably be the best Diwali gift for Apple this year.

(Also see: Galaxy Note 7 Fiasco Could Increase iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus Sales by 7 Million: Analyst)

As for the Samsung Galaxy S8, it was rumoured to launch on February 26, but may now be delayed. It is said to have a 16- or 18-megapixel dual-camera setup on the back; and Samsung may ditch the Home Button on the S8.

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