Samsung May Bring Back Its Fire-Plagued Galaxy Note 7 -<br />By JEYUP S. KWAAKMARCH 28, 2017<br />SEOUL, South Korea — The star-crossed Samsung Galaxy Note 7 — the ambitious new smartphone whose problems with fires prompted an unprecedented<br />and costly product axing, warnings from airlines and a host of one-liners from late-night comedians — may be headed back into the hands of consumers.<br />But Mr. Ma said the decision to bring the Note 7 back to market carries the risk of “coming across as being petty.”<br />Safety concerns over the phone led many regulators across the world to ban the phones on board flights.<br />The company said in a statement that some of its existing Note 7s would be “considered to be used as refurbished or rental phones,” while others<br />would be subjected to recycling processes, extracting parts like camera modules as well as metals like copper, nickel, gold and silver.<br />The announcement came as Samsung was preparing to unveil on Wednesday the newest version of its most popular smartphone<br />line, the Galaxy S8, which is viewed as the company’s first big effort to put the Note 7 debacle behind it.<br />Activists from Greenpeace last month interrupted the company’s news conference at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a major mobile network<br />and smartphone technology trade show, to press the issue.<br />The company is still working on a more direct successor to the Note 7, a broad device with a big screen sometimes called a phablet<br />because it combines the attributes of phone and a tablet.
