Engineers Explain Why the Galaxy Note 7 Caught Fire (digitaltrends.com) 289
Engineers with manufacturing technology company Instrumental tore apart a Galaxy Note 7 to try and figure out what may have caused some devices to overheat and explode, causing Samsung to recall and eventually cancel all Galaxy Note 7 devices. In their damning new report, the engineers discovered the root of the problem appears to be that the battery is too tightly packed inside the body of the Note 7. Digital Trends reports: They discovered the battery was so tightly packed inside the Galaxy Note 7's body that any pressure from battery expansion, or stress on the body itself, may squeeze together layers inside the battery that are never supposed to touch -- with explosive results. Batteries swell up under normal use, and we place stress on a phone's body by putting it our pocket and sitting down, or if it's dropped. Tolerances for battery expansion are built into a smartphone during design, and Instrumental notes Samsung used "a super-aggressive manufacturing process to maximize capacity." In other words, the Galaxy Note 7 was designed to be as thin and sleek as possible, while containing the maximum battery capacity for long use, thereby better competing against rival devices such as the iPhone 7 Plus and improving on previous Note models. The report speculates that any pressure placed on the battery in its confined space may have squeezed together positive and negative layers inside the cell itself, which were thinner than usual in the Note 7's battery already, causing them to touch, heat up, and eventually in some cases, catch fire. Delving deeper into the design, the engineers say the space above a battery inside a device needs a "ceiling" that equates to approximately 10 percent of the overall thickness. The Galaxy Note 7 should have had a 0.5mm ceiling; it had none.
I.e. Samsung acted recklessly for profit (Score:5, Interesting)
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The people who's phone's caught fire are already lawyered up.
How much do you think someone deserves for being put at risk? For a couple of weeks?
Shareholders?
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Re:I.e. Samsung acted recklessly for profit (Score:5, Informative)
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Different concept. Res ipsa loquitur means "the thing speaks for itself."
But Thing never spoke for itself. It was Cousin Itt who spoke for itself. Thing could only knock. Geeze, don't you know nothin'?
Re:I.e. Samsung acted recklessly for profit (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, that's the translation of the latin, but it's use in law is correct as to "accident implies negligence". Please read beyond the first sentence in Wikipedia.
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Yes, that's the translation of the latin, but it's use in law is correct as to "accident implies negligence". Please read beyond the first sentence in Wikipedia.
You don't get modded up for deeper knowledge, only the perception of it.
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The important takeaway here, if we're keeping things in perspective, is ...
You're holding it wrong. * Mic Drop *
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Except to make a profit you have to make sales, and better battery life increases sales.
Why air gaps? (Score:2)
Why are there not physical insulators between the "risky" parts instead of merely air gaps? I'm not a psychical* engineer, so am I missing something? Do physical protection layers reduce cooling or something?
* I don't mean I'm virtual, but that I don't engineer physical stuff. Software.
[Correction] Re:Why air gaps? (Score:5, Funny)
Correction, I meant "physical engineer". But if you were a psychical engineer, you'd know that already.
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It had to be 0.01mm thinner than the last model, so no room for the battery to expand into.
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Eh, I think you meant "mechanical engineer"(*)
(*) I don't mean a robot who is trained in engineering, I mean a human being who designs physical objects ;)
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Back to seriousness, battery design would be a combination of mechanical and electrical engineering, wouldn't it?
And stir in a bit of packaging engineering while you're at it.
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Don't forget chemical engineering.
For maximizing the explosiveness, of course.
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Physical separation adds weight and cost. There is no need for the extra material if you ensure an adequate gap, so why include it all? It's wasteful.
I doubt the battery company only sells to Samsung, so other products are presumably using the same components safely. Samsung did the risky/bad engineering by shrinking the battery compartment as much as they did.
Even with physical separation, the battery still needs room to expand. Perhaps your failure mode would be strained PCBs and cracked soldering instead
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Air _is_ an insulator. Its the same idea as double pane windows.
Re:Why air gaps? (Score:4, Informative)
Air _is_ an insulator. Its the same idea as double pane windows.
Double glazed windows have a vacuum (or sometimes a noble gas) between the panes. If air gets in between the panes condensation starts to appear in cold weather. If that happens the window has to be replaced; they can't be repaired economically.
Re:Why air gaps? (Score:4, Insightful)
Double glazed windows have a vacuum (or sometimes a noble gas) between the panes.
Or dry air. There's no need to use anything other than air to avoid condensation. You just need to make sure the air is dry and the windows are sealed so humid air can't get in. I doubt many windows are vacuum-filled; that's just begging for trouble, and would also limit the size of panes. 15 pounds per square inch adds up to a lot of pressure very quickly.
Re:Why air gaps? (Score:5, Informative)
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Once it leaks air the desiccant is saturated and moisture appear on the pane.
Argon or other noble gas is just a gimmick...like filling your tires with nitrogen.
Disclaimer: I work in the glass industry.
Re:Why air gaps? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why air gaps? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're talking about things that happen with p < 10^-5 you can can't test to any kind of reasonable confidence level. Engineers have to use the collective experience of the profession as a whole as a guide, in addition to actual testing.
Since phone design is interdisciplinary -- involving marketing, industrial design and engineering -- engineers will just have to push back when the designers and marketers try to take that half millimeter away. This case will be a touchstone for future generations of EEs, the way the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is for civil engineers and Therac-25 is for software engineers.
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This case will be a touchstone for future generations of EEs, the way the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is for civil engineers and Therac-25 is for software engineers.
And thalidomide for pharma.
We expect miracles from our scientists and then sue them into oblivion when they aren't perfect.
There are currently ads seeking class action participants for a lawsuit about talcum powder. It seems, after decades of use, women can get ovarian cancer if they used it. Who knew? Could anyone predict that?
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There are currently ads seeking class action participants for a lawsuit about talcum powder. It seems, after decades of use, women can get ovarian cancer if they used it. Who knew? Could anyone predict that?
The short answer is yes [drugwatch.com]. We've known for decades that there was a potential risk.
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And, why didn't testing catch this?
I don't care *WHAT* issues you may think you've found, this product has a launch date of next month and it *WILL* be shipped. We need *TEAM* players not doubters, now get back to work, *ALL OF YOU*!
Theory without any empirical data to back it up? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Theory without any empirical data to back it up (Score:5, Informative)
Software "engineers" at best.
This is the company in question. https://www.instrumental.ai/te... [instrumental.ai]
It's a small startup of 9 people with no history. None of the people are even listed as mechanical engineers. They're all software engineers (which isn't a recognized profession, by the way) and business people. Not a one among them has the authority to make any claims about the Note 7. None of them have the actual experience with the Note 7 to do so either - they had a single sample that they couldn't actually do anything with other than write the blog post and fish it out to tech sites for hits and to get their name out there.
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They're all software engineers (which isn't a recognized profession, by the way)
Thanks but I won't take your word for that. Please show your reasoning.
If a software professional can be a member of a recognised professional engineering body - they can be a "Certified Practicing Engineer" just like any other engineer - then I would say that they are by definition a recognised profession.
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They're all software engineers (which isn't a recognized profession, by the way)
You're not a real engineer unless you roll the petard up to the castle gate! These new-fangled train drivers aren't real engineers at all!
Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Design ultra-thin phone
2. Disregard warnings from engineers
3. Profits!
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
Engineers are basically people who keep saying "it can't be done in under budget and on time!" Which is why most companies now have products designed by marketing and sales. CEOs don't like workers who keep telling the truth.
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....and this was not caught during testing because?
But, it was caught during testing. We bought it and tested it out and it seems to catch fire and burn, so end of story.
Didn't you know end users are testers now?
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Microsoft has been testing their software in this manner for decades.
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There was nothing to catch (Score:2, Informative)
These idiots have no idea what caused the fires. They haven't shown a single case where they can identify that the pressure on the battery causes thermal runaway. Remember that several phones failed while idle (not charging) and one failed while turned off (the guy on the plane). This "explanation" is just a couple of guys trying to Monday morning quarterback.
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Much like testing for certain medical diseases, sometimes you can only determine a cause by exclusion.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Having sat through management/engineer meetings it went like this:
Manager: Why are you wasting 10% there?
Engineer: We need design margin for tolerance stackup and thermal expansion.
Manager: But we'll lose sales! (in his head: "I'll lose my bonus!")
Engineer: We need design margin or there is a chance that some of the batteries could catch on fire.
Manager: So only a chance? Make the battery 10% bigger and stop complaining.
Engineers are measured and cautious in their statements. They talk in statistics, numbers, and probabilities, all of which have been lobotomized out of mid-level managers.
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Engineers are also often unable to get the message across or do not even notice that it has not gotten across. As a technology consultant, this skill is about as important, if not more, than your engineering skills. I once heard a talk by a lobbyist on how to talk to politicians (a real eye-opener). The same applies here: Do not say it "could have a thermal runaway event", say "it will explode". Do not say "this could create a vulnerability", say "if you do that, somebody will attack you successfully, and i
Re:Interesting (a weighty problem) (Score:4, Funny)
Korean person: "No-no! Americans VERY heavy!"
Explode? (Score:5, Insightful)
>"...what may have caused some devices to overheat and explode,..."
To my knowledge, NONE of them "exploded". Those that had actual problems had overheating which led to a fire. That is not an "explosion". That word was used by the media to stir up tons of inaccurate hype.
>"...causing them to touch, heat up, and eventually in some cases, catch fire."
Exactly.
Re:Explode? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Explode? (Score:5, Funny)
it doesn't really matter if it was a lithium explosion or lithium fire that burned off your cock, if your cock is still burned off.
Exactly. You don't want "fire-balls" in any sense of the word.
This whole debacle could have been avoided (Score:4, Funny)
If only Samsung had brought in Mr. Whipple to help educate the public.
It was caused by a poor implementation of HCF. (Score:2)
Instead of being activated at users request it activates at random.
What about stop making stuff super thin? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about stop making stuff super thin?
Re:What about stop making stuff super thin? (Score:5, Interesting)
This. I have my old HTC Wizard from over ten years ago in a drawer. It isn't thin... but it had a week's battery life, and that is with the TI OMAP CPU overclocked as fast as possible.
I'd rather have a fatter phone that has a better battery life, perhaps a slider phone, so I can use a real physical keyboard as opposed to typing and hoping autocorrect doesn't cause issues.
Why does every phone maker want to beat Apple at Apple's game? Instead, why can't they create their own games with their own rules? There is definitely room for slider phones shaped like the Droid.
Re:What about stop making stuff super thin? (Score:5, Insightful)
You make it sound easy to come up with a phone design that's radically different from iPhone, but also very desirable.
Slider phones just don't sell well, and big thick phones don't sell well. So, that's not going to do it. I guess Motorola tried something with modular add-ons, but that doesn't seem to be working, either.
Why can't they create their own game? Because it's damn hard.
Re:What about stop making stuff super thin? (Score:4, Insightful)
big thick phones don't sell well.
We don't know that. Every time there's a new chipset or screen that increases efficiency, the manufacturers reduce thickness and battery life at the same time. We stay at maybe four-hours of full-power usage. Nobody's made a phone that gets a next-generation efficient SoC but keeps its thickness and markets it as "last year this was thin enough, only now we've got 16 hours of battery life!"
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To support your point, remember what Samsung designs looked like before the iPhone?
Here's a photo reminder:
http://photos2.appleinsider.co... [appleinsider.com]
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Wouldn't one of the gadget vendors have to try to sell one for us to know if they would sell well or not??
Businesses spend millions on market research and user testing. They know what people want and will buy and in what quantities and how much they'll pay. Shockingly, they don't spend billions in product development based on the feedback of a few C-level lackies.
If I know anything, I know that businesses like money. If there was money to be had by producing flip phones they'd do it. Remember there's a cutoff where it just doesn't pay to develop a product. Maybe they could sell 500k flip phones? And maybe, that
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Asking anyone I know IRL what phone they h
Re:What about stop making stuff super thin? (Score:4, Insightful)
The obsession with thinness is all the more ironic considering that for many of these devices, the very first thing that the user does is cradle it in a thick plastic or silicone case to protect its exquisitely sleek and fragile surface.
I totally understand that people want to be able to protect and personalize their phones through cases, but it really proves how consumers don't actually NEED each successive generation of devices to be increasingly thinner. They want durability, they want grip, and they want better battery life, none of which is served by making devices so thin they will bend or explode with the slightest force.
Don't make something thin unless you intend for it to also bend.
I'm old enough to remember the "small" phone craze that happened decades ago. Mobile phones were on this progressive death spiral toward tinier and tinier form factors (this was even parodied in Zoolander). Now it's the same thing, just with thinness. It's a sign that the industry has gotten too comfortable with itself. Something will need to come along that really innovates, much in the way that the original smartphones broke the tiny phone trend.
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Pff, whatever, if it was half a millimeter thicker, it would've ruined the entire aesthetics of the device and everyone would've just called it fatty-fat-fone. I'd rather have it exploding and burning me than walk around with fatty-fat-fone.
Americans and have no idea what a millimeter is and will believe this. Muah ha ha ha!
I doubt this is correct (Score:3, Interesting)
If this was the case then a slightly physically smaller battery would have solved the problem. They could have achieved this quite easily, even if it meant sacrificing capacity. And given they started by recalling the phones and replacing the batteries but there were still problems I would suggest they are wrong.
-1 Overrated (Score:3)
If this was the case then a slightly physically smaller battery would have solved the problem. They could have achieved this quite easily, even if it meant sacrificing capacity. And given they started by recalling the phones and replacing the batteries but there were still problems I would suggest they are wrong.
Did you even look at the linked report? These engineers have the benefit of hindsight. They knew that the initial attempts to fix the problem failed; it's mentioned in the very first paragraph of the linked report. They said that sources from within Samsung had various theories as to the cause, so whatever fix that Samsung did it was the wrong theory. Just because Samsung got it wrong (twice) doesn't mean that these engineers were wrong.
Your post mirrors what was in the second paragraph of the report:
Re:-1 Overrated (Score:4, Informative)
None of what you said has ANYTHING to do with what I wrote, nor what was in the article. Did YOU read the article, or did you just jump straight to the TEAM link at the top to "play the man, not the ball"?
This is the company in question. https://www.instrumental.ai/te... [instrumental.ai]
It's a small startup of 9 people with no history. None of the people are even listed as mechanical engineers. They're all software engineers (which isn't a recognized profession, by the way) and business people. Not a one among them has the authority to make any claims about the Note 7.
Thanks for the link. Very helpful. If you read the article, you know that it says in the second paragraph (why don't I have to read beyond the first screen?):
We can use the link you provided to find out who "Sam and I" are, and with its helpful embedded linkedin links, find out what just how unqualified they are to comment on the Samsung phone:
Anna Shedletsky [linkedin.com]
Samuel Weiss [linkedin.com]
Oh dear. I certainly hope that those two experienced mechanical engineers spent more time examining the Note 7 problem than you spent attempting to trash their reputations. I guess Slashdot pest isn't a recognised profession either.
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It has everything to do with your response to Harlequin80's post. You accused Harlequin80 of not reading, yet you didn't read shit yourself (or if you did, you didn't do the follow-up exercises of understanding and thinking).
If you had, you would have realized the engineers in question didn't do a damn thing, didn't draw any meaningful conclusion, looked at a grand total of 1 unit, and only did so to write a blog post to pimp their startup.
It's all fluff and is absolutely unworthy of discussion, let alone
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The engineers pointed out something that is well-known in the industry, but that was evidently ignored by Samsung: batteries need room to expand.
It doesn't matter if this fact is pointed out by hardware engineers, software engineers, or used-car salesmen. It doesn't matter what degrees or professional certifications they hold or don't hold. It's a consequence of fundamental physical laws, and it's very likely to be the root cause of the problem. Your arguments, on the other hand, amount to puzzlingly-ir
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Yet they fail to state why they can't simply use a smaller battery, or a battery with higher tolerances, or more aggressive thermal throttling in the charging circuitry or even in the phone's SoC.
You really showed me up as the one who didn't read the article! Oh wait, what's this I am reading from the report:
So despite what you claim
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I don't give a damn whether you like the report, because once again what you said has absolutely NOTHING to do with what I wrote. What exactly did I say in my original post that was actually incorrect and showed that I hadn't read the article? The original poster claimed that since Samsung had tried and failed to fix the problem by replacing the batteries that this analysis of the problem was wrong. That assumes that 1) there was only one possible reason for the fires and that Samsung and these engineers mu
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You could be right. To me it sounds like both the battery design was too aggressive for current technology as well as the space allowed for the battery to do its thing was insufficient. If they replaced the battery, it would have to be less aggressive, lower capacity design plus a reduction in the battery's physical size.
The resulting battery may have been insufficient for the phone in a way that was unacceptable to the marketing guys. If the phone only has 1 to 2 hours of power with the fix, the hit to the
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Battery "design"? The phone company doesn't "design" the battery. They just call up the Ching Chong Very Fine Battery Company and say "we want 10 million LiPoly state of the art batteries x by y by z mm". All the manufacturers call up the same battery company. There's nothing "special" about the batteries any of them use.
That said, you may be right that these batteries are all ticking time bombs. We know that all models of all brands of cell phones
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They were replacing the faulty batteries with the same type (= same dimensions & capacity), only from a more recent batch, because the original suspicion was a battery manufacturing problem, not a design issue with the phone itself. Remember the Sony laptops catching fire few years ago because of defective batteries?
So the conclusion is still plausible, because the replacement batteries have never fixed the underlying design issue - essentially equivalent of the iPhone's "bendgate", unfortunately with m
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It's not Slashdot "catching wind" of this. It's the startup company Instrumental writing a blog post and shopping it around to all the tech sites to get people to go find out what the company Instrumental is and does.
From their website http://www.instrumental.ai/ [instrumental.ai] , it looks like they sell services to companies that manufacture things.
Their case study with Pearl Auto seems like they landed the gig because Pearl Auto is a startup run by a friend.
And as far as I can tell the most work they actually do is put
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This actually contributes to the theory of this story. One battery manufacturer used slightly better / thicker insulators between the layers in the battery, thus they better withstood the design flaw that resulted in excessive pressure on the battery. However that just reduced the frequency of failure, but still didn't prevent it entirely.
Could have, if they knew, and confirmed it (Score:2)
IF the manufacturer knew this was *the* cause of the problem, the only cause, and they had confidence in that assessment, then yes they could have fixed it. Or avoided it.
Come to think of it, no matter what the cause(s) is/are, the manufacturer could have avoided the problem in the first place, if they knew all of the above. Obviously they don't magically know all these things.
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If they got replacements with different batteries it would have created an incompatibility with the previous ones, i bet they decided against that. Also, they may have not known until too late
STOP WITH THE THIN FETISH (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully this provides some motivation to stop equating thin with better.
Nah, who am I kidding, people are stupid.
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Proof that thinner is not better (Score:4, Insightful)
User Error (Score:3)
NO - they didn't find the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If they found the problem, it means that they can reproduce it. They were entirely unable to make their test unit fail due to the tight fit, nor were they able to observe that an increase in pressure of a phone in the off condition (under which at least one of the fires occurred in the v2 Note 7) *led to* a runaway thermal condition.
They're basically just speculating because they are looking for some clicks. This is about as conclusive proof as Trump has of 3 million illegals voting in California.
Bullshit (Score:2)
The "manufacturing technology company" is a small startup with no experience, expertise, or credentials.
Further, they had a single unit to work with. Their testing revealed nothing conclusive and they weren't able to actually discern anything.
All they did was look at it and say it's a very tight fit. Everything else is speculation.
Hold it.. (Score:4, Informative)
People should bare in mind that this is at most an educated guess made by disassembling a single unit and speculating about limits of current tech battery design.
They were not hired by Samsung, they are not an official body of investigation, and they didn't have access to anything in the design in manufacturing process.
It's quite possible that they are right, but they are not explaining anything there, just speculating.
Now, it'd be extremely sad if the Note 7 was killed because of such a design oversight, because quite honestly, that's borderline amateurish. It could happen, as similar problems happen in most brands. Just that Samsung made the omission in the worst component possible.
We have examples of problems in antennas, cameras, lenses, connectors, shoddy speakers, crappy GPS chips, poor materials used in bits and pieces, among several other stuff... the difference is that if you have something wrong with battery, the consequences might not be only working poorly, ending up in glitches and whatnot. The consequence might be an explosion. Which is probably the worst thing hardware can do. :P
Anyways, the device is as dead as it can be. Which is plenty bad, because it'd probably be a best seller otherwise. Hopefully though, the lesson is learned by all manufacturers. It simply isn't worth sacrificing battery security to make the device thinner, or to shove extra mAh in there.
The worst part is that I can bet all you want that fans of the Note line would definitely not be bothered much with having a smaller battery or a slightly thicker phone. It's all about the stylus and screen size.
Back to the topic, I'd wait for further investigation for a final conclusion. Disassembling a single device and taking guesses is not that much better from theories that have been thrown around so far.
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Most significantly - they are software people trying to pimp their startup company (announced 10/31/2016).
https://www.instrumental.ai/te... [instrumental.ai]
https://www.instrumental.ai/bl... [instrumental.ai]
Obligatory... (Score:4, Funny)
Half a millimeter? (Score:3)
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Re:Shocking (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, you have EEs like me.
Engineering runs a spectrum. From near cookbook, long practiced, design processes owned by PEs to prototypes hacked up with three opamps, a FPGA, a breadboard and a coat hanger.
Design of consumer product batteries is 'near cookbook long practiced'.
Even I could do it. Samsung wouldn't have given me the authority to tell the PHB they _needed_ volume Y for X mWh. I guarantee there was an Engineer or ten that knew this was a bad idea, but couldn't penetrate the layers of management between him and the person dictating required features.
Re:Shocking (Score:5, Funny)
Not just minimum. Below minimum or none at all.
Intolerant tolerances will not be tolerated!
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You darn Social Tolerance Warriors! The Mobile Media has lied to you snowflakes! That's not fire, that's his hair.
Re:Shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks like I made a politically incorrect joke and got someone offended.
What has the world become...
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The couple millimeters that cost Samsung $billions.
Re:Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand the obsession with thinness.
Ever since my phone was less than 4cm thick I have been quite happy. What is this need to keeping shaving millimeters off?
Re:Shocking (Score:4)
Because unlike geeks who are often happy with purely functional devices, many consumers also want their phones to be sleek and stylish. And there are many, many more of them than there are of us. It's the same reason phones don't have SD cards or replaceable batteries anymore. We're no longer the target audience.
I've heard these people also tend to buy very expensive clothes that are no more functional than clothes that cost 1/10th the price. Crazy, huh?
Re:Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
Phones have been sleek and stylish for years already.
Fashion isn't logical.
Re: Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
Phones have been sleek and stylish for years already.
But this one is really hot off the shelves. An absolute blast to use.
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And yet if you put an iPhone 4 next to a more modern phone, the iPhone 4 will look chunky and dated.
Only because you're the kind of person that believes the marketing hype about thinner == better.
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To paraphrase, a mobile can never be too expensive or too thin.
Re:Shocking (Score:4, Interesting)
People perceive high-density products as high-quality, and low-density products as cheap plastic crap. Numerous products have included weights for this reason... take a look inside your mouse. People want their phones and laptops to be light so they don't have a brick in their pocket or backpack. Light * high density = low volume. They don't want to reduce the screen size, and bezels are already minimized, so the only option to reduce volume is to make it thin. Of course, once they make it thinner the advertising department will hype that feature, but the real driver is density.
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What I don't get is that this is Samsung. This is a company that makes tanks and arguably produces some of the best conventional weaponry the world has seen.
They have engineers that know what they are doing. I know this sounds sarcastic, but Samsung has a very good rep in general. It makes me wonder how this happened, especially with a product that has so much visibility to the world. They would have been far better off making up the slight gap for battery tolerances by throwing in some expanded KNOX m