Having already had to issue an official recall of igniting smartphones, Samsung is now fielding complaints that replacement batteries for the scandal-struck Galaxy Note 7 are overheating and seeing deteriorating battery power even during charging.
Today, Samsung acknowledged to The Wall Street Journal that, in South Korea, where customers started receiving replacement handsets on Monday, there have indeed been complaints about the replacement units – and, more to the point, the non-removable replacement batteries.
Nonetheless, such grievances might have only come out of South Korea so far; Samsung declined to confirm whether the problem has arisen in other countries. A Samsung spokesman said that the incidents originated from mass production issues rather than the batteries, but also that the company was carrying out “close examinations” to address the issue.