The Galaxy Note 9 that Samsung just launched features a battery larger than anything available on any other Samsung flagship. At 4,000 mAh capacity, the battery should deliver impressive battery life, and great battery life is one Note 9 feature that Samsung teased before at the launch event. But the Galaxy Note 7, which turned out to be a fire-prone handset some two years ago, still casts a long shadow over Samsung, as the company had to make it clear that the Note 9’s battery won’t explode.
In the two years since the Note 7 disaster, we’ve had no similar incidents involving Samsung devices. Yes, smartphone batteries do explode and catch fire, but Samsung has long fixed the design errors it made when rushing the Note 7 to market two years ago. This year, Samsung is repeating the same strategy. The Note 9 was launched earlier than last year’s model because Samsung is looking to put some distance between its new phone and Apple’s incoming iPhone X models. And the Note 9 has a huge battery, which could lead to some customer concern considering everything that happened with the Galaxy Note 7.
“The battery in the Galaxy Note 9 is safer than ever,” Koh told reports, according to The Investor. “Users do not have to worry about the batteries anymore.” And that’s likely true, as Samsung can’t afford a similar battery safety scandal and it has implemented several new policies to help ensure it doesn’t make the same mistake twice.
Samsung proved that it’s taking battery quality a lot more serious. All the phones that succeeded the ill-fated Note 7, even the special edition Note 7 FE that was released last summer, had safe batteries. On the other hand, the fact that Koh still has to address battery safety two years after the Note 7 shows how much that scandal affected the company. Maybe next year he won’t have to reassure reporters and consumers that Note batteries do not explode.
