Samsung Reportedly Plans Refurbished Galaxy Note 7 with Smaller Battery

There are already whispers of this being hogwash, but how crazy would it be if Samsung decided to sell the Note 7 again? Imagine if one of these refurbished units, which would come with a smaller battery, still managed to explode or pose some other sort of safety risk. The company’s reputation has already "tanked" due to the whole fiasco, so they should probably not jeopardize their standing any further and concentrate on making the Note 8 both powerful and safe.

A new report coming out of South Korea suggests Samsung is considering selling refurbished units of the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung’s flagship phablet which the company had to discontinue last year due to dangerous battery failures. Last month, Samsung released its investigative report regarding the Galaxy Note 7’s battery fiasco. In which the company blamed the faulty batteries as the main cause of the battery explosions and overheating. As reported by Hankyung, the refurbished Galaxy Note 7 units will feature a reduced capacity battery (3200mAh) compared to the original model (3500mAh) along with a new outer shell. As per the report, most of the refurbished Note 7 units will likely sell in emerging markets like India and Vietnam as opposed to countries such as the US or European nations, where the device has been banned by multiple authorities.

Not happening in the U.S....but there's a lot of recent deregulation going on so it may make it back to market.

Considering they have millions of these devices that were returned and just destroying them is actually a complete waste of the potential to make use of them now that they realize what happened - and the batteries they'll be putting in the refurbs are not only smaller in terms of actual capacity but physically smaller so they fit more comfortably into the limited spacing inside the phone's chassis - this isn't such a bad idea after all.

The problem is that countries like the US and Canada, Great Britain and others have already blacklisted the Galaxy Note7 from being used in some situations such as shipping services and on airplanes - and I'm not even speaking of the actual cellular carrier blacklisting but that can be easily addressed by just programming new IMEI numbers in the refurbs so it doesn't require any effort on the carrier's part at all - so getting them actually back into said countries as imported goods would be damned near impossible unless some changes happened with respect to the regulations as just noted in the post above.

They're great devices, really, and it would be a complete shame to just destroy every last one of them for many reasons the least of which is all that revenue basically burned up (pun intended) for the recall and the potential destruction process.

I'd love to have a Note7 myself, so if things worked out and the price was significantly lower (as it should be considering the whole situation) and I could get one imported I'd probably try to get one myself but I don't actually see it happening.

Tiberian said:

They're great devices, really, and it would be a complete shame to just destroy every last one of them for many reasons the least of which is all that revenue basically burned up (pun intended) for the recall and the potential destruction process.

I'd love to have a Note7 myself, so if things worked out and the price was significantly lower (as it should be considering the whole situation) and I could get one imported I'd probably try to get one myself but I don't actually see it happening.

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I would love to get another one but with a different name, so I'm not asked to step into the champagne room at the airport.

my guess, most of the 7 note parts already went into the S8, and the processors will will end up in A or J series

I'd buy one if the price was right !!

I'd be really surprised if this is the case. I was just on a flight in Canada late January and the airlines were still mentioning the Note 7.

If they did, Samsung would need to get as far from 'Note 7' branding they could get.

Just rename it the Note 7.1 & give them new IMEI numbers to get around the ban.

New! Improved! Fire Resistant!

Honestly, I wish they'd make it available in the USA again. I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

Defect aside, it was the best phone I've ever owned.

I wouldn't doubt it doesn't make it back out as a lesser model elsewhere. The Galaxy line usually has a few spin offs (action/sport, etc) depending on territory, so the Note may as well. They can hedge their losses that way.

It's better to make back 50% of their manufacturering costs by putting a new battery and rebadging (for other countries) the phone than it is to take a complete loss on it.

I'd buy one in a heartbeat. The Note 7 I used briefly was a fantastic device.

This^^^. I miss my Note 7. It was the best phone I have ever owned.

Megalith said:

There are already whispers of this being hogwash, but how crazy would it be if Samsung decided to sell the Note 7 again? Imagine if one of these refurbished units, which would come with a smaller battery, still managed to explode or pose some other sort of safety risk. The company’s reputation has already "tanked" due to the whole fiasco, so they should probably not jeopardize their standing any further and concentrate on making the Note 8 both powerful and safe.

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Why, exactly? Why should they send thousands of phones with perfectly good hardware to be destroyed when the problem was with the batteries? Replace the batteries with a safer unit, sell the units as refurbished, and make at least some of that money back.

I do think they should rebrand the phones and call them something other than Galaxy Note 7 just to avoid the stigma. Make up some other moniker to go along with the Galaxy name... maybe the Galaxy Phoenix or something. But sure as they did that someone with a stick up their ass would accuse them of trying to hide the fact that they were Note 7 units.

Note 7 S or Note 7 Sport or (if it's water-proof) Note 7 Active ... I'd buy one.

It cannot contain 7 in the name anywhere. Any random letter will work. Galaxy Note R (for reconditioned)

At this point though it seems like a bad idea to cannibalize sales of the Note 8 which will be due in a half a year or so. It could make the Note 8 one of the best selling phones ever with the pent up demand. I am still on a note 4 due to lack of removable batteries and sd cards. By the time 8 roles around I will be pretty ready having skipped 2 generations.

rudy said:

It cannot contain 7 in the name anywhere. Any random letter will work. Galaxy Note R (for reconditioned)

At this point though it seems like a bad idea to cannibalize sales of the Note 8 which will be due in a half a year or so. It could make the Note 8 one of the best selling phones ever with the pent up demand. I am still on a note 4 due to lack of removable batteries and sd cards. By the time 8 roles around I will be pretty ready having skipped 2 generations.

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My Note 4 is still a great phone. Don't see any reason to spend big $$$ to replace it when it does everything I need.

It would be a shame to dump the already produced phones, i would buy a refurbished in a heartbeat.

Re-sell a "fixed" Note 7? After recalling and bricking people's Note 7s wholesale?

They had better be selling those at serious, give-away-like discounts. I doubt airport security would let you on board a plane if you have one of these sitting in the tray going thru the scanner.

But suuuure -- I'll be right at the front of the line to buy one /sarcasm

Boom!

The Samsung Galaxy not 7

Samsung Galaxy TNAN7 (totally not a note 7)

Id get one...........for the wife.