Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Review

For three weeks the Note 7 was the easiest recommendation of 2016. The 5.7-inch QHD Super AMOLED curved on both edges and was the best screen DisplayMate had measured. The 12 megapixel Dual Pixel camera from the Galaxy S7 focused faster than an iPhone 7 and beat it in the dark. Samsung had added IP68, moved to USB-C, put an iris scanner above the screen and cleaned TouchWiz into the Grace UX, the first Samsung software that did not need an apology. Then the batteries started burning.

The first reports came within days of the August 19 release. On September 2 Samsung recalled 2.5 million phones, blaming cells from its own Samsung SDI whose negative electrodes were pinched in one corner. Replacements with ATL cells shipped from September 21. On October 5 one of those replacements filled a Southwest Airlines cabin with smoke on the ground in Louisville. Samsung halted production on October 10 and killed the phone on October 11, seven weeks after launch. The FAA banned it from aircraft outright and every safety announcement that winter named it. By December, updates capped charging at 60 percent and then at zero, bricking any unit still in the wild.

Samsung's January 2017 report found two separate faults in two suppliers' batteries, which is what happens when a 3500 mAh cell is forced into a case with no margin around it. The recall cost about 5.3 billion dollars, produced Samsung's eight-point battery check, and gave the design one small afterlife as the Note FE in Korea with a 3200 mAh cell.

The grades describe the object. Camera, screen and speed were genuinely the top of the year. Battery, reliability and the overall describe a phone you could not legally carry onto a plane. US carriers charged $849.99 to $879.99; the price here is the T-Mobile and Sprint figure.