Oliver Haslam on May 4, 2019, 7:42 am

User Claims Galaxy S10 5G Caught Fire On Its Own, Samsung Refuses Refund

Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G isn’t all that far away from a release in the United States, but the phone is already hot property in South Korea. It’s so hot, in fact, that we already have one report of a handset bursting into flames.

The phone in question belongs to someone only named having the surname Lee, and he reports that the phone was on a table before he noticed that he could smell burning. Smoke is said to have “engulfed” the phone, and when he picked it up it was so hot the had to “drop it to the ground.” More on that later.

Lee says that he didn’t do anything special to the phone before this happened, but after reporting the occurrence to Samsung, things started to go wrong. The phone maker refuses to refund Lee’s $1200, saying that after it inspected the phone, it believes that the damage was caused by an “external impact.” Samsung clearly believes the phone was dropped, causing the problem, rather than the problem causing the phone to be dropped.

All of this will immediately remind people of the Galaxy Note 7, a phone that was cancelled and removed from sale after multiple people around the globe reported them catching fire. It was later discovered that there was a flaw in the way the batteries were designed, although Samsung obviously doesn’t believe that to be the case with the Galaxy S10 5G.

The Galaxy S10 5G goes on sale in the United States on May 16th, although the lack of a 5G infrastructure should temper excitement somewhat.

Photograph of the burnt Galaxy S10 5G unit. The user claims he dropped the phone after it caught fire.

(Source: AFP)