Yet another Samsung phone allegedly exploded, but it’s not the Galaxy Note 7

By Julian Chokkattu November 7, 2016

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 — Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

It has been bad news week after week for Samsung ever since the company began recalling exploding Galaxy Note 7 smartphones. Last week, the Korean giant recalled 2.8 million washing machines as they have a chance to also explode and now a woman in France says her Galaxy J5 exploded.

There is no recall yet and it is one of the first instances of this particular smartphone from Samsung to reportedly blow up.

Lamya Bouyirdane, the owner of the J5, says she noticed the J5 was sizzling hot after she asked her four-year-old to hand it to her — she then threw the phone away when she saw it swelling up with smoke coming out, according to the Associated Press. The phone caught fire and the back flew off.

Bouyirdane says she will sue the company. Samsung is in serious hot water if more J5 devices begin to explode — it already has to regain consumer trust in the safety of its devices to make sure its future products, like the Galaxy S8, will be a hit.

“We are unable to comment on this specific incident until we obtain and thoroughly examine the device,” a Samsung representative tells Digital Trends. “Customer safety remains our highest priority and we want to work with any customer who has experienced an issue with a Samsung product in order to investigate the matter and support them. The issues with the Galaxy Note 7 are isolated to only that model.”

The Galaxy J5 has been in the market and available for purchase for some time, so the chances of this explosion being a universal issue are low. Still, we will have to see what Samsung says after its investigation.

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Julian Chokkattu

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…

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