3rd Time Lucky: Samsung Planning to Sell Refurbished Note 7 Units [Update]

“Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity? Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again expecting things to change”. This quote from the game Far Cry 3 (or Albert Einstein, depending on what you are into) came to our mind as soon as we found out through a report that the Note 7 may actually make a comeback, again.

Back from the Dead

Just a few weeks ago, we finally got to know officially from Samsung about what actually cause the Note 7 to catch fire and/or explode. Samsung recalled the first batch of the phones and replaced them with another batch fresh off the assembly line, but unfortunately, that too was riddled with problems. Samsung was soon forced to halt all sales and discontinue production of the Note 7.

The sad turn of events tarnished the brand name of Samsung among consumers and put a lot of pressure on the South Korean company to make their next flagship as flawless as possible. You’d think that Samsung might think of it as just a bad dream and soon forget about the whole situation and focus on their upcoming flagship, right? Apparently not.

As it turns out, Samsung told us what actually caused the death of the Note 7 but not what they are planning to do with a huge number of brand new and briefly used Galaxy Note 7s. But now we do.

According to Hankyung, a Korean news site, in order to reduce losses and also avoid the environmental fine involved in dumping them, Samsung is considering selling the piled up Note 7s as refurbished devices in emerging markets.

The refurbished Note 7 will reportedly feature many of the same components as the original and will be going on sale in June. The  battery capacity, however, won’t be the same. The battery will be downgraded to either 3,200mAh or 3,000mAh from 3,500mAh.

The Korean news site also mentions that Samsung had managed to recover 98% of the 3.16 million units that were sold. Out of these, 200,000 units were used in Samsung’s experiments to identify the cause of the fires.

It should be mentioned here that due to the piling up Note 7s in their inventory, they have a problem on their hands. Samsung is trying to find a way to dispose off the large quantity of batteries that it has been storing and the process should be environmentally friendly or else they will penalized by the Ministry of Environment.

Samsung is yet to make any official announcement regarding the future of the former flagship.

Update

A spokesperson from Samsung India has confirmed that the company has no plans on selling refurbished Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones in the country.

He did not mention anything about other countries however.

Source: Hankyung, The Independent