Samsung is said to be putting refurbished Galaxy Note 7 handsets on sale with new batteries following the cancellation of the device late last year. The speculation arrives via South Korean news website The Korean Economic Daily, which suggests that the smartphones could be relaunched this June.
Samsung recalled the Galaxy Note 7 last September following reports of units catching fire. After replacing the batteries, Samsung later resold them — however, they continued to catch fire and the Note 7 was eventually aborted. Samsung announced in January that the cause of the of Note 7’s problems had indeed been related to batteries but by then it was too late to recover.
Now, Samsung is said to be swapping the Note 7’s 3,500 mAh batteries with a “3,000 to 3,200 mAh” batteries, according to The Korean Economic Daily’s sources, predominately for sale in emerging markets such as India and Vietnam.
The move is said to be part of Samsung’s plan to recover costs from the initial device recall and avoid environmental penalties from the estimated 2.5 million or so Galaxy Note 7s it would have to dispose of.
Samsung hasn’t made any official announcements in this vein, but before the battery investigation concluded, a spokesperson did tell us that the company was: “Reviewing possible options that can minimize the environmental impact of the recall.” Shifting refurbished units would certainly be one way to achieve that.
We’ve reached out to Samsung again regarding this matter and will update this story should we receive a response.
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