22/04/2019
In September 2016 Samsung recalled the Galaxy Note 7 after it was found that a manufacturing defect in the phones' batteries caused some of them to generate excessive heat, resulting in fires. That mistake cost the firm a reputed $5.3 bn and is still remembered as a colossal failure.
Fast forward to April 2019 and Samsung have done it again.
This time it is their much heralded Galaxy Fold that is causing them angst.
This may have been identified before general release, but it's a device that costs more that three times as much as the Note 7. Quite how Samsung have again allowed a product to be released to users without adequate testing is a mystery.
Is it simply a case of trying to be the first to launch such a product? Chinese rivals Huawei and Xiaomi are also reputedly developing foldable smartphones and it is possible Samsung were in a rush to be seen as market leaders.
However, this was a phone that is priced at £1,800 in the UK ($1,980 in the US). This was not a product that should have been rushed to market. There was no need to discuss the product's detail in public before it was actually ready for launch. Several phases of testing should have been completed successfully before public announcements were made.
There have been numerous instances where Apple iPhones have been criticised for flaws soon after launch.
The iPhone 5 was criticised for the fact that its antenna could be blocked by the hand cradling the phone, causing phone calls to drop out. There was much criticism of the phone for being unusable.
Independent tests were conducted on the iPhone 5 and compared to other phones on the market at the time, including those from Blackberry, HTC and Samsung. Each of those other phones was affected by the same issue, but to a more significant degree.
When the iPhone 6plus was launched, people said that it the phones were bending; the commotion about the issue was known as 'bendgate'.
Again, independent tests showed that competitor handsets were more susceptible to the issues of bending and breaking. The level of pressure required to make the phones bend or break was far greater than would be expected in general use.
They said, at the time, that placing an iPhone 6plus in your front pocket would probably lead to it bending. I had one. I placed it in my front jeans pocket frequently. I never experienced any issues with bending.
I'm sure it was possible to bend the phone or even break it. However, the force required to do so was significant and unlikely to be replicated in normal use.
These cases show that allegations of manufacturing failures have been made against leading technology firms other than Samsung, but that their main competitor has suffered far less in terms of major faults. Â I am a repeat customer of Samsung; all of my televisions are manufactured by Samsung and have been for some time. Â Since moving from the old CRT televisions to LCD and LED screens, I have purchased at least a dozen Samsung TVs.
Some of those TVs have developed faults, but none of them seemed to have been rushed to launch and none of them were faulty as a direct result of such aggressive positioning.
The mobile phones are dealt with by a different division of the firm and it seems that the controls are more lax.
Samsung need to recognise the issues and address them as a matter of urgency. Â This is not just the issue with the folding phones, but more importantly with the senior management team who have driven the launch of technology without adequate and robust testing.
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