Samsung tested the Galaxy Note 7 batteries in its own lab, making it stand out among the other brands such as Apple, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing.
Internally testing its batteries for smartphones, the South Korean company acquires approval from the Cellular Telephone Industries Association through its own labs, which are certified by the group, and it has been doing so since 2009.
In the United States, phone manufacturers have to get their batteries tested at one of the 28 facilities of the CTIA to start sales of their products via the major carriers in the country such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint, to name a few. That is to make sure that they comply with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' standards and more or less guarantee they are safe for consumers to use.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a Samsung spokesperson said that the internal tests for the batteries of both the first and replacement Galaxy Note 7 units didn't yield any issues.
For the uninitiated, production of the phablet was put to a halt when one smartphone after another kept exploding across the globe even after the recall. Moving forward, Samsung says that it's going to apply "significant changes" in the testing process to avoid such an incident from happening again, but it did not mention anything about using a third party to test batteries in the future.
Before then, the South Korean company is focusing on figuring out the root of the Galaxy Note 7 explosions, "working around the clock" to settle the matters at hand first and noting that it's too early to speculate about the results of the inspection.
IEEE member Eddie Forouzan wants Samsung to conclude the investigation into the Galaxy Note 7 units catching fire and disclose its findings as soon as possible so that the committee can know whether or not improvements are needed for the safety tests.
"They have to tell us what happened so we can fix it," he says.
It's also worth mentioning that Apple tests batteries through third-party CTIA-approved facilities. Meanwhile, Lenovo-owned Motorola internally tests batteries too, but it relies on third-party groups for CTIA certification.
Long story short, Samsung is going all out to get to the bottom of the exploding Galaxy Note 7 and to make sure it won't happen again, but it's still unclear how far the company will go.
Feel free to leave a comment below if you have an opinion on the South Korean manufacturer's practices.
