Samsung Officially Kills the Galaxy Note 7, Sends Unusual Return Kits to Owners
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Samsung is permanently discontinuing its Galaxy Note 7 phone, the company announced Tuesday. The company apparently made the move to kill off the Note 7 after reports continued to stream in of the smartphone catching fire — even replacement Note devices that the company had deemed safe. Just yesterday, the company announced that it was temporarily stopping production of its newest phablet. And today, it seems like the Note 7 is gone for good, leaving the company with a $17 billion loss and a scar that likely won’t heal for quite some time, the New York Times reported.
Samsung, for their part, has advised all Galaxy Note 7 owners to power off their device and return them immediately. And that begs the question: if you have a Galaxy Note 7, how are you going to return it?
If you bought your Note 7 device at a brick-and-mortar retail store, returning your device should be pretty simple. But what if you purchased it directly from Samsung? The phones aren’t exactly safe to travel through the mail system, and in the UK, the Post Office won’t even accept packages that contain the Galaxy Note 7, according to CultOfMac.
Luckily, Samsung thinks it has a solution. In addition to advising users to power the devices off, just last week, the company has begun sending special Note 7 Return Kits to customers who had directly contacted the Korean phone manufacturer about returning the defective device, according to 9to5Google— and what’s inside of the kits is actually pretty amusing.
On the outside of the box, there are big warning labels advising that the packages should only travel by ground shipping. Inside, you’ll find a static shield bag to place the Note 7 into, alongside several other layers of boxes. One of them is thermally insulated and lined with ceramic fibers to help negate the chance of a fire. The boxes come with simple, printed instructions on how exactly to ship a Note 7 back to the Samsung, Android Authority reported.
Additionally, the boxes come with safety gloves. Officially, Samsung says they’re included because “some individuals might be sensitive to the ceramic fiber paper lining the Recovery Box” — but, pragmatically, they could theoretically also be used to protect users from burns while handling the device. To see the contents of the package yourself, you can view the video below.
The Galaxy Note 7 fiasco will likely go down in history as one of the greatest smartphone disasters. When it was first announced, it was certainly an impressive device. But it seems now that the Note 7’s ultimate fate lies in what is essentially a ceramic-lined coffin.
Do you think the Note 7 issue was handled properly? Let us know in the comments below.
