Samsung recently assured its customers that it has dealt with an alarming factory defect previously discovered in its flagship carrier, the Galaxy S7 Active.
Future productions of the said device will now work how it was purposefully designed to work (water-resistant) and should survive the harshest of conditions — specifically, dropping the phone in water "accidentally" — sometimes encountered in everyday mobile use. This is particularly important since the Active branding builds on the presumption (and IP68 rating) that it will survive such occasions, targeting users who have a more demanding and active lifestyle, hence the name.
In the past week, Consumer Reports challenged the phone's integrity and took it for a water dive to see if the company's claims were true — if it was the company's most robust and toughest phone to date. While its predecessors, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, passed the tests with flying colors, the S7 Active, to everyone's disappointment, did not hold up to Samsung's standards and even failed to work after the device was reportedly dried up.
A similar test was conducted by CNET and produced results similar to those of earlier reports. Furthermore, the publication discovered that not all Active smartphones are built the same way, as some phones would still work after tests but others would "drown." Despite all of the phones being manufactured in one production facility in Asia, apparently there's some disparity between final products.
Samsung did acknowledge that some of its flagship carriers were not working according to the company's standards and promised consumers that it would replace any defective device that failed to hold up to its IP68 certification. It is important to note, however, that the company will only replace devices that accidentally suffered damage they shouldn't have, but not all of the Galaxy S7 Actives already in the public's hands.
"We don't want people to think there's [a] necessity of returning [S7 Active] phone[s]," explains Samsung's public relations manager Phil Berne, adding that water damages will only "affect a very, very small number of devices."
The factory defect was found a week later after Samsung conducted investigations that would search for the root cause. Berne said in a statement that "a problem in the production line" was discovered, which the company was "able to correct" accordingly. The PR manager assured customers that current productions being shipped out are now defect-free, though he did note that previous devices already on store shelves have not been purportedly "removed from inventory."
Consumers are warned.
