Alleged exploding DROID 2 was actually dropped according to Motorola employee

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Last week, reports emerged of a Texas man whose Motorola DROID 2 injured him when it allegedly exploded next to his ear during a call. Today, PCMag reports that a source within Motorola told the publication that the man’s claims are likely false. While PCMag’s source is not involved with the investigation and has not inspected the device personally, he claims that the DROID 2 in question “was a phone that got dropped. [T]he guy didn’t notice the glass had cracked [...] so when he put it to his ear, he cut himself.” This explanation doesn’t account for the loud pop the man heard when he put the phone to his ear, but images of the device certainly don’t give any indication that an explosion occurred. PCMag’s source goes on to say, “[T]he only things that could explode in a phone would have resulted in a phone that did not work, yet this phone worked. And there was no explosive damage to the device (things inside blown outward, etc).” Motorola has not publicly addressed the incident since stating last Friday that it would launch an investigation into the matter.

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33 Comments
  • Anonymous

    If memory serves, a couple of comments here led to that same conclusion.

    I dropped my Droid 2 twice yesterday, from a height of about four feet on to concrete (it was a bad day). Let me tell you, you have to drop the fuck out of that thing to do what he did. Seriously though, what explodes without giving any indication of the explosion? The pop could just have been the speaker giving up the ghost since, you know, he dropped it hard enough to crack the fucking glass.

  • sirpaul

    Another man looking for a quick buck…

    • desertrat

      That’s the first impression out for the money. If he was injured as claimed then why ‘go to his wife’s school for photos’ before going to the ER.

      It smells like a scam.

  • Anonymous

    20 bucks says this guy was just smashing beer cans against his head for fun, got a call, and smashed the phone against his head.

  • Anonymous

    The important part of the incident is that the person is from Texas

    • penetrode

      so edgy and unpredictable

    • Anonymous

      I bet that guy is Norm. Think about it. He’s from Texas just like Norm, he’s a Droid does freak just like Norm, and he looks stupid enough to post dumb crap just like Norm does. Ten bucks says that guy is the real flesh and blood king BGR troll Norm. Hit my like button if you agree with me.

  • Anonymous

    this article is still an assumption… it states that a Motorola employee thinks, he doesn’t know, that this dude dropped it. I think he did too, but everyone is just assuming, no one knows if it did or didn’t….yet.

    • Anonymous

      It’s still an assumption, but it is not easy to break the screen on a Droid 2 and nothing in that picture is consistent with any kind of an explosion. At all.

    • sirpaul

      The only thing that can explode in a phone is the battery. The phone is still working. And I doubt the battery is stored at the top corner of the screen lol.

      We all KNOW it didn’t. There is no “proof”, but it’s obvious. Obvious doesn’t need proof :)

      • Anonymous

        actually a number of things can go wrong in an electrical device, it could have been the resistor or an over heated chip… Im just saying, he is innocent till proven guilty. If my phone “exploded”, I would want an investigation into it, not an assumption.

      • sirpaul

        lol, surface mount resistors don’t ‘expolde’. They could overheat and that’s it. And I’m sure there are no large capacitors in there. The phone could certainly overheat, but the only thing that could literally explode is the battery. And musta been one big explosion to cause that much damage…

        And as to the investigation part…he just wants to make some quick cash by suing.

      • Law&Order

        Moto is innocent until proven guilty, the plaintiff is the retard.

      • Anonymous

        still assumptions, it could happen, resistors purpose are to prevent over-heating and maybe it was faulty, but now im assuming. things happen, and im sure the dude may be lying but let the experts explain and not some motorola employee…what he said many people already mentioned a week ago.

      • http://relevanttech.weebly.com iamsupreme

        It doesn’t matter. All of the possible scenarios you are giving NYCLady make no sense. Let’s assume that a resistor exploded near the top of the phone. The glass would break outwards. There is no indication that an internal explosion took place as the damage shows otherwise. It is beyond the realm of possibility that something explodes inside of something and doesn’t cause any outward directional damage. I was in tech school as an EOD in the Air Force back in 02′. His damage is in NO WAY consistent with an explosion of any kind. The dude is looking to make a quick buck but is too stupid to realize that what he’s saying and showing matches up in no way at all.

      • Anonymous

        @iamsupreme, i work as an audio engineer and speakers pop all the time due to overload. machines break… The article is basing its argument on a Motorola employees statement, which is silly to me. It’s still that dudes assumption, which is what im saying…anything could have happened to this phone, and like i said previously I think he is lying but Im still assuming, no facts…

      • Mgl323

        NYCLADY is right, it happens all the time in the music industry, especially with amplifiers.

      • http://relevanttech.weebly.com iamsupreme

        Again, the picture is shown above. If you’re telling me that an internal explosion would cause the damage you see above, I’d have to argue that you don’t understand the dynamics of an explosion. We aren’t talking about a black hole explosion that causes inverted structural damage of glass. That’s impossible. The speaker shouldn’t continue to work. The phone shouldn’t continue to function as if nothing happened except structural glass damage if it suffered an explosion of the speakers or a “pop”. I can guarantee that a pop from a speaker of that size wouldn’t cause glass to start cracking in all areas of the face, including the bottom right corner as the picture indicates.

        Do you see any outward shards of glass in the picture from an explosion or a speaker pop? The amount of -db that would occur in such an instance wouldn’t cause what you see above. When the phone is looked at and the internal components are shown to be perfectly fine, you’ll understand why it’s ridiculous to defend this guys claim(s) in any way.

  • Chris

    The internets say no shit…

  • A_mobile

    Someone should just AUTOTUNE him. Can you say Antoine Dodson.

  • http://claimid.com/155 155

    I thought the Droid 2 was gorilla glass and gorilla glass doesn’t break when you drop it.

    • Anonymous

      All glass breaks, you just have to hit it harder than others

  • Scott

    I think 99% of BGR readers have assumed this as well. Hell, even Norm knows that Droid Does!

  • Tech-writer

    You could tell he was a liar (and a loser) just from the photo of him.

  • ozziedog

    He was upset when he saw his phone bill and was calling his carrier when he hit his head with the phone. Now he wants money to pay the bills and get a new phone. Everybody wants something for nothing.

  • http://twitter.com/homescrub homescrub

    Ha! DROID does losers.

  • http://twitter.com/brswa Brandon

    The sad thing about this story? If this “victim” tries to sue, it’s cheaper for Motorola to settle out of court than to prove their innocence. It’s all about dollars and cents these days, it seems…

  • http://twitter.com/Krowa09 Phil Borowiecki

    How do I know this guy is full of crap? Simple watch the video of the news report, at the end the reporter says they have no health insurance and they want help from Motorola to pay. My guess as to what happened… the idiot dropped the fuck out of his phone realized it still worked and figured ahh ok cool then he put it up to his ear not thinking the glass would cut him and then SLICE he got cut cause hes an idiot.

    JUST LOOK AT HIS FACE HE LOOKS LIKE HE HAS A IQ LESS THAN 75.

  • 1T2dirtnap

    He dropped it, used it, got cut and is trying to blame Motorola. I bet he didn’t even have insurance so he couldn’t get a new phone and made this bogus story of the device blowing up.

  • Neoprimal

    There’s a simple solution people, come on. It was a wormhole insight the phone. He heard the birth of a new galaxy, sort of like the big bang, just…smaller and the glass cracked because of the awesomeness that was the tiny cosmos evolving and growing on the other side of the wormhole.

    Then, it disappeared – as most micro wormholes do.

    He should be honored that he got to hear such a magnificent thing….HE should pay Motorola for that privilege, damnit!

  • TmoBin

    To be perfectly honest, it’s not possible for the speaker to explode causing that much damage. It’s literally a thin plastic film over a tiny coil. At most, it would maybe burn out inside, but it would not go as far as blowing out the glass. Hell, i’ve never even seen capacitors and microprocessors penetrate thin hard plastics when they explode inside the phone.

    For the digitizer to pop is just a ridiculous accusation; unless maybe cold to hot temperature fluctuation cracked it, in which case it would be user error. These things are made out of glass, so if a capacitor or chip can’t penetrate plastic, how the hell would it crack the glass. Also, if you’ve EVER replaced parts in a phone, you know that there’s not much up there at all; Not even capacitors are usually up in that area. Speakers are normally mounted solo with 2 contacts that will not explode.

    If something HAD exploded “in his ear”, how come he’s not deaf in that ear?(considering there would have had to have been a tremendous amount of force to penetrate that digitizer, which would have sent glass particles shooting through his eardrum) He probably smashed the shit as he was “getting in his car”, didn’t realize it cracked, and put it right back up to his ear and held it with the “tacobell neck syndrome” against his shoulder, which caused further damage to the digitizer causing the “pop” sound and cut his shit up.

    From what i can tell in the picture, the main damage was done to the digitizer by the speaker, then pressure must have widened those cracks to go all the way down the digitizer. An explosion would not look like this.

  • Anonymous

    This guy couldn’t handle the “complexity” of how to hold a phone. The phone was dropped. Either that or the Moto squirmmed out of his hands knowing that stupid people like him are too inferior to even touch a phone like the droid. Moto decided to commit phonicide.

  • http://twitter.com/Dodgerblue Dodgerblue

    What would you think Motorola is going to say. Of course they are going to try and discredit it. Just what they want to do cause a panic and have mass people trying to exchange there phone.Sirpaul you are an idiot the little guy gets hurt and right away hes trying to make a quick buck. Your a typical corporate kiss a**.

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