Skip to main content

Samsung has set up exchange booths for Galaxy Note 7s at major airports

Samsung is doing its best to try and clean up after the mess of its Galaxy Note 7 launch and the first step is making sure no more smartphones overheat or explode. For that reason, the company is setting up exchange points at airports all over the world.

The Note 7 will go down as one of the biggest debacles in the history of commercial technology. Despite being a powerful flagship device, its battery suffered from overheating issues that led to more than 100 incidents that caused damage or harm to owners or their property – even when Samsung replaced them with a supposedly fixed version.

Recommended Videos

Samsung will have to recall 2.5 million of the devices, costing it more than a billion dollars and upwards of $10 billion in brand value and share value.

Related: South Korean government to investigate what’s causing the Note 7 fires

So now it has booths at airports. Travelers heading out of a number of Australian airports, as well as many of the biggest in the U.S. and Japan, will find Samsung representatives willing to exchange their Note 7 for an alternative. Anyone heading into an airport will have to exchange their phone too since taking one on a plane was recently prohibited in the United States.

Although it’s unlikely, taking one of the banned phones on an airliner could technically see perpetrators faced with a fine close to $180,000, as well as a maximum five-year jail term. Samsung clearly doesn’t need any lawsuits claiming that its product caused a customer to be criminally prosecuted, so it’s making sure that if anyone isn’t aware of the issue, and heads to an airport with their Note 7 intact, they will have a chance to exchange it before boarding a plane.

Samsung is also taking steps to assure people that not all Samsung devices need to be exchanged, only the Galaxy Note 7. The Galaxy S7, for example, is absolutely fine and is often offered as an alternative handset to those affected.

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Everything you need to know
A side-view of a closed Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6.

Summer is fast approaching, and that means it won’t be long before we see Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip 7 make its debut. While the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is a top-notch foldable, it also felt like Samsung phoned it in last year.

It offered mostly modest improvements over the Z Flip 5, with the most significant ones being hidden under the hood, like thermal improvements, or generally underwhelming, like a larger cover screen that didn’t improve in any other meaningful way.

Read more
Samsung’s One UI 7 update makes the Galaxy S24 Ultra feel like new
A person holding the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

I’d been refreshing the Software Update menu on my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra for a few days, expectantly waiting for One UI 7 to arrive. Then, on the morning of April 10, it was suddenly available and I eagerly installed it. Samsung’s One UI 7 software over Android 15 on the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a big success, but what would it be like on 2024’s flagship Galaxy phone?
Not a massive update?

To my surprise, the One UI 7 update on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is modestly sized, and took less than three minutes to download and install on my phone. It did so without any issue too, and aside from a few setup screens to navigate through — one for accessing Google Gemini, and another showing the new Galaxy AI features — my phone was operational again in moments.

Read more
Samsung One UI 7 has finally begun to hit Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6 handsets
The open Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.

The new Samsung One UI 7 has been teased but not given to Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6 owners, until now.

At last it seems that the still-quite-new UI is beginning to appear on devices, in North America at least.

Read more